Steve Petrica Ordained a Deacon

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Bishop Morlino incenses the altar at the beginning of Mass, accompanied by transitional Deacon Garrett Kau

 

On Sunday we had the great joy of the Ordination to the  Diaconate of Steve Petrica. Steve is a convert who had been a priest of the Episcopalian Church, of an “Anglo-Catholic” sort. As Bishop Morlino put it at the beginning Mass, the search for “a certain sacramental fullness” led Steve at last into the Catholic Church. This was no easy road.

Steve promises obedience to Bishop Morlino and his successors.

Steve promises obedience to Bishop Morlino and his successors.

So the Twelve called together the community of the disciples and said, "It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table. Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." The proposal was acceptable to the whole community, so they chose Stephen, a man filled with faith and the holy Spirit, also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them. (Acts 6:2-6)

So the Twelve called together the community of the disciples and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table. Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” The proposal was acceptable to the whole community, so they chose Stephen, a man filled with faith and the holy Spirit, also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them. (Acts 6:2-6)

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Having been vested in a wonderful green dalmatic by fellow transitional deacon Vince Brewer, Deacon Steve receives the Book of the Gospels from Bishop Morlino

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Steve serving as Deacon as Bishop Morlino incenses the altar prior to the Liturgy of the Eucharist. I was deeply honored that Steve asked me to be one of the gift bearers.

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🙂

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The three transitional deacons will be ordained to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ during Easter. We are so blessed.

I love Pope Benedict

Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass in Scotland in 2010

A friend asked me today to comment on today’s remarkable news of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation at the end of this month. I have not had time to blog all that I’ve meant to blog in recent days but I can easily post this:
As to myself, I am definitely surprised, and my sadness is full of a lot of love for Pope Benedict. I wasn’t so sure about him when he became Pope, but what a sweet and brilliant man; we have no better theologian today. He was actually looking forward to retiring soon, at the time that Blessed John Paul II passed away and he was elected Pope. God had other plans and he served heroically and very well. One thing that makes me less surprised than I might have been is the veneration that Pope Benedict has shown toward a medieval Pope who is famous precisely for abdicating shortly after his election, citing his weakness and the difficulty of the job and perversity of the people: Saint Celestine V. Benedict visited his tomb more than once, even leaving his archbishop’s pallium on the tomb. Now that devotion to Celestine V, whom he must have prayed to intercede for him to have wisdom about when and whether to make such a choice, seems very significant. Blessed John Paul II remained Pope through such visible illness and suffering and gave a witness like the crucified Christ, but Benedict’s emphasis of the physical and mental capacities to be able to do the job is also highly important, and was doubtless brought home to him even more by some of the difficult things like “Vatileaks” that he had to contend with. In our day so much is required of a Pope. I will be praying for Pope Benedict and a wise choice of his successor.

The Child Who Never Was

Dave Peters

I featured one of my homeless friend Dave Peters’ poems at Christmas time. He gave me another winning poem today and agreed I could share it with you together with a picture of him today at Vinnie’s Lockers.

THE CHILD WHO NEVER WAS

What color was your hair?
Was it black or brown?
What color were your eyes?
Were they blue or brown?
A young girl bears a secret,
The world must never know.
As she searches for an answer,
The life within her grows.
What kind of person would you be?
What kind of life would you have lived?
Did anyone feel your pain?
Or hear your silent scream?
The world will never know.
You are the child who never was.

One of Dave’s cousins whom he counts a hero was a victim of rape who kept her baby and tells now what a good choice that was! So much grace in such a loving choice.

Where the “Womenpriests” are

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A “Roman Catholic Womanpriest” simulates Mass at Holy Wisdom Monastery. Via screen capture from Madison “Call to Action” dissent group website.

This post gives me no pleasure, but is really very sad. The former Benedictine Sisters at Holy Wisdom Monastery who left their vows and “went non canonical” sometimes hosts so called “Roman Catholic Womenpriests” at their facility. As implied by the rainbow accoutrements, “Dignity” is a pro-homosexuality organization. I have personally met members of the Holy Wisdom Monastery congregation who were part of “Dignity” and who insistently believed in “women priests”. Joan Weiss mentioned in the text was a Madison “Call to Action” leader.

