There are two wonderful opportunities for the young people of WWPR that I will highlight today: Totus Tuus and Serviam. TOTUS TUUS—July 26-30! First, Totus Tuus is Latin for ‘Totally Yours’ and a phrase popularized at the moto of the pontificate of Pope St. John Paul II. I have been blessed to be involved with Totus Tuus at several parishes and we are very excited to be able to offer it here in the WWPR. One of its greatest strengths is that college students and seminarians spend their summers as missionaries going from parish to parish to witness to the Gospel to the young people. Totus Tuus will replace VBS, but I promise you that it is well worth the swap! It offers just as much fun but with stronger formation in prayer and teaching the truths of the faith. Also, rather than only being for younger students, Totus Tuus has something to offer students from 1st grade through seniors in high school. Grades 1-6 meet during the day while there is an evening program for junior high and high school students.
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Control. When we look at Rembrandt’s famous and dramatic painting Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee, we see two very different approaches to the situation. First, we have the Apostles panicking and trying to control the situation—steering the boat, waking our Lord, giving in to fear. Then, we have our Lord casually sleeping on the cushion. The Apostles desperately grasping for control in all the wrong places and the Son of God peacefully, calmly, and authoritatively actually in control.
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Happy Sunday, friends. I have had a column idea kicking around in my head for some time now, and I’ve been keeping it in my back pocket for a week just like this one, when I am too busy to give the necessary time and attention to the word of God before it’s time to prep for preaching. So here, after an accumulating note on my phone from the last eighteen months, is: “Fr. McCullough’s Non-Comprehensive List of Things that Catholics Should Probably Know About, But Generally Do Not. Volume One.” An important word of caution: I am not treating any of these with the usual pastoral care and sensitivity for which I am (perhaps) known. At any rate, I am simply listing the facts as I see them, with the hopes that it helps someone get to Heaven. If you have any concerns, questions, or follow up, you know where to find me, and I hope you know that I say all this out of love.
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One of the unexpected joys of life in seminary and in ministry has been the ability to live life according to the liturgical calendar. The rhythm of feasting and fasting, preparing and rejoicing, chanting and seeking silence is written into our hearts and it finds its place in the life of the Church. What I have only recently appreciated, however, is how that pattern of life has developed over centuries. I cannot imagine liturgical life without Feasts like Divine Mercy or memorials of more contemporary saints like Maximilian Kolbe or John Paul II, and yet it was not so long ago where these were absent from the Church. Even today’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord has been celebrated for less than half of the Catholic church’s August history.
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