Columns – Page 116 – Madison Catholic Herald

In his January 1, 2013, World Day of Peace Message titled “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” Pope Benedict XVI immediately lays out for us the foundation upon which the Church’s ministry for world peace must be built.

Using a challenging proclamation from the Second Vatican Council, the pope teaches that Christians must be committed “to sharing humanity’s joys and hopes, grief and anguish.”

More than absence of war

The Holy Father is reminding us that God’s peace is much more than the absence of war — it is the universal experience of justice and love.

On January 9, 2013

Lindsay Becher, For the Catholic Herald

Engaging in work on the new and the old evangelization

This is the first in a series of articles to be published on the topic of engaging in the work of evangelization — old and new — and how to live out the Year of Faith by engaging in this most important task. Keep reading in the weeks to come!

We are three months in. This Year of Faith was called for with the hope of transforming our world and the lives of those living in it. What has happened?

A synod of bishops and lay leaders in the Church met in Rome for a month to talk about the New Evangelization last October
A few hundred people in the Diocese of Madison came out to hear Tom Peterson, founder of Catholics Come Home, speak in Madison this past November.
A couple parishes in the area have invited back those who had fallen away from the practice of their faith.
Catholic churches were packed on Christmas and were less than half full the following Sunday.

An inspiring Christmas ceasefire

As the first Christmas of World War I approached, Pope Benedict XV on December 7, 1914, asked the leaders of all warring governments to agree to an official ceasefire. He begged “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.”

Sadly, his plea was ignored by government leaders. But many of the soldiers in the trenches declared their own unofficial truce.

On December 26, 2012

Fr. Donald Lange

Let us work for peace in the new year

A good New Year’s resolution is to continue to work for peace. History has shown that helping to bring peace takes patience, prayer, and perseverance. Past human efforts to achieve peace have not been overly successful.

According to the June 1988 issue of Today in the Word, in 3,530 years of recorded history, only 286 years saw peace.

More than 8,000 peace treaties were made and then broken.

On December 26, 2012

Michelle Nilsson

A call to study Vatican II

The Year of Faith was called for by our Holy Father to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

In the years following Vatican II, the council’s purpose and the documents it promulgated were poorly understood, leading to a vast range of interpretation and division. It is important to note that the “spirit” of Vatican II that is often referenced is none other than the Holy Spirit who has maintained unity and guidance to the Church and our Sacred Tradition both before and after Vatican II.

It is only fitting that our current Holy Father has called for this year as a year to revisit the Council and her documents and, as a result, grow in faith and in unity with one another under the guidance of the Holy See.

On December 19, 2012

Fr. Donald Lange

‘Silent Night’ prepares us to celebrate the Christmas season

There are slightly different versions of the origin of the Christmas carol “Silent Night.”

My favorite version reveals that shortly before Christmas in 1818, Fr. Joseph Mohr discovered that the organ of St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf, Austria, was broken. He knew that his parishioners would be disappointed without Christmas music.

On December 19, 2012

Lindsay Becher

Finding the heart of practicing our faith

During this Year of Faith, we are called to take time to consider what is at the heart of the practice of our Catholic faith.

Hopefully this season of Advent has been a chance to prayerfully think about this topic and wait in anticipation for the answer. This may have been a battle, as our world poses many challenges to this task. There are Christmas parties to attend, light displays to enjoy, trees needing to be trimmed, gifts waiting to be wrapped, and meals to be planned. The pre-Christmas to-do list goes on and on.

On December 12, 2012May 20, 2021

Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Taboos and tattoos

On TV these days, we’re seeing more and more programs about “body art” and tattoo design. Despite the apparent widespread acceptance of the practice, there are several problems with tattooing that go beyond the sanitary issues, disease transmission, and unclean inking needles that can be found in second-rate tattoo parlors.

Tattoos, as some who have gotten them have recognized, have negative associations. An article in the Dallas Morning News a few years ago chronicled the story of a young man named Jesus Mendoza, who was “going to great lengths to remove the six tattoos that hint at his erstwhile gang involvement. . .. He feels branded. ‘It’s the stereotyping,’ he said. ‘The question is: What do you think when you see a young Hispanic male with tattoos? You’re going to think gangs. And I think that, too, now.’”

On December 12, 2012

Lindsay Becher, For the Catholic Herald

Has the faith changed

“Families only had one car in those days. . .” Tom Delaney smiles as he recounts the details of proposing to his bride Nan over 50 years ago. Around Christmas of 1961, he asked her dad for permission to borrow her family’s car to take her to midnight Mass at Holy Hill. A bit flustered, he forgot to ask her dad for permission to marry her.

Despite the small blunder, on that Christmas Eve he offered her a diamond, and she accepted.

On December 12, 2012July 25, 2023

Sr. Constance Carolyn Veit, LSP

Give the gift of service to an older person this Christmas

As a youngster I loved Christmas. I thought everyone did. But when I was 15, a frail, old woman in a wheelchair punched a big hole in my naïve assumptions about “the most wonderful time of the year.”