Tag: prayer

On
Kevin Wondrash, Catholic Herald Staff

Students in Ashton learn about mercy and prayer

ASHTON — “I want to talk to you today about something very special that we can pray about,” said Grace Mazza Urbanski, director of children’s ministry for the Apostleship of Prayer, to students at St. Peter School in Ashton.

That “very special thing” was mercy.

“We’re going to pretend we are mercy walking through the world,” Urbanski said.

The Apostleship of Prayer, based in Milwaukee, encourages Christians to make a daily offering of themselves to the Lord for the coming of God’s Kingdom and for the Holy Father’s monthly intentions.

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Bishop Robert Barron

The disorienting quality of real prayer

Editor’s note: Because of its length, this column by Bishop Robert Barron is being published in a two-part series. This is the second part of the series.

Hans Urs von Balthasar observes that the beautiful elects the observer and then sends him on mission to announce what he has seen.

Not many years ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked a number of prominent popular musicians to name the song that first “rocked their world.”

Some of the responses were relatively banal, but the vast majority of them had a Joycean resonance: the respondents knew instinctively the difference between songs (however great) that had merely pleased them and songs that had shaken them out of their complacency and rearranged their vision things.

This kind of aesthetic encounter is the spiritual exercise that Irish Murdoch is speaking of.

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Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Why it matters what the bishop is wearing

What's That All About column by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The fourth in a series by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf about the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

We are looking into what bishops do when they celebrate the Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Since you may see reports that Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison occasionally offers these Masses, you may be wondering what that’s all about, what he’s up to.

Last week we closed with a look at how the fine elements of reverent liturgy, the beautiful vestments and so forth, are not really about the glorification of the priest or bishop. They are about the perfect spotless only Holy One, Christ the High Priest/Victim at the altar of Sacrifice.

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Fr. Donald Lange

Lent has surprisingly modern appeal

Christians around the world mark Lent’s beginning by celebrating Ash Wednesday, Feb. 10 this year.

Lent has a surprising modern appeal. Some pastors say that next to Christmas, more people come to church on Ash Wednesday than on any other day, including Easter.

Facing a basic truth

The ashes help us face a basic truth that we may try to avoid, namely death. When we receive ashes, the priest or deacon says, “Remember, you are dust and unto dust, you shall return.” They may also say, “Repent and believe the Good News!”

Combined, the words remind us that we will die and return to dust; therefore, while we’re still alive, we are to repent and believe the Good News!

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