St. John's Catholic School in Beloit, Kan. is striving to revitalize Catholic culture by promoting openness to priestly and religious vocations among its students. “The teachers care about us and our faith and what we're going to do when we get older,” senior Leandra Silsby told Catholic News Agency, “so they help us be disciplined in our faith. In our religion class sometimes we get to go to Adoration, and that's the best time to just sit there and pray, and focus on our vocations, on what God's plan is for our lives.” Andrew Niewald, a theology teacher at the high school, says the school is committed to “teach Catholicism as it was meant to be taught.” Niewald himself graduated from St. John's in 1998 and said that the past 10 years have seen a marked improvement in the school, which has allowed it to maintain its presence at a cost of only $700 in tuition per child per year. He said that the school is three years into a “Great Books” and integrated humanities program. Four years ago the school hired Patrick McCloskey, author of 2010's “The Street Stops Here,” as a consultant, who advised them to adopt the Great Books program. “If we present this unapologetic approach to Catholicism to our kids in our school, think of the possibilities and the impact we'll have on our culture,” Niewald expressed. He praised the new program for teaching kids “how to think,” and not just “what to think. It's even better than we thought it would be, as far as what our students walk away with.” The new curriculum was enabled in no small part by Julius Capital Partners, with whom St. John's partnered to develop long-term funding solutions for the school, which is sustained by a town of only 3800 people. Niewald noted that the school is trying to give students “an experience of the faith,” rather than solely intellectual formation. To that end, St. John's high school students recently traveled to Lincoln, Neb. to pray at an abortion clinic there and to visit both a seminary and a convent. Leandra Silsby reported this was her third time praying at the abortion clinic with her classmates. “It was a great experience because a lot of us would be too afraid to go by ourselves, but going as a whole school gives us the experience of showing our faith and that we are pro life.” Sophomore Garrett Mischler said that he appreciated the visit to St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, Neb. because “it was really interesting to see how normal these young men who are going to become priests are.” Mischler said that regarding his vocation, while “everyone sort of leans towards the married life, I'm going to keep an open mind and pray, and try and see exactly what God wants me to do before I make any solid decisions.” St. John's atmosphere has already fostered committed discernment from one of its alumni. Justin Gengler graduated from the school and is now studying for the Diocese of Salina at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver. "My time at St. John's was definitely planting the seeds that are coming into fruition at this time in my life,” he said. “I have an openness to God's will that was fostered during my time at St. John's.” The school is committed to forming the whole person, and not solely the intellect of their students. In February some 24 kids from the school will travel to Washington D.C. for the March for Life, the seventh year St. John's has participated in the march. Niewald teaches theology of the body to seniors at the school, and the juniors have a class on apologetics for three quarters. This year a Jehovah's Witness comes in once a week, and the students learn about his faith, and then start dialoguing and debating with him. Last year, Niewald said, a Baptist pastor was the guest. At the end of the year, four students got up and debated the doctrine of the Eucharist with him in a public forum, and even took questions from his congregation. “They had to come up with answers on the fly, and this to me is Catholic education,” Niewald said. For the last quarter, the juniors take a class called “Marriage, Dating, and Family Life.” There they learn about chivalry, courting, country swing and line dancing, and “practical means of living their relationship.” These are topics that Niewald characterized as “necessary in Catholic culture, in a Catholic worldview.” Niewald noted that “we had three families move here just this year for the school,” and prior to that families from both Idaho and Oklahoma had immigrated for the sake of sending their kids to St. John's. “At St. John’s Catholic School, we take great pride in the fact that we ensure that the whole student is being educated,” principal Marcy Kee said. “It is important that we challenge our students not only to grow academically, socially, but spiritually as well, which I believe is the most important component in developing the whole student. We can give our students all the pieces of the puzzle they need to be successful in today’s world, but their success in life will ultimately depend upon the relationship they have with God.”

