Let me begin with a short walk down memory lane. Growing up Catholic in Stevens Point, I was well acclimated to the diocesan tradition of an annual mission appeal. Among my early memories of going to weekend Mass was being part of the congregation when foreigners came to make appeal for their mission. Foreigners needs to be explained here just a little more. As a child, any priest who was not my Pastor was a foreigner to me.

These days of August inspires some of us to think about preparing for school and others to recall memories of school days gone by. One of the phrases we tossed around was also used by students whom I taught at McDonell Central Catholic High School. Often the phrase was used in reference to some sort of contest, competition or other challenging situations. Perhaps the phrase is familiar to you: Its not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog! At the risk of stating the obvious, the phrase really helps us be mindful of will-power, determination and all-around internal strength.

Recent scuttlebutt in the media has provided coverage about exotic animals being killed and some efforts to prevent those actions. We have also heard, of more important value, about the unfortunate choices of Planned Parenthood, which did some rather nasty things with aborted babies all under the cover of improving human health. I hope you, like many other people of good will, found the paradox in these stories and have made choices to defend life; especially human life. As Catholics we have consistently taken the approach that all human life has value in all of its stages. Our phrase is: from conception through natural death. So, of course, the protection of innocent life, particularly the unborn, is of utmost concern. There is, however, a lot more lives to consider when thinking about the disabled, the handicapped, the elderly, the homebound, the hospitalized and the dying, just to categorize a few.

Devotion to the Blessed Mother will help understand the fourth Glorious mystery: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. This mystery allows us to ponder the magnitude of spiritual favors our Lady received through the very end of her life. We profess, of course, that when her earthly life was finished, she was assumed body and soul into heaven. That explains why there is no tomb of Saint Mary to be venerated. That also explains the hope we all have to be united with her son forever in eternity.

Bulletin articles around the nation continue to be published about current topics like religious liberty, Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to our nation, youth summer activities, same-sex marriage and the like.

Here, however, I’m taking a very different approach and writing about money. The national and world economy (Greece) have little to do with my inspiration, I’m just thinking I’d consider inviting you to have a conversation with some of the elder Catholics among us and having a conversation with yourself regarding your charitable support. Its worth mentioning that there was an envelope in your packet inviting support for The Catholic Times, we added envelopes for Energy Assistance for our facilities, we are in the midst of a matching grant program for Tuition Assistance for our Catholic School, the Diocesan Annual Appeal is coming soon, and each of our parishes now has major fundraisers in the annual calendar. And, unfortunately, money does influence our future.