The location isn’t noted on the Madison “Call to Action” dissent group website where I found these images, but is that not the Holy Wisdom Monastery sanctuary?

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In the following video, Alice Iaquinta says she was accepted into, and graduated from, St Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, where she was honest with them about her intentions to seek “ordination”, and became a “close friend” of at least one of Milwaukee’s real seminarians. Then she underwent an “ordination” ceremony in 2007.
Her acceptance into St Francis Seminary was, obviously, on Abp Weakland’s watch, but by the time her “ordination” occurred, the diocese had better leadership.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan wrote to Iaquinta prior to her ordination as a deacon (a necessary step preceding priestly ordination) and said she would incur “the gravest canonical penalties” should she continue.

“You should not be exercising any liturgical or pastoral ministry in the Catholic Church lest confusion or scandal arise among the people,” he wrote.

By the way, if you’re wondering whether Ms. Ianquinta will be the “celebrant” at Holy Wisdom’s Ash Wednesday service featuring a reflection by Sr Simone Campbell, I don’t think so; as head of something deceptively titled “St Mary of Magdala Apostle to the Apostles Catholic Church” in Wauwatosa that meets at a Methodist church, she will be busy with some false ecumenism very much like that at Holy Wisdom.

The Mary of Magdala and Wauwatosa Ave. United Methodist Church communities will celebrate a Christian Unity liturgy at 7 p.m. on February 13.

Pastor Alice Iaquinta and Pastor Sue Burwell will preside at the liturgy which will honor both Christian traditions to mark the beginning of the penitential journey to Easter.
All are welcomed to the communion table.

Three things.  1. of course, all this alleged “ecumenism” is revealed as really just interchangeable with protestantism, indistinct from it. 2. men and women are not simply interchangeable, Jesus chose men Apostles only and His Church has no authority to do otherwise, a woman cannot be an icon of Christ the Bridegroom of the Church, and I am offended as a woman by the insistence that women need to do men’s things in order to have dignity. 3. please pray for all.

The problem with Holy Wisdom Monastery

benedictinesistersIn the late 1950s and early 60s there was a Catholic girls’ high school just north of Madison, run by Benedictine Sisters (historic photo above). Times changed, the school closed, and the Sisters, going with the spirit of the age, became very liberal. Eventually, the two remaining elderly Sisters (and a protestant woman who joined them) transferred ownership of their property to a corporation owned by themselves, left their vows and dissolved their Catholic monastery. Bishop Morlino did not oppose their choice, sad though it was, because their beliefs were really no longer Catholic, and it was better for them not to continue to represent their organization as Catholic.

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Today, their center, which they say is “ecumenical”, is re-named Holy Wisdom Monastery and hosts a lay-led “eucharist” attended by disaffected Catholics and protestants. When they make the sign of the Cross they prefer to say “in the name of the creator, and of the redeemer, and of the sanctifier.” In keeping with a “progressive Christian” trend toward pantheism, what they teach the children there resembles Hinduism more than Christianity. But appearances still do not destroy our hope that the Sisters will turn back, and that this place can someday return to the Church.

Nationally, Holy Wisdom Monastery is one of the most-watched instances of groups of women religious decisively rejecting Catholic authority and even “moving beyond Jesus” as described famously by Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink while she was president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Locally, the errors of Holy Wisdom Monastery damagingly infiltrate the Church via the few active Catholics who quietly support them in spite of Holy Wisdom undermining Catholic faith and ecclesial communion. It is this “apostasy within the Church” and representing something as Catholic which really isn’t, that is more harmful than the existence of a non Catholic group that goes its own peculiar way.

It’s painful to examine this, because there are many local Catholics who have happy and loving memories of this place, and of the Sisters, from days gone by, and they deeply felt the loss to the Church. And I think we all felt that, even those of us who had never been there. This was the Sisters’ original Priory building constructed for a large number of Sisters who never actually materialized, then later a retreat center, now no longer extant:

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The best source for understanding the Holy Wisdom Monastery situation is the statement on the Madison Diocese website on this topic. The blog of the Kansas City, MO diocesan newspaper has a helpful description of the facts of the departure of Holy Wisdom from the Church:

According to the National Catholic Reporter, Benedictine Sisters Mary David Walgenbach and Joanne Kollasch started thinking about leaving the Catholic religious life and starting a way of life the Church would not recognize in 1992. In 2006, they were officially released from their vows.

