Bishop Callahan leads the opening Mass for the sesquicentennial
St. Gabriel Catholic Church in Prairie du Chien was filled with excitement and reverence as Bishop William Patrick Callahan opened the diocesan sesquicentennial on March 3rd, 2018. There was a presentation enumerating the elements of the diocesan crest with family members present to recount their heritage. Lead, Kindly Lord, the hymn produced for the year of celebrations, was sung for the first time by those gathered. This marks the beginning of several months of celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of La Crosse Read More
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Shadow Stations This Lent, we will be presenting the passion of our Lord using a multimedia method known as Shadow Stations. We need both young people AND adults to help bring to life this dramatic performance. A cast of at least 12 young people grades 6-12 will learn and share this prior to Easter. We also need help with music. There will be one presentation at 6:30pm Mar. 21 at the TACK center in Spencer.
Praised be Jesus Christ! For those of you who read the Catholic Life magazine from cover to cover, you may recall Bishop Callahan quoting the Eastern philosopher Lao-tzu: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” It’s a great quote because of the reality that the end depends upon the beginning. For Christians, the hope of an eternal Easter is in part contingent on how well we lived our Lent. And Lent is a journey, one that sees us striving to move toward greater freedom in our heart to love and obey God and to treat His people as He treats us. Some have likened Lent to a spiritual road trip, an image that may seem to be at least a thousand miles long. An article I came across recently spoke to a similar spiritual journey, one that involves a future priest’s desire to visit as many of the world’s basilicas as possible. Did you know that there are 1,760 basilicas in the world, 84 of them being in the U.S.? The author has already visited 190 of them, including all 24 in Canada and all but 5 of the American basilicas. Something about his goal and his dedication causes one to reflect on his motivation; i.e. why does he want to visit all of these churches? One motivation has to be beauty and that is something we grasp instinctively. People travel all the time to see something beautiful, and we’re deeply affected by these experiences. While truth sometimes fails to convert us, and goodness can be a threat to our insecurities, beauty is the one reality that almost universally touches us where we’re most vulnerable. Lent is meant to be a spiritual journey that moves us ever closer to the Source of all that is beautiful. Prayer, fasting, and alms giving have long been the means that open the eyes of our hearts that we might more and more see what God sees and marvel at its glory. The old Latin maxim was nascantur in admiratione – “let them be born in wonder.” The life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus are the most beautiful and inspiring moments in the history of the world, but only the eyes of deep faith can experience this. All the more reason to live more fully the sacrificial nature of Lent, as it prepares us to taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Visiting basilicas could be no more than an architectural adventure that will ultimately fail to move us spiritually closer to the Lord. Or it could be a tangible living out of the spiritual pilgrimage that is the whole point of our earthly existence. For those who are home bodies, the life of Flannery O’Connor might be more your speed. She was a Catholic author who died of lupus at the young age of 39 in 1964. Though she travelled but very little, her greatest adventures were lived out in her imagination and in her books. Whatever our limitations might be, that part of us is almost always accessible and Lent is an invitation to go deeper into our soul so as to encounter God and rest with Him there. O’Connor had remarkable faith and it proved its beauty by allowing her to carry her cross with courage and to find God in her suffering. O’Connor had heavenly help from the Archangel Raphael, as she said the following prayer every day of her life: “O Raphael, lead us toward those who we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us. Raphael, Angel of happy meetings, lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for. May all our movements be guided by your Light and transfigured with your Joy. Angel, guide of Tobias, lay the request we now address to you at the feet of him on whose unveiled Face you are privileged to gaze. Lonely and tired, crushed by the separations and sorrows of life, we feel the need of calling you and of pleading for the protection of your wings, so that we may not be as strangers in the province of joy, all ignorant of the concerns of our country. Remember the weak, you who are strong, you whose home lies beyond the region of thunder, in a land that is always peaceful, always serene and bright with the resplendent glory of God.” So, whether your journey of a thousand miles be in the world or into the depths of your soul, it goes better with help from above.
May the Lord, who has begun so much good in you this Lent, bring it to fulfillment when the time is right! Your friend in Christ, Father Martin An invitation is extended to all men, teenage boys and young boys of the parish to attend “Breakfast” on Sunday-March 18, 2018 after the 8 am mass. Sponsored by the Parish Council of Catholic Women.
We look forward to serving you and to having successful attendance of men and boys of this parish. Stations of the Cross are recited and held during Lent on Friday evenings at 7 p.m. See more news in the bulletin.
Pope Francis' Message for Lent
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Once again, the Pasch of the Lord draws near! In our preparation for Easter, God in his providence offers us each year the season of Lent as a “sacramental sign of our conversion”. Lent summons us, and enables us, to come back to the Lord wholeheartedly and in every aspect of our life. With this message, I would like again this year to help the entire Church experience this time of grace anew, with joy and in truth. I will take my cue from the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (24:12). These words appear in Christ’s preaching about the end of time. They were spoken in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, where the Lord’s passion would begin. In reply to a question of the disciples, Jesus foretells a great tribulation and describes a situation in which the community of believers might well find itself: amid great trials, false prophets would lead people astray and the love that is the core of the Gospel would grow cold in the hearts of many. Read More... Shadow Stations This Lent, we will be presenting the passion of our Lord using a multimedia method known as Shadow Stations. We need both young people AND adults to help bring to life this dramatic performance. A cast of at least 12 young people grades 6-12 will learn and share this prior to Easter. We also need help with music. There will be one presentation at 6:30pm Mar. 21 at the TACK center in Spencer.
Praised be Jesus Christ! Periodically some of our local sedevacantists drop off interesting pieces of literature in the back of our churches. For the record, a sedevacantist is a person who believes that the present Pope is not really the Pope (for most sedevacantists, the last true Pope was Pius XII who died in 1958). The latest brochure found at Saint John’s falsely smeared Saint Padre Pio by claiming he said Martin Luther is in hell.. now it’s safe to say that the person who printed the brochure might be heading in that direction! By the way, a local sedevacantist named Lucian Pulvermacher thought he made it all the way to the top when he claimed to have been elected Pope Pius XIII. You might think I’m kidding here, but in this case truth is stranger than fiction; Pulvermacher was born just south of Marshfield and died in 2009; please pray for him and all who defect from their Catholic faith. We ought to thank God every day that He is merciful and that He promised to protect the Church from even the gates of hell. A longtime adage correctly holds that, Ubi petrus, ibi ecclesia (i.e. where Peter is, there is the Church). The reality is that Jesus Christ promised Peter and his successors that He was building His Church on the rock of their faith. And while Popes have failed (some horribly so), the Church has survived and will endure until the end of the age. An area that can be a real spiritual trap is our attitude toward the present occupant of the Chair of Saint Peter. Sometimes you hear folks say, “Now Pope John XXIII, he was a real Pope.” I understand the sentiment, but it can be a dangerous one that preys on our tendency to pick and choose. When it comes to the Church, whoever the present Pope is, he is our Holy Father and we love and pray for him every day. At the same time, he is a man who has to contend with sinful tendencies and therefore needs our prayers. All of this is a long preface to a short discourse that could accurately be titled, “In Defense of Pope Francis.” I just read The Great Reformer by Austin Ivereigh, and I learned some things about our Holy Father that are both inspiring and enlightening. For example, one passage in the book pointed out that “Bergoglio (i.e. Pope Francis) used de Lubac’s treatise to distinguish between sin and corruption. While sin could always be forgiven, corruption could not be, because in a corrupt soul there was no desire for forgiveness. Corruption grows, infects others, and then justifies itself. Corruption... generates a culture – a moralizing, self-justifying culture of good manners that looks down on others,” (The Great Reformer, pg. 245). So true, don’t you think? If we refuse to repent of our sins, they become the spiritual cancer that begins to infect not only our own soul, but many others besides. And while Pope Francis is remarkably adept in diagnosing spiritual illness, he is also quick to direct us to the cure: the mercy of God accessible to us in repentance and the sacrament of confession. Allow me to close with my favorite passage from the book: “One afternoon I went to pray the Holy Rosary that the Holy Father (Pope John Paul II))was leading. He was in front of us, on his knees. It was a very large group. With the Holy Father’s back to me, I entered into prayer. I was not alone, but praying in the middle of the People of God to which I and all those who were there belonged, led by our Pastor. In the middle of the prayer I became distracted looking at the pope... And time began to fade away. I began to imagine the young priest, the seminarian, the poet, the worker, the child from Wadowice, in exactly the posture he was now, praying Hail Mary after Hail Mary. His witness struck me. I felt that this man, chosen to guide the Church, was the summation of a path trod together with his Mother in heaven, a path that began in his childhood. And I suddenly realized the weight of the words spoken by the Mother of Guadalupe to Saint Juan Diego: Do not be afraid. Am I not your Mother? I grasped the presence of Mary in the pope’s life. His witness did not get lost in a memory. From that time onward I have prayed the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary every day”.
Viva il Papa – long live the Pope! Your friend in Christ, Father Martin March 14 - St. Joseph’s Table will be celebrated by the students. A food drive is part of this activity and all are welcome to donation food during March. Baskets will be available in the gathering room. The food will be blessed on March 14.
Stations of the Cross are recited and held during Lent on Friday evenings at 7 p.m. See more news in the bulletin.
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MASS SCHEDULE
Tuesday - Friday: 8:00 AM Saturday: 4:00 PM Sunday: 8:00 AM & 10:00 AM RECONCILIATION
Saturday: 3:15 - 3:45 PM OFFICE HOURS
Monday - Thursday: 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM Friday: 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM Stay Connected with Our ParishWelcome from Our PastorWelcome to Christ the King Catholic Church! Ever since 1938 this parish has been assisting souls in their quest for deeper union with God. Our mission statement is essentially found in the stained glass window above the main altar: “For Christ our King.” Insofar as God made us and we belong to Him, we have come to... Read More
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