Perhaps the highlight of the day was the tearful introduction of Mareza and her baby, Joseph.
Category: News
New DNA analysis might help solve murder
MADISON — On March 4, 1998, people in the Diocese of Madison were shocked to learn of the murder of Fr. Alfred J. Kunz, 67, pastor of St. Michael Parish in Dane for 31 years. He was the first (and still only) priest murdered in the history of the diocese.
UW students share love of Christ through service
MADISON — As Lent begins, we again focus on the three pillars of the Lenten journey: fasting, praying, and almsgiving.
Even before I cared or knew much about fasting and prayer, I understood the necessity of assisting those in need, including material donations or acts of service. I felt compelled to serve others and that eventually taught me how to serve God and discover His will and plan for my life.
Called to serve the needy
Throughout Scripture we are called to serve the needy in charity. In the book of James we are told, “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was involved in and benefited from service work and a variety of other programs at St. Paul’s University Catholic Center. It is because of these experiences that I am now an intern at St. Paul’s.
I work to coordinate service events for students, so that they too can learn to give of themselves through service and experience the realities of both spiritual and physical poverty.
Rachel’s Vineyard retreats
MADISON — After her abortion, all Janine* felt was relief. She was unmarried and the pregnancy was unplanned and unwelcome. Janine didn’t want to let her family down, and, after all, wasn’t it just a mass of cells?
Status of Holy Wisdom Monastery clarified on diocesan Web site
MADISON — The Diocese of Madison was approached by a local reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal regarding a story about Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton, which was published on February 26. In order to clarify some of the issues raised by the article, the diocesan Office of Communications has shared the entirety of the diocese’s answers on the diocesan Web site at www.madisondiocese.org
‘Feed My Sheep’ Lenten project exceeds initial goal
MADISON — John and Sarah Ramthun are all about T-shirts. Actually, they are all about a particular T-shirt that is making a statement and helping raise money for a program near and dear to their hearts called “Feed My Sheep.”
RCIA teaches about liturgical beauty and Church facts
MADISON — The annual Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion is approaching for the catechumens and candidates in the Diocese of Madison who are seeking the sacraments of initiation into the Catholic Church.
It’s an annual rite, taking place the first weekend of Lent, and it serves as a very public witness to the Church at large of the renewal and growth of our faith. It is filled with small rituals: the presentation of the catechumens, the Act of Election and the signing of the Book of the Elect, the presentation of the candidates, the Act of Recognition, the affirmation by sponsors and the faithful.
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| The Rite of Election of Catechumens and Call to Continuing Conversion for Candidates of Full Communion in the Catholic Church will be held on Sunday, Feb. 26, at St. John the Baptist Church, in Waunakee. For more information about this celebration, click here. | |
For the Catholics not involved in RCIA, this is sometimes the last seen of these Church-seeking individuals until the Easter Vigil. Especially for longtime Catholics, there can be a vague idea that they return to classes to learn their catechism, facts about the Church, and exactly how one is supposed to genuflect in front of the tabernacle.
But RCIA is a deeper, richer process than that image provides. In the 1988 edition of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, it describes the structure of the process as gradual, as a journey that includes “not only the periods for making inquiry and for maturing . . . but also the steps marking the catechumens’ progress, as they pass, so to speak, through another doorway or ascend to the next level.”
The decree on the revision of the rite from the Congregation for Divine Worship in 1972 says that the time of the catechumenate, “intended as a period of well-suited instruction,” is “sanctified by liturgical rites to be celebrated at successive intervals of time.”
Diocesan Global Solidarity Partnership nearing 10th anniversary
Our Diocesan Global Solidarity Partnership (GOOP) with the Catholic Diocese of Navrongo-Bolgatanga (N-B), Ghana, Africa, is nearing its 10-year anniversary and seven years into its Donkey Project.
Rite of Election to be held Feb. 26
WAUNAKEE — The Rite of Election of Catechumens and Call to Continuing Conversion for Candidates for Full Communion in the Catholic Church will be celebrated by the parishes of the Diocese of Madison on Sunday, Feb. 26, at 3 p.m. at St. John the Baptist Church, 209 South St., Waunakee.
Additional day of Adoration offered in Sauk City
SAUK CITY — Adoration of Our Lord is experiencing bountiful growth at Divine Mercy Parish in Sauk City.
Less than a month after proposing the idea of adding an additional day of Eucharistic Adoration, parishioners responded with enthusiasm, and Our Lord is now being exposed at St. Aloysius Church following the 8:15 a.m. Mass on Wednesdays until Benediction at 7:45 a.m. on Fridays.