Between 1992 and 2006, they had a lot of work to do. According to public records, in 1998, they set up a Non-Stock Corporation headed by themselves called the Benedictine Women of Madison, Inc. The new corporation was non-canonical, ie., not connected to or bound by any of the laws of the Church.

In late 2000, the two sisters signed over the deeds for the various parcels of land belonging to their canonical, ecclesial religious order to the non-ecclesial corporation run by themselves. A separate, non-ecclesial foundation was also set up for the benefit of the new Benedictine Women of Madison, Inc.

When the two sisters finally were released from their vows in 2006, they had already transferred the ecclesial property of their order essentially to themselves. They took new vows to their non-Church related order and now run the Holy Wisdom Monastery on the property of their old order’s former high school.

Holy Wisdom Monastery has one other professed member, a Presbyterian minister. They are open to accepting “sisters” of other faiths, but so far no takers. Madison Bishop Robert Morlino has forbidden priests from offering Mass at the monastery, but in late August, they began “sharing the Bread of Life around a common table” at a weekly, inclusive, ecumenical Eucharist at their just-constructed $8 million eco-friendly monastery.

The Diocese of Madison statement explains:

It seems their choice to move in this non-Catholic direction was in the works for a number of years, at least since 1992 according to their website. During Bishop Morlino’s tenure, there were several meetings and conversations between the sisters and the bishop. There seemed to be a cordial dialogue taking place on a variety of issues and therefore it was a surprise when the two remaining sisters advised the bishop that they had been granted a release, by Rome, from their vows as Benedictine Sisters, in 2006. While Bishop Morlino was surprised, he was in no way unfriendly toward their desire to start a non-Catholic ecumenical community. He did however ask that they not reserve the Holy Eucharist or have Mass celebrated on site, so as not to cause confusion. Many people had visited St. Benedict’s Monastery over the years and the bishop felt it would take time for people to understand that it was no longer a Roman Catholic institution. They understood the bishop’s position and agreed to follow his directive for the sake of those who might be confused by the change.

Also in 2006, Bishop Morlino noted that engagement in ecumenical efforts would be suitable only for Catholic adults with a clear understanding of the teachings of the Catholic Church, and with a solid commitment to these teachings.

Clear understanding of and solid commitment to Catholic teachings is not a part of Holy Wisdom Monastery itself. The religious education curriculum for children used by Holy Wisdom Monastery is from the Center for Progressive Christianity, an organization I was very familiar with when I was a fallen away Catholic and political progressive involved with an online interfaith community.The  CPC actually discards all central doctrinal beliefs of Christianity, and “progressive Christians” tend to hold a a pantheistic worldview. A guiding light for them is the Episcopalian Bishop Spong who advocated Christianity evolving away from theism and belief in the supernatural, and indeed Spong has personally endorsed the CPC Children’s Curriculum. A Christian reviewer who examined the CPC Children’s Curriculum that they use at Holy Wisdom Monastery explains that although it mentions Jesus,

It is mainly written by Lorna Knox who is on staff at the Ananda Temple and Teaching Center in Portland Oregon. After looking at the curriculum, which includes religious information for both the teacher and children, it is clear that the material is religiously aligned with the teaching of the Ananda Temple which is a part of the Self-Realization Fellowship connected to the teachings of Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi. The religious viewpoint of the material, “A Joyful Path,” is a form of Hinduism.

Sadly the problem may go even further than lack of authentically Christian education. If Holy Wisdom Monastery were to baptize using their preferred feminist formula (according to the Wisconsin State Journal) “in the name of the creator, and of the redeemer, and the sanctifier”, that would not be valid Christian baptism at all, which was clarified explicitly in 2008 by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This may not be at all a place where someone could be baptized and helped to grow as a believing Christian. What it is, is a congregation catering mainly to disaffected Catholics in their 60s and 70s. I have noticed that in many cases there is particular disagreement with sexual morality.

I actually ache for them, for there to be healing, mercy, happy reunion. The diocesan statement again:

In a fundamental sense, all who are baptized Catholics remain so forever by the indelible nature of baptism. However, an individual can compromise his or her full communion with the Catholic Church, by persistent refusal or denial of the Church’s definitive teachings; separating themselves from the sacramental life of the Church, and by refusal of ecclesiastical governance. Catholics who compromise themselves in such a manner from the Church are not in full communion with the Catholic Church, which has serious moral consequences.