A successful Advent initiative in Washington, D.C., is urging people to use the true meaning of the Christmas season to learn more about the Catholic faith and grow closer to Christ. In an online video, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C., reflected that “when we think of Christmas, we think of gifts,” because gift-giving is “one of the ways in which we show our love for the people around us. We are always looking for the right gift, the perfect gift,” he observed. “Christmas is all about that great and perfect gift that is Jesus Christ.” To aid people in remembering that Christmas is an invitation to celebrate Christ’s birth and grow in a relationship with him, the archdiocese is continuing its “Find the Perfect Gift” and “Regalo Perfecto” initiatives that were successfully debuted during Advent last year. The campaigns invite holiday shoppers in the D.C. area to remember the real meaning of Christmas and to enter into a deeper relationship with Jesus. The archdiocese will distribute 10,000 yard and window signs announcing the initiative at the beginning of Advent on Dec. 2. Like last year, the initiative will include television and radio commercials, along with the signs directing people to www.findtheperfectgift.org and www.regaloperfecto.org. These websites offer information in English and Spanish on the Catholic faith, video testimonies and resources to find parishes, as well as service opportunities and prayer events during the Advent and Christmas seasons. “The perfect gift will bring a big smile, but it's sometimes not easy to find,” the website observes. It encourages readers not to be distracted by stressful searching but to open the doors to their hearts, allowing God to give them the perfect gift of Christ this year. Website viewers can also find information about prayer and what constitutes real peace and happiness. An online video offers testimonies of individuals who have converted or returned to the Catholic Church and have experienced how Christ is the perfect gift in their lives. “Since coming back to the Church, I really understand what Christmas means,” one woman explained. Another woman, who grew up in a Buddhist family in Hong Kong, said that she converted on Christmas Eve. “As a teenager, I searched for the truth, and Jesus became my perfect gift,” she said. Two men who converted while working with people with developmental disabilities said that “(t)he God we discovered in the Catholic Mass was the same God we recognized in the people we were working with.” The “Find the Perfect Gift” campaign logo depicts the three wise men following the Christmas star on a journey to the baby Jesus. Dr. Susan Timoney, assistant secretary of Pastoral Ministry and Social Concern for the archdiocese, explained that Christmas is about the world’s greatest love story. It is this immense love that led God to take on our human form and become “a vulnerable, dependent infant named Jesus,” Timoney said.

Father Jeffrey Montz delivered an insightful homily that was recommended by our own Fr. Chris Decker. It is about the recent election for sure but it is really about so much more. As our country struggles to maintain its history of religious tolerance and adherence to Christian morals, the question can only be "Are you doing your part as a soldier of Jesus Christ?" Here is a transcript of the sermon. I want to begin today by thanking those of you who went out on Tuesday and voted for the sacredness of human life. Just as the widow’s deed in our 1st reading will never be forgotten as long as the Scriptures are read, be assured that no righteous deed that we ever undertake will be forgotten by Almighty God. This past Wednesday, the day after the election, I received a message on my phone at the parish office, from a gentleman who didn’t identify himself by name but who said he was a parishioner. And in this message, this gentleman ranted for several minutes about Tuesday’s election results. And here were the first words out of his mouth, “You lost Father; you lost!” Well, the first thing I want to say about Tuesday night’s election results is that I didn’t lose on Tuesday night our entire country lost! Now, having said that, I know that there are several of you who have just decided to tune me out, or you’re now burning up with anger at me because of what I just said and you can’t wait to give me a piece of your mind. But let me say two things in this regard. Number one, I am a priest of Jesus Christ, not because of any merit of my own, not because I’m any better than anyone else. God probably chose me because I am nothing and He wants to make something out of me. But I have been anointed and consecrated by God to preach His truth. And so, you can tune me out, but be warned, you do so at your eternal peril. Second, if you’re angry because you read into my words that this homily is going to be about one elected official that you probably voted for, you’re wrong. What I have to say today goes far beyond just one elected official. What I have to say is about the over all trend that was put on display in Tuesday’s election results. Did you know, for instance, that on Tuesday several states voted by popular majority to legalize the recreational use of marijuana? Did you know that a plan to legalize physician assisted suicide was barely rejected in Massachusetts? Did you now that for the first time in our country’s history several states, by popular vote, chose to legalize gay marriage? Did you know that two of these states are run by Catholic governors who actively encouraged their constituents to vote in favor of same sex unions? Did you know that in Florida, a ban on tax payers funding of abortion was rejected by the people? Add to all of this the fact that some who were elected in Tuesday’s elections are pathological liars, people who have been exposed in their lies numerous times. Apparently, a majority of Americans now condone lying, or perhaps worse, for them the lie has become the truth, evil has become good. Now can you begin to see the trend? In the days after the elections all the talking heads in the media have been trying to explain how this all happened. But not one