Browsing Father Stephen's Columns
Prayer: What It's Not (2/23/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 2/19/25
Prayer: What It’s Not
Another recurring series this year will be on the nature of prayer and how we can grow in our prayer life as disciples of Jesus Christ. I’ll begin by first dealing with common dead-ends and misconceptions of prayer to clarify what our expectations ... Read More »
Jubilee Saints: Isidore the Farmer May 15th (2/16/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 2/12/25
Jubilee Saints: Isidore the Farmer (May 15)
This article begins an assortment of stories about saints who demonstrated what it meant to live that perpetual jubilee I spoke about last week. It’s always easier when learning a skill to see someone doing it in action. Whether through ... Read More »
The Perpetual Jubilee (2/9/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 2/12/25
The Perpetual Jubilee This is the seventh in a series on the Jubilee Year of 2025. Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church precisely to embody him and perpetuate the jubilee message of his Life, Death, and Resurrection. As Jesus forgave sins, that spiritual debt weighing so many down, ... Read More »
The Messiah of the Jubilee (2/2/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 1/29/25
The Messiah of the Jubilee This is the sixth in a series on the Jubilee Year of 2025. As mentioned last week, the people of Israel were expecting the Jewish Messiah to come during their lifetime. Out in the desert of Judea, celibate Jewish monks called the Essenes ... Read More »
The Jubilee in History (1/26/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 1/21/25
The Jubilee in History This is the fifth in a series on the Jubilee Year of 2025. If implemented, the jubilee described last week would have been revolutionary in the best way. Every fifty years, the trumpet would sound and all would receive God’s justice and mercy. If ... Read More »
The Jubilee Year (1/19/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 1/15/25
The Jubilee Year This is the fourth in a series on the Jubilee Year of 2025. The Jubilee was the single most radical societal command God ever gave the people of Israel, an intensification of the Sabbath Year. If carried out properly, it was meant to most perfectly ... Read More »
The Sabbath Year (1/12/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 1/15/25
The Sabbath Year This is the third in a series on the Jubilee Year of 2025. We learned last week about the importance of the Jewish Sabbath, a day of rest from work in honor of God’s liberation of Israel from slavery in order to regain the gifts ... Read More »
The Sabbath (1/5/25)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 12/31/24
The Sabbath
This is the second in a series on the Jubilee Year of 2025. Last week, we learned about the Church’s jubilee, a year of favor given by God for the forgiveness of sins and the gaining of graces. To understand where it came from, we have ... Read More »
The First Jubilee (12/29/24)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 12/31/24
The First Jubilee This is the first in a five-part series on the Jubilee Year of 2025. Pope Boniface VIII, the first pope in Church history to proclaim a jubilee in the year 1300, was not a model of papal holiness. He was fickle, arrogant, and many ... Read More »
Advent's Message of Hope: Trusting in God and Choosing Life (12/22/24)
Posted by Gail Schlicht on 12/18/24
This week, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ-Child, I turn over my bulletin column to Dcn. Jim Matthias, a fellow disciple formed at St. Dominic’s in Brookfield. His message about supporting life at its most vulnerable initial stages resonated with me this Advent, and ... Read More »