Example: It is like being a member of a family. I’ll always be a member of my family, no matter how far away we grow or how estranged I might be from them. The beauty is that we can always come back home.

Sadly, Holy Wisdom Monastery enjoys substantial support nationally from dissenting Catholics, especially dissenting religious, for whom they are even heroes for “going non canonical”, escaping the Church authority which, as their beliefs evolved radically, they had come to feel so estranged from. It was a monk of Minnesota’s very liberal and very troubled St John’s Abbey, Fr Dan Ward (link describes disturbing and credible allegations of sexual misconduct and involvement in abuse coverups), whose organization the Resource Center for Religious Institutes actually shares an office building with the Leadership Conference for Women Religious, who gave the Benedictine Sisters canon law assistance and other help in transferring the deed for the property to the private corporation owned by themselves, and being dispensed from their vows, and has since then even given a workshop on this process for other religious who might want to do the same.

Ward is not the only St John’s monk to support Holy Wisdom Monastery; in late 2011 Brother Paul  Richards, under a cloud of some kind of misconduct accusation himself, took a lengthy sabbatical there in spite of Holy Wisdom not actually being Catholic and the Sacraments unavailable  there. As recently as Christmas of 2012, Father Robert Koopman of St John’s, who was the last president of nominally-Catholic St John’s University prior to it being severed from the monastery and transferred to a private corporation, visited Holy Wisdom Monastery, where they enjoyed his piano talents. From the January Holy Wisdom Monastery newsletter:

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Other supportive visitors include certain Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters such as the very same ones Bishop Morlino recently said may not give workshops or spiritual direction in parishes, and at least one local parish staff person. And soon, Sister Simone Campbell, head of the NETWORK Lobby Nuns on the Bus, will be there this month, February 13 and 14 for an Ash Wednesday Service where she will actually give a reflection, and participate in fundraisers jointly for her organization NETWORK, Holy Wisdom, and a local pro-union group Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice which I notice apparently has little support from local Catholics due to their pro abortion politics (according to comments from the organization’s participants, at that link).

It is so sad to have an out of town big name religious come here to actively take a part in a service at this place that departed from Catholic beliefs so publicly and left the Church so famously, and caused such a lot of pain and sadness to ordinary practicing Catholics here in Madison. Doing a joint fundraiser with them?! While I think there continues to be love for the Sisters personally, the local Catholics know very well not to support Holy Wisdom Monastery. Please leave a comment or send me an email if you want to join me in speaking up about that.

Cathedral Parish videos–new and beautiful

Madison’s Cathedral Parish, the parish I belong to, draws parishioners from far beyond its territory, and you can get a good glimpse of why that is in these two really excellent new short films. The first video is a welcome to the parish, full of life and interest and beauty. We get to meet some regular but great parishioners. They took a lot of footage, it’s full of perfectly real scenes of parish life and they took lots of time and care in making this.

Touching to see friends and people I know and love–there’s much more to them than meets the eye. These are all people of substance. The woman who introduces herself as an anaesthesiologist at UW is Dr Nancy Fredericks, who is not only an 11am Sunday Mass usher but the hero whistleblower who stopped the plan to do late-term abortions at her workplace, Madison Surgery Center (notice there’s a video of her story at that link, you have to click for it). We don’t really know each other but I am a little awed and moved every time she simply smiles and hands me a bulletin, or one time when I dried the dishes she was washing after a parish dinner.

The Cathedral Parish presently consists of 2 church buildings, St Patrick’s on E Main St and beautiful old Holy Redeemer Church on W Johnson St. Below is a fascinating and gorgeous tour of Holy Redeemer. A church like this one catechizes through its art and architecture, and this video teaches a lot about the Faith in the process of explaining the things one sees in the church. I am there all the time, and the video pointed out interesting things I never (or hardly) noticed.

I do notice that it totally omits the innards of the bell tower! Don’t worry, Laetificat Blog takes you where the regular tour doesn’t go. 🙂

The great Madison contingent at the March for Life

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Above, I especially enjoyed this picture that Madison Catholic Youth posted to facebook, depicting the excitement of the highschoolers from Madison, as they’re just an hour from DC where they would attend the March for Life.

