The St. Wenceslaus parish bulletin for Sunday, December 13th, 2015.
Dec 13th Parish Bulletin
December 10, 2015The Real St. Nicholas
December 6, 2015
St. Nicholas (270-343 A.D.) was the bishop of Myra, a city on the southwestern corner of Turkey along the Mediterranean coast. He attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., opposed the Arian heresy, and signed the Nicene Creed (an early version of the creed that we profess at every Sunday Mass.) However, St. Nicholas is most well-remembered for his generous, secret alms-giving.
In one window in the back of St. Wenceslaus Church, St. Nicholas is depicted holding three sacks. This recalls how he once helped a family in serious need. There was a poor man who could not afford dowries for his three daughters to get married. (In those days, being without husbands would doom the women to lives of destitution, or worse.) Under the cover of night, St. Nicholas tossed three bags of gold coins through their window. (Alternate-tellings of the story have St. Nicholas dropping them down their chimney or leaving them in the daughters’ drying stockings.) We can imagine the family awaking the next morning, finding the gifts he had left, and celebrating the arrival of their salvation.
St. Nicholas’ feast day is celebrated December 6th
Related Link: How St. Nicholas of Myra became associated with Santa Claus
Consoling Words
December 4, 2015
“Listen, put it into your heart, my youngest and dearest son, that the thing that disturbs you, the thing that afflicts you, is nothing. Do not let your countenance, your heart be disturbed. Do not fear this sickness of your uncle or any other sickness, nor anything that is sharp or hurtful. Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you. Do not let your uncle’s illness worry you, because he will not die now. You may be certain that he is already well.”
—Words of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, to St. Juan Diego in 1531
Advent Questions & Answers
December 4, 2015
What is an “advent?”
An “advent” is the coming of something extremely important. The word “advent” is from the Latin word for “arrival.”
What is the Advent season for?
We are preparing for Jesus Christ’s coming at Christmas and at this world’s end.
How many years ago was Jesus born?
The first Christmas was about 2,015 years ago. It is fitting that his birth is the basis for our calendar because Jesus Christ is the center of human history.
When will Jesus come again in glory?
We do not know precisely, so we are to be always ready and prepared for Him.
Why are Isaiah and John the Baptist so prominent in Advent’s Sunday readings?
These two prophets preached about the Jewish Messiah’s coming and about the Kingdom of God He would establish.
What does purple symbolize for Advent?
Purple was associated with royalty in the ancient world. It is a color for Advent since Jesus is coming to us as the King of Kings.
Why does Advent have a wreath with four candles?
The circle of evergreen branches symbolizes the eternal, everlasting life which Jesus comes to bring to all four-corners of the earth. The candles are lit to mark the four Sundays of Advent preceding Christmas.
Why is one of the candles different?
One candle is rose-colored to mark the 3rd Sunday of Advent, which we call “Gaudete Sunday.”
What’s special about Gaudete Sunday?
Reaching this Sunday means that we have passed the halfway-point on our Advent journey to Christmas. “Gaudete” means “rejoice” in Latin.
Dec 6th Parish Bulletin
December 3, 2015The St. Wenceslaus parish bulletin for Sunday, December 6th, 2015.
10 Ideas for Advent
November 29, 2015- Read & pray with the Book of Lamentations.
- Meditate on the Gospel passages preceding the Nativity.
- Learn about St. Nicholas and celebrate his day, December 6th.
- Keep Jesus from your manger scene until Christmas comes.
- Box Baby Jesus under the tree as the first gift you will open.
- Have Joseph & Mary journey across your home to the manger.
- Abstain from Christmas songs until Advent season ends.
- Wait to light your tree and house until the light of Christ arrives.
- Meditate upon what your life would be like without Jesus Christ.
- Go to confession so that Christ may reign in your heart.
Nov 29th Parish Bulletin
November 25, 2015The St. Wenceslaus parish bulletin for Sunday, November 29th, 2015.
