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Recognize How We Are Involved In Social Sins

The annual Bishop’s Appeal, the theme for which is “Hearts Full of Hope,” began last weekend. Throughout the Diocese of Green Bay, parishes

focused upon our unified hope and expectation that we all would continue to support the ministries of the diocese. The funds raised will support adoption services, ministry training for parishes, education programs, financial and personal counselling, marriage counselling, direct assistance to families in need, refugee resettlement, etc.

This is the 11th Bishop’s Appeal for which I have given my support as the Pastor of St. Willebrord. We have nearly always surpassed our goal that the Diocese has set for us. The one year we did not was 2020 as the Appeal coincided with the beginning of COVID, the pausing of public Masses, and the general diminishment in public activities. Even that year we came close to the goal.

I pray that you and your family will consider carefully how you can participate in this great and extensive project. As I said last weekend: to belong to a parish within a Diocese, is to make a commitment to be part of something good that is bigger than just me, bigger than just my parish. The Bishop’s Appeal is one of the ways we are “the Church” in a most visible and effective way. Thank you for your participation. Thank you to those who are participating for the very first time.

On another subject, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are just two and a half weeks from this weekend! Let us not allow Lent to surprise us. Now is the time to consider how to intensify our spiritual endeavors, our spiritual journey. We are invited to look particularly at our sins and omissions as Catholic Christians. Starting with the Gospels and what they teach us about Jesus’s ministry, preaching, and teaching, we are to be purified and converted to greater holiness during Lent.

The “experience” of Lent, too, can be a participation in something bigger than me. We need to recognize how we are involved in social sins, sins for which our whole society has culpability. Some of those sins and omissions include our complacency in the face of racism, or sexism, or even clericalism in the church. Our sin may be the silence with which we face “bullies” and those who harass others because of race, sex, ethnicity, creed, or sexual orientation. Even our unwillingness to change anything about our lives, or to review our habits and our activities in response to global climate change can be sinful. Lent is for this kind of change. Get ready!

God forgives! Let us repent!

Peace, Fr. Andy