But what occasion my post is young Madison Catholic Ben Yanke’s fun and epic photo post on his great blog From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary, of his journey to last week’s March for Life in DC with many others from our diocese. EWTN hired a professional to do a count of the march this year, and it was 600,000 people. Notre Dame University was at the head of the march this year, with 600 students and Fr Jenkins!

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Also there is Fr Z’s photo post of his experience at the March. His caption for the photo below was “I have been instructed to glare as we pass the Supreme Court!”

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Revealed: the liberal master plan!

After I posted my story of having formerly been a very active political progressive, and how I came back to the Church and had to radically re-think some things and leave progressivism, some people wanted to hear more. I don’t know if this was what they were asking for, but while I as going through my files I came across this graphic that I must have found via Daily Kos some time around 2004 or 2005, and saved to my hard drive: the liberal master plan! Well, sorta! Well, you can pretend it is! You need to click it to see it full size. I googled some of the phrases in this chart and found it was more than likely made by a blogger named Dave Pollard, who was interested particularly in environmental philosophy (for me, too, it was actually first environmental concerns that got me engaged with progressivism). While this particular chart does not appear to originate in the corridors of power, it is certainly the type of thinking that liberals in the corridors of power are engaging in. And of interest to those who read this blog, not even only the big politicos but the rank and file including the liberal religious Sisters.

If you think about it a minute, it could be called a utopian plan, with the two lighter-green boxes the ultimate goals: “Healthy communities, healthy world, end to suffering”, and “Stability and diversity of all life on Earth.” Sadly the proposed means to those ends, as with other utopian schemes such as Naziism and Communism, are evil. To cite only the most egregious problem, population control via contraception and abortion is a linchpin of liberal “systems thinking”.

How liberals think they will "save the world"

Click the image to see it full size and read it more clearly.

Not all the progressives would agree with all of this, for instance although it’s pretty fair to say they are all for “voluntary fertility reduction”, they aren’t all for “animal rights”, though the amount of traction that notion has was brought to my attention recently when the liberal Sisters in the “Call to Action” linked film Band of Sisters repeatedly brought up the idea that “all the components of the earth” have rights (quite regardless that it’s inconsistent with Catholic beliefs). Those Sisters are also actively engaging in “systems thinking” of this kind, and they like to talk about the importance of “systemic change”–a theme I also brought up last year in a big post concerned about the Society of St Vincent de Paul. Another parallel was that the stated goal was actually to end poverty, and in the above chart a part of the goal is to end suffering. But these are quite simply not valid goals in this life for the reason that we know they are not possible in this life in this fallen world. We are gravely obliged to love others, to serve Jesus in the person of the poor, to care for the suffering, but we have it from Jesus in the Gospel: “the poor you have with you always.”

By the way, if you’re thinking Pollard’s plan cannot possibly work, he concluded that himself in a complicated post last September. I think the way we can know this plan will fail is simpler, and is like what a friend said to me the other day, that Pope Pius XI knew Communism would fail: because it was evil.

It’s not that I trust the other political “side” to have all the answers. As far as I know, it’s a fact that world oil production (to which economic growth has correlated so closely) will peak and then begin to decline, while energy needs will continue to rise–and the other political “side” doesn’t appear to have a plan about that, not even an evil plan. I grew up truly anxious about these kinds of questions, and the fact I have never driven a car, haven’t eaten meat in 14 years or so and on Fridays and during Lent abstain also from dairy and eggs, live in a small efficiency apartment, recycle diligently, prefer used clothes and household goods, etc, is not entirely a coincidence. I live in this way very contentedly without saying everyone simply must, and now without anxiety.

The most fundamental thing is not to envision how “systems” work and then go all-out to engineer change in hope of eliminating all suffering (or alternatively, despair and then just try to have fun while our time lasts, which is actually Dave Pollard’s suggestion). The most fundamental thing is to tend toward holiness, to accept suffering for Love’s sake, to live virtue and love God and our neighbor, to die a Saint. I have no anxiety about it all now because God has a better plan for our good, O YES our good even in this life, than the technocrats, and it will be effected (no not through the “magic” of the free market) through personal holiness.