“For God And Country”
November 21, 2015A 32-year-old Ronald Reagan plays a (fictional) Catholic priest army chaplain in this 1943 short film. “Chaplain Michael O’Keefe” is depicted celebrating Mass, working alongside his Protestant and Jewish chaplain friends, visiting a prisoner, and being mourned among the fallen in New Guinea.
The film was made to give army personnel “a better understanding of the chaplain’s place, work, and accomplishments in the army.” It was produced by the U.S. Signal Corps and filmed at MGM Studios. [source]
Contemporary politics make a brief appearance in the dialogue: Vermont is referenced as being a Republican state and Georgia as a Democratic one. (Today, those political alignments are reversed, though Ronald Reagan did win Vermont while losing Georgia in 1980.)
On Praying with Separated Brethren
November 21, 2015This evening, I received an email from a concerned parish visitor who was responding to a pair of area ecumenical Thanksgiving services being promoted in our bulletin:
Dear Father. I was severely shocked and disappointed to see this in a CATHOLIC bulletin. I am a devout Roman Catholic visiting family in the area. Not only is this confusing to to parishoners. It is outright contradicting to Church doctrine. You have beautiful homilies, and seem to be a devout priest ! Which is why I’m so confused and outright shocked !!! I will also be emailing the Bishop to address this issue with him. God bless [F]ather. And may the Sacred Heart [guide] us both ! [-Signed-]
In case there is wider confusion and concern on this subject, here is the reply I sent.
Dear —,
Thank you for your note. Properly representing our Catholic Faith and preventing scandal are important to me and I’m glad you wrote me.
The Catholic Church calls Protestants our “separated brethren.” This is because we are united as brothers and sisters in Christ though, at the same time, divided in non-trivial ways. (I hope this teaching of the Church is clearly reflected through my preaching, for I believe our Lord desires all of his disciples and all people to come into full communion with his Catholic Church.) While Catholics and Protestants are certainly not in full communion with each other, we share and revere many of the same elements of Christian Prayer, Scripture, and Tradition. Without compromising on the truth, the Church allows Catholics to come together with other Christians for ecumenical prayer events such as the upcoming Thanksgiving gatherings you saw advertised in the bulletin.
This evening, I spoke with Mr. Christopher Carstens, our (solidly orthodox) diocesan director of liturgy, regarding your concerns. He confirmed that these ecumenical events are not condemned by the Church. In fact, The Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism promulgated by St. Pope John Paul II in 1993 states that, “In liturgical celebrations taking place in other Churches and ecclesial Communities [i.e, Protestant churches], Catholics are encouraged to take part in the psalms, responses, hymns and common actions of the Church in which they are guests. If invited by their hosts, they may read a lesson or preach.” (#118) The upcoming area Thanksgiving ecumenical services are celebrations of this sort, consisting of scripture readings, psalms, prayer responses, hymns, and talks (without common communion.) And so, Catholics may feel welcome to take part.
Through our participation in such ecumenical events and gatherings, while remaining firmly and unabashedly Catholic, I hope that our separated brethren may be drawn from (perhaps) prejudice against Catholicism, to curiosity, to understanding, to attraction, and finally into full communion with Mother Church. Sharing the truth with love and showing love informed by truth through encounters like these will be key to the reunion of all Christians.
Thanks again for writing me with your concerns, which are hopefully now relieved.
God bless,
Fr. Victor Feltes
Catholic Life, the First Edition
November 19, 2015Be among the first to peruse the Diocese of La Crosse’s new magazine online. (The first paper copies of the magazine ship on November 20th.)
Annual Appeal Videos
November 19, 2015The story of a new, young priest, Rev. Billy Dodge.
About the La Crosse Diocese’s work with social ministries & concerns.
The good work of the diocesan TV Mass.