person in the mainstream media has gotten it right. You see, these election results are not about one party’s marketing advantage over another. Ultimately, they’re not about the appeal of one person over another, nor are they about one party being more up-to-date while the other is behind times. What we saw on Tuesday night IS about the moral decline of our nation. Tuesday’s voting results are a mere confirmation of a choice that a majority in this country made, some as far back as 50 years ago, to reject God and to embrace evil in one form or another! And who’s to blame for this choice? Well, ultimately, each individual is responsible for his or her choices. Those who chose to vote with evil are to blame for their own choices, and they all have to answer to God for the way they voted. But the reality is I don’t think any of us can take ourselves completely off the hook on this one. Why? Because one of the worst contributing factors to the moral decline of our country has been the lukewarmness that has plagued the Catholic Church for years all the way from the Bishops down to the people in the pews. Pope St. Pius X once said that “All evil in the world is due to lukewarm Catholics. Think about that for a second, All evil in the world is due to lukewarm Catholics.” Well, I have to be honest with you. I’ve seen this lukewarmness in every church parish at which I’ve served. But you know where else I see this lukewarmness? I see it when I look in the mirror; I see it in myself. And if we’re honest with ourselves I think all of us would see one or more area of lukewarmness in our own spiritual lives. My brothers and sisters, each one of us has a moral obligation to do all that we can to try to reverse the moral decline of our nation. And the first place that we have to begin is within ourselves. We have to begin by responding to that vocation which is common to all of us, what the Church calls the universal call to holiness, the call from Jesus to each one of us to become a saint! In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul says, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” How many of us, each day, tremble as we strive for holiness?! How many of us live with a lively fear of hell, a place that is real and a place where souls go for all eternity?! Or have we instead accepted mediocrity in our spiritual lives? ‘Oh, I’m too busy to pray Lord; I just don’t have the time… I’m too tired to pray; I’ll get to it tomorrow… Oh, I don’t like that teaching of the Church, I am not going to do that, who do they think they are coming up with this stuff… Well, I think I’ve done enough for God; what more do I have to do for Him…’ In one of His parables Jesus poses an important question that we would all do well to ask ourselves. “Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?” Well, what cost is Jesus talking about? He’s not giving construction advice to builders and contractors. The context of that Gospel is the cost of discipleship, what it costs to be a saint, ultimately what it costs us get to Heaven. But all too often we act as if that cost is cheap! ‘Well, I go to Mass on most Sundays. I’m a good person; I haven’t murdered anybody. Of course I’m going to Heaven!’ Jesus dealt with this kind of cheap discipleship in the Gospels when He said, “Not everyone who says to me -Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” On the day of judgment many will say to Jesus, ‘Well, didn’t we go to Mass fairly often on Sundays and didn’t we put some money in the collection basket? Didn’t we accept at least some of the Church’s teachings? Besides, as I said before, I’m a good person; I didn’t murder anybody.Then Jesus will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me you evildoers!” My brothers and sisters, in ordinary times lukewarmness in our approach to salvation is deadly. But we are not entering into ordinary times. We are not moving forward into ordinary times. There is a great battle brewing; in fact this battle is already upon us, a battle in our country between good and evil and I can feel this battle in the very marrow in my bones. If we are not striving for holiness with every fiber of our being we will not have what it takes to pay the cost of discipleship, we will not have what it takes to get to Heaven! As Jesus says near the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now and never will be. And if those days had not been shortened, no one would be saved…no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.” It’s clear from the trends that we see in Tuesday’s election results that people of faith in this country are going to be attacked relentlessly over and over again by one wave of evil after another. And so we must be sure that we have included these attacks in our calculations. A lukewarm faith will never survive the attacks of an army of evil that is Legion. We must become saints! And do not wait for tomorrow to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for tomorrow may be too late. Today let us resolve to root out all sin from our lives! Today let us resolves to remove all evil from our hearts! Today let us double our efforts at prayers! Today let us pray that Mary, the Mother of God, our Mother, will once again crush the head of Satan, and intercede for us the grace of perseverance! Today, let us resolve to take up our cross and be a disciple of Jesus Christ! Christ, who in the words of the Servant of God Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, “will restore within us moral indignation, Who will make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water!” The final message that I received from that gentleman’s call on Wednesday was that I need to stop preaching the way I do. I need to stop telling people how they ought to live their lives, what teachings of the Church they need to follow. “If he wants to support gay marriage I just need to shut up and give him a choice.” Well, sir, in answer to your request I give you a choice: You can either come here to this Catholic Church and listen to the Word of God and to the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church or you can leave and go somewhere else!

