This week I have applied to five different Universities.  I am excited at the prospect of teaching young adults again.  Working at Christendom was a great joy, but it was unfortunate that the position was not set up for a family with young children.  Since then we have been living back in Denver with my parents, in the house that we used to live in while I worked at St. Jude Parish. 

There are a great many things that have made this last week stressful, not least of which was my turning 36 years old.  However I found out today that there is a significant new reason to rejoice for us Americans.  Today, there was a new development in the life of the Catholic Church in America.  Just a few days ago Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay approved the first Marian apparition to have taken place in the United States.   What is siginficant about this, and the reason for the title of my post, is that the Blessed Mother appeared to a young Belgian immigrant woman in Wisconsin, to specifically encourage her to catechize the youth of this “wild country.”  Now more than ever this is of immediate importance, as America continues to restore the Church here.  As she says, “Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.” 

While working at St. Jude I sought to do exactly as the Blessed Mother told the 28 year old young lady (again I am now 36) to whom she appeared in Champion, Wisconsin.  The Blessed Mother noted,  “Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the cross and how to approach the sacraments.”  The question is whether we adults know these things as well.  It’s  very interesting to go to Mass on any given Sunday to find how few adults actually act like they KNOW HOW to sign themselves with the sign of the cross.  Interesting that many in the Catechetical field would note that since the Second Vatican Council there has a been a relaxing of the teaching of the actual doctrines of the Church summarized in the catechism.  This has seemed to inevitably lead to the relaxing of the four elemental points of the Catholic Church’s Faith: doctrine, liturgy, morals and prayer (as delineated in the four parts of the Catechism).  Most vital to the sacramental life of the Church is actually approaching the sacraments.   And yet, from some of the most recent polls many Catholics will not attend Mass to receive the Blessed Sacrament, and more importantly to make the intimate and personal effort to confess their sins to the priest that they might receive the Mercy and healing of God.  In spite of all of this, the call of the blessed Mother, given at what is known today

 as the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, remains the same to each of us who hear and understand her.  As she told the young woman, who later became a Franciscan, Adele Brise, “Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”  Let us never fear to teach the faith to all those young and young in faith who are open to coming to know the salvation offered by Jesus Christ.

Check out the Green Bay Diocese article on this at: http://www.gbdioc.org/newsevents/news/857-worthy-of-belief.html

 http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=8505