Imagine Sisters

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I know her! Doesn’t she look beautiful and happy! The Sister of Life on the left is Sr Maria Ann Michela Takach, SV, who was my Confirmation Sponsor. That was in 2007, the year after I’d returned to the Church, a few months before she entered the Sisters of Life. I wrote recently about my journey back to the Church from having been a strong political liberal and pro abortion rights, and even at the time my friend entered this Order dedicated to promoting and enhancing the dignity of human life, I felt a deep discomfort with that. But her prayers surely helped me. I came to really love the Sisters of Life, their unique and beautiful witness and the loving help they give to women through their Holy Respite maternity home and other pregnancy help and education. And they were able to make a uniquely profound statement objecting to the HHS mandate.

I was happy to find the above image today on the facebook page (please–click that link and “like” them if you use facebook, so they can keep you updated on the important work they are doing) of Imagine Sisters, a lovely movement to celebrate and promote women’s religious life.

This was me and her at St Paul’s, when she was Jen Takach:

Jen Takach, now Sr Maria Michela SV, and me, at St Paul's in 2007

Septuagesima Sunday

FrZuhlsdorfSeptuagesimaSunday2013-600In the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the green vestments are gone already and we’ve begun a liturgical season that entirely does not exist anymore in the Ordinary Form: the “pre-Lent season”, Septuagesima Sunday, Sexegesima Sunday, and Quinquagesima Sunday. It’s on this Sunday that “Alleluia” is reposed until the Feast of the Resurrection, whereas in the Ordinary form (the Novus Ordo) Ash Wednesday is the first day without the Alleluia. If I am remembering correctly these represent (though not quite literally/numerically) seventy, sixty, and fifty days before Easter. An internet source says that in times past, monastic persons would begin fasting on Septuagesima, the Greeks on Sexegesima, and secular clergy on Quinquagesima. Yes, it was not that long ago that fasting (as well as abstaining) every day except Sunday or Solemnities during Lent was for everyone who was reasonably able. I want to write more about fasting on another occasion.

Fr Z, just back from the March for Life in DC and then will be off again right away to a conference tomorrow on exorcism in Tulsa*, celebrated Septuagesima Sunday Mass this morning at Holy Redeemer Church (photo above). He says that in this season we get time to prepare for Lent, not just plunged in suddenly. Make your plan now as to Lenten discipline. Everyone gives up chocolate but you should think of what will really benefit your spiritual growth. St Paul speaks in the Epistle for the day about how athletes, who run the race so as to win, give up all kinds of things and discipline themselves. Fr Z points out that we are weak, so whatever your habitual sins may be, plan and rehearse in your mind what you are going to do when the temptation arises, plan how to avoid the occasion of sin or what is the alternate activity you are going to do, such as scrubbing the oil stains off your driveway. And even if it so happens that you do not succeed at your Lenten resolution until the very end of Lent, smile, and thank God!

I substitute taught 2nd grade Catechism class, then went to the 11am ordinary Form Mass Celebrated by Monsignor Holmes, who is back to his excellent homilies on the documents of Vatican II and preached today the second one on Lumen Gentium. At the link are audio downloads and notes for all this series of homilies, as well as information on joining a Year of Faith discussion group focused on them, these are neighborhood based and located all around Madison. I wrote about that previously, in November. Yes you can still get involved and I believe it is worthwhile.

* (A priest may exercise the ministry of exorcism only if appointed by a diocesan bishop. We do not have anyone thus appointed in our diocese. Bishop Morlino gave a fascinating talk about spiritual warfare and exorcism to UW students at St Paul’s in October 2011. He even read the long exorcism prayer (in English), which, although he was not actually performing an exorcism, was powerful. A bishop is chief exorcist of his diocese even if he does not personally engage in that ministry. He said he wanted to have a diocesan exorcist, and mentioned some specific good local priests as suitable for that ministry. It takes a priest of great prudence. I know at least one of them went to an exorcism conference at Mundelein, but they have not been appointed as exorcist and it may be because those priests are extremely busy with other essential ministries. And from this you may also understand that Fr Z going to an exorcism conference does not mean “he is going to be an exorcist”. I have prayed, though, that we may have a holy and prudent priest to exercise a ministry of deliverance from the demons, if God may be so pleased.)

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Irresistible poster advertising the talk Bp Morlino gave at St Paul’s, October 2011.