For the first time in 11 years, the sun set yesterday with the shadow of a cross spilling out into the Mojave Desert. After a long and bitter battle, the seven-foot veterans' memorial was finally back in its rightful place on Sunrise Rock. For the VFW, Liberty Institute, caretakers Henry and Wanda Sandoz, and everyone who fought to save the Mojave Desert Cross, it was the perfect way to celebrate Veterans' Day. Before a crowd of more than 100, supporters rededicated the cross to the memory of America 's fallen heroes. "Judges and lawyers may have played their roles," said Liberty attorney Hiram Sasser, "but it was the veterans who earned this memorial, and it is for them that it rises once more." For the legal team, the victory was a long time coming. In 2010, after nine years of defending the memorial in court, a majority of justices agreed to keep the cross on its remote patch of desert land. But before the Sandozes could reinstate the monument, it was stolen. Maybe the vandals thought hiding the cross could make it disappear from our collective consciences. They were wrong. Plans were soon under way for another memorial. In fact, no one knew what had become of the old cross until last week when the San Mateo County Sheriff's office was called to a property in San Francisco Bay--hundreds of miles away. There, police found the object of years of litigation tied to a fence post. The attached note asked someone to contact the authorities. Although the discovery meant that the caretakers could return the original to its hilltop home, they opted for a new cross and a fresh start. Today, it crowns Sunrise Rock--not unlike the millions of crosses marking graves across our nation, each one reminding us of the great sacrifices made on our behalf. On this Veterans Day, we honor the brave men and women across the generations who served, and the many who laid down their lives in America's noblest cause: freedom. It is because of them that we can lift high this cross--and all others.

Just a year after U.S. Catholics began using the new English translation of the Roman Missal at Masses, the bishops agreed November 13 to have work begin on a revision of the Liturgy of the Hours. By a vote of 189 to 41, with one abstention, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved beginning work on updates to hymns, psalms, various canticles, psalm prayers, some antiphons, biblical readings and other components of the liturgical prayers used at various parts of the day. Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans, chairman of the Committee on Divine Worship, said the work would probably take three to five years to complete. In presenting the request for a vote to the bishops, Archbishop Aymond said the aim of retranslation would be to more accurately reflect the original Latin texts. In all, the approval covered 23 different components of the Liturgy of the Hours. Actions to be taken range from incorporating psalms from the Revised Grail Psalter to having the International Commission on English in the Liturgy retranslate some antiphons, the updated proper of the saints and the "Te Deum," a traditional hymn of praise and thanksgiving for the gift of salvation in Christ. There were short discussions of the issue both when it was introduced November 12 and when the formal vote was taken. Among points raised by some bishops were Boston Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley's comment about "how pleased I am that the committee wants to revisit the Glory Be," because laypeople tend to use an older version than the bishops do.

Pope Benedict XVI called on people to never be satisfied with their earthly achievements because true happiness entails seeking out the greater good. He said people should "not be discouraged by fatigue or by obstacles born of our sins," because striving for the greater good is demanding and cannot be built or provided by mere human effort. During his general audience talk to some 20,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square, the pope spoke about "the mysterious desire for God," which lies deep in every human heart. Despite rampant secularization and people's claims of being indifferent to God, an innate yearning for God "has not completely disappeared and still today, in many ways, appears in the heart of mankind." People always strive for happiness and a well-being that is "often far from spiritual," and yet they are also aware there still remains a deeper yearning for something that could truly satisfy their "restless heart," he said. "Every wish that arises in the human heart is echoed by a fundamental desire that is never fully satisfied," he said. True love pushes people to think beyond themselves, to be at the service of the other up to the point of self-sacrifice, he said.

After California priest Father Thomas Baker finished a grueling triathlon in Hawaii, he acknowledged that parts of the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike race and a 26.2-mile marathon were tough. That's when, he said later, he "used the rosary, my mantras and the faces of all those praying for me to help me move forward." The 53-year-old pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Lancaster conquered a windy course in Kona, Hawaii, during the October 13 Ironman World Championship and crossed the finish line with a time of 13:33:36. Fellow 82-year-old competitor, Sister Madonna Buder, a member of the Sisters for Christian Community from Spokane -- and 20-year veteran of the Ironman World Championships -- thinks Father Baker is the first Catholic priest to cross the finish line in Kona. Since Ironman officials do not track that type of data they were not able to confirm it. Sister Buder qualified for Kona this year by completing in Ironman Canada in August, becoming the oldest woman to complete in an Ironman. The strong winds slowed her biking in Kona, however, and she was not able to make the bike cut-off time before the marathon segment of the competition began. The priest, who wrote in the parish bulletin about his experience, said the course was "trying because of the heat, humidity and wind, all of which I expected but which made the time slower than usual." But, he added, "I wasn't racing but enjoying the journey. Thank you for all your love, support and especially your prayers. ... What a blessing!"