Charles Dickens’ Otherworldly Visitor
November 17, 2015
One night in 1844, the year after he published A Christmas Carol, a 32-year-old Charles Dickens seemingly encountered a visitor from beyond while vacationing in Venice, Italy. Within this dream or vision, Dickens thought himself speaking to his dearly-beloved sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth, who had died in 1837, yet he also observed that the spirit “bore no resemblance to any one I have known.” Dickens recorded this experience soon afterward in a letter to a friend:
“Let me tell you of a curious dream I had, last Monday night; and of the fragments of reality I can collect, which helped to make it up. [I] had laid awake nearly all that night…. [W]hen I fell asleep and dreamed this dream. Observe that throughout I was as real, animated, and full of passion as [the English actor William Macready] in the last scene of Macbeth.
In an indistinct place, which was quite sublime in its indistinctness I was visited by a Spirit. I could not make out the face, nor do I recollect that I desired to do so. It wore a blue drapery, as the Madonna might in a picture by Raphael; and bore no resemblance to any one I have known except in stature. I think (but I am not sure) that I recognized the voice. Anyway, I knew it was poor Mary’s spirit. I was not at all afraid, but in a great delight, so that I wept very much, and stretching out my arms to it called it “Dear.”
At this, I thought it recoiled; and I felt immediately, that not being of my gross nature, I ought not to have addressed it so familiarly. “Forgive me!” I said. “We poor living creatures are only able to express ourselves by looks and words. I have used the word most natural to our affections; and you know my heart.” It was so full of compassion and sorrow for me—which I knew spiritually, for, as I have said, I didn’t perceive its emotions by its face—that it cut me to the heart; and I said, sobbing, “Oh! give me some token that you have really visited me!”
“Form a wish,” it said. I thought, reasoning with myself: ‘If I form a selfish wish, it will vanish.’ So I hastily discarded such hopes and anxieties of my own as came into my mind, and said, “Mrs. Hogarth is surrounded with great distresses (observe, I never thought of saying ‘your mother‘ as to a mortal creature) will you extricate her?” “Yes.” “And her extrication is to be a certainty to me that this has really happened?” “Yes.”
“But answer me one other question!” I said, in an agony of entreaty lest it should leave me. “What is the True religion?” As it paused a moment without replying, I said—Good God in such an agony of haste, lest it should go away! “You think, as I do, that the Form of religion does not so greatly matter, if we try to do good? or,” I said, observing that it still hesitated, and was moved with the greatest compassion for me, “perhaps the Roman Catholic is the best? Perhaps it makes one think of God oftener, and believe in him more steadily?” “For you,” said the Spirit, full of such heavenly tenderness for me, that I felt as if my heart would break; “for you, it is the best!” Then I awoke, with the tears running down my face, and myself in exactly the condition of the dream. It was just dawn.
I called up [my wife] Kate, and repeated it three or four times over, that I might not unconsciously make it plainer or stronger afterwards. It was exactly this. Free from all hurry, nonsense, or confusion, whatever.”
One’s Catholic imagination wonders if this tender, compassionate, glorious “Mary” who visited Charles Dickens that night was actually the Blessed Virgin. Like Our Lady of Lourdes responded to Bernadette’s initial requests for her name with a silent smile, this visitor holds back at first to finally reveal a climactic answer. Whether this was a true vision or merely a dream we cannot say, but this visitor’s answer to his religious question does not disqualify our Blessed Mother: the glorious woman told him, “For you, [the Catholic religion] is the best!”
Would this statement imply that Catholicism would not be the best religion for some? Dickens himself held that the form of one’s religion did not greatly matter if someone tried to do good, and his strong distaste for formal religion had drawn him to Unitarianism. If our Mother Mary, who knew Charles through and through, wished to lead him into full communion with the Catholic Church, she would speak truth to him in the way which he could best receive it. Indeed, for him the Catholic faith truly would be best, but he may have balked-outright at her teaching that it is best for everyone. If his was a vision of the Blessed Virgin sent from God, the plan was to bring him into the fullness of the truth over time, as we often see God patiently doing with others.
