COLORADO SPRINGS. Bishop James Golka will celebrate the annual diocesan Blue Mass on May 16 at 12:10 p.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral. The Mass is celebrated each year to show appreciation of the work done by law enforcement personnel, firefