Father’s Corner

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  • Support and Encourage One Another (9/30/2023)

    At the end of each month, we include an insert, the order form for Scrip, for you to use. I encourage you to look at it and see what gift cards you can use and build into your budget. It is a simple program that helps our parish and Pacelli at the same time in a way that doesn’t require you to end up with things you can’t use or need. Simply bring it with you next week pick up some Scrip and begin to use it, building up a habit that can benefit many.

    This weekend I am in South Dakota at the BroomTree Retreat Center. This is a good time for us to keep up our prayers for priestly vocations. Having the priests that we do around in Stevens Point is a true blessing. Many Deaneries do not have that option and opportunities to grow in relationship with Jesus are lost or time of growth is missed. Don’t forget yourself and the need for personal growth, time in prayer, and with the Scriptures.

    It is exciting to have a baptism this coming weekend. In the coming months, we will have a few more. Pray for these families and first-time parents. Family life can be difficult and not always supported by our surrounding culture.

    Back in November 2021 Patrick Kelly, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus wrote an article in Columbia Magazine about the need to support and encourage one another in living out the faith and truly being family these days.

    “Moreover, in Father McGivey’s day, Catholic families faced an uphill climb. As immigrants, they grappled with bigotry, material poverty and the temptation to abandon their faith in order to find social acceptance. Many of Father McGivney’s parishioners had left largely Catholic homelands to come to a land where their beliefs were considered foreign and even suspect.

    Similar challenges face our families today, under fierce pressure from outside forces. Increasingly, as they were the 1880s, Catholic families are tempted to accept secular ideologies and to abandon their faith in order to avoid the contempt of the world. As Christians, we are called to be in the world, but not of the world–and that is getting more and more difficult by the day.

    We live in a time of great division, as proponents of political and cultural ideologies work hard to gain adherents while shouting down opposition. These fissures have found their way into our families, often pitting one generation against another.

    Patrick Kelly wrote that two years ago and he is also speaking of what happened over 125 years ago. On one level it is sad that we face the same problems. Nonetheless, it does give us the opportunity to do something about it. We can not be stuck in the mode of why didn’t someone do something or asking what were they thinking back then. Today is the day for us to step forward and live and proclaim the Gospel truths that have been handed down to us. What the Knights do locally and globally is truly amazing and you can be a part of it.

    There is the contempt of the world and the disdain of our faith that Jesus gave us. The world does try to shout down what we believe, especially through social media. Yet the reality is that we as disciples of our Lord Jesus are meant to live the faith joyfully and not be of the world but by living in the world preparing ourselves for the world to come.

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