Charles Dickens never did become a Catholic during his lifetime, but after 1847 (three years after this experience) he began attending the Anglican church near his home and prayed each morning and night. A year before his death, he wrote in his 1869 last will and testament, “I commit my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ….” Today his body lies buried in Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Our Holy Conspiracy & the End of the World — 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time—Year B
November 16, 2015
A new liturgical Church year will begin in a couple of weeks with the first Sunday of Advent. As this Church year ends, our Mass readings (like today’s Sunday readings) focus on the Last Things and the end of the world as we know it. This weekend’s news reports, especially the terrible events in France, remind us that though the Kingdom of God is among us, we pray “thy Kingdom come” because it is not yet fully here in total, unveiled power. This weekend’s readings and news events remind me of passages from C.S. Lewis in excellent book Mere Christianity:
“Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless [radio] from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going.”
Why does Lewis say that our king has landed “in disguise?” Well, where would you expect a king to be born? The Magi sought the newborn king of the Jews in the palace at Jerusalem, but Jesus was born in a barn—a cave in Bethlehem—to a pair of poor parents. How would one expect the Jewish Messiah to enter into Jerusalem to claim his throne? Probably riding on a warhorse, but Jesus came meekly riding on a donkey, just as had been prophesied about him. Who would have thought that God would become a man, and then suffer and die as he did? After the vindication of the resurrection, one would have thought he would appear to the high priest and Governor Pilate, or to the Emperor Tiberius in Rome, to declare that he was indeed who he claimed to be. Instead, Jesus appeared discretely, to his disciples.
Lewis writes that God has landed in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and has started “a sort of secret society” to undermine the devil. This secret society he speaks of is the Church. But what is so secret about the Church? We have a sign in front with our Mass times. We don’t check ID’s at the door. And if anyone wants to know about what we do or what we believe, we will gladly inform them. But, in a sense, the Church is a secret society—for the world and even many Catholics do not recognize who and what we really are. We are a holy conspiracy. We are fighting the propaganda of the world and the devil with the truth of God. We are recruiting others to the side of the Lord. We are his special forces sabotaging evil with the weapons of love in preparation for the king’s arrival.
From where do we receive our power for this mission? The source of our power is the Holy Mass. Today’s second reading says that the Old Testament’s priests offered many sacrifices because those could not truly achieve their purpose, but Jesus our High Priest offers his sacrifice once for all. At Mass we transcend space and time to personally encounter that sacrifice, and it’s power is applied to us here and now, providing all the graces we need to fulfill his will.
Lewis asks, “Why is [God] not [yet] landing in [total unveiled] force, invading [our world]? Is it that He is not strong enough? Well, Christians think He is going to land in force; [but] we do not know when.”
Indeed, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “of that day or hour, no one knows… but only the Father.”
We do not know when the Lord is going to land in force. “But,” Lewis continues, “we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely. I do not suppose you and I would have thought much of a Frenchman [during World War II] who waited till the Allies were marching into Germany and then announced he was on our side. God will invade.”
Why has God not yet invaded our world with his full, unveiled force? Why does he allow the wicked to use their freedom for evil, like the terrorism we saw in Paris?
Lewis writes, “I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?”
I think “the whole natural universe melting away” is an excellent reflection on today’s gospel. Jesus tells us that at the end:
“the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from the sky,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken…”
In the ancient world, the sun and moon, stars and planets, were considered the most stable and eternal things in the cosmos (and you can understand why.) But when even these things are passing, you know the universe as we know it is melting away. After this, the Lord Jesus comes with judgment. “And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory… (and his angels, like St. Michael from our first reading, along with him…)”
Perhaps we may find it surprising that Jesus describes these events as a good thing to his disciples. He says:
“Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that [the Son of Man] is near, at the gates.”
We usually associate the end of things with the fall. Youth is called the springtime of life, while old age is the fall. In the Northern Hemisphere, every Church year ends in the fall. Yet Jesus presents an analogy for the end of the world as one of spring becoming summer: ‘When the tender branch sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.’ A small thing, the branch, points to the arrival of a much greater reality, the summer. Why would we cling to the branch when the whole world is being renewed in glory? For friends of God, what is to come is better than what we see. The life we live now in this world is the winter. What is still to come for us is the spring and summer. Let us not hesitate to hope for it, envision it, and rejoice in it.
When the last day comes, “it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. … That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give [people] that chance. [But it] will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.”
How long will it be until the Lord comes again? Jesus says in today’s gospel that, “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” But he said this a long time ago. Was Jesus wrong? No, for when you read these passages from Mark in full context, Jesus is responding to his disciples questions about two things side-by-side: the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world. The Romans destroyed the great city and its temple in 70 A.D., during the lifespan of some of Jesus’ hearers, and to many Jews it felt like the end of the world. This event prefigured the passing away of all things. Like other prophesies in the Bible, Jesus’ prophesy has a near and distant fulfillment, one after a forty-year opportunity for conversion, and another at the end of time.
So when will the Lord come again? The answer for every generation before us has been “not yet.” If this world endures to the year 10,000 A.D., the Christians of that time will probably regard us as the early Christians. I personally think it will still be awhile before he comes, for it is still legal to be a Christian in too many places on earth. Yet, in a sense, it doesn’t matter when Jesus is coming, for the end of our individual lives is equivalent to the end of the world for us. If you’re ready for one, you’re ready for the other. But if you, or people that you know, are not ready for either, then now is the time for conversion.
The Lord our King has recruited us into his holy conspiracy, arming us with the weapons of truth and love. You and I are his advanced forces and, among other tasks, he is sending us on rescue missions to bring others to himself. Who do you know that is far from Christ? We are to draw on the power of this Mass for them. We are called to pray, fast, and sacrifice for them, and even to be so bold as to talk with them—inviting them to come to Jesus Christ and his Church. Seize this opportunity and do not let it pass away, for whether the Lord first comes to us or we go forth to him, each and all will encounter him soon, face-to-face, in his full, unveiled glory.
Who is St. Michael the Archangel?
November 12, 2015(Based on his 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia entry)
St. Michael is one of the principal angels. His name (translated from Hebrew, “Who is like God?“) is the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against the devil and his followers. His name is recorded four times in Scripture:
Daniel 10 — Gabriel says to Daniel, when he asks God to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem: “The Angel of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me … and, behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me … and none is my helper in all these things, but Michael your prince.”
Daniel 12 — An angel speaking of the end of the world and the Antichrist says: “At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who stands for the children of your people.”
Jude 1 — St. Jude alludes to an ancient Jewish tradition of a dispute between Michael and Satan over the body of Moses: “[The archangel Michael] did not venture to pronounce a reviling judgment upon [Satan] but said, ‘May the Lord rebuke you!’”
Revelation 12 — St. John speaks of the great conflict at the end of time, which reflects also the battle in heaven at the beginning of time: “Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.”
Following these Scriptural passages, Christian tradition gives to St. Michael four offices:
(1) To fight against Satan.
(2) To be the champion of God’s people, the Jews in the Old Law, the Christians in the New Testament; therefore he was the patron of the Church, and of the orders of knights during the Middle Ages.
(3) To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death.
(4) To call men’s souls away from earth and bring their souls to judgment.
Regarding his rank in the celestial hierarchy opinions vary; St. Basil and other Greek Fathers place St. Michael over all the angels; they say he is called “archangel” because he is the prince of the other angels; others believe that he is the prince of the seraphim, the first of the nine angelic orders. But, according to St. Thomas Aquinas he is the prince of the last and lowest choir, the angels.
The Screwtape Letters, Illustrated
November 11, 2015“I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence
which I now offer to the public fell into my hands.”
—C.S. Lewis, in his preface to The Screwtape Letters
(A great book you should certainly read.)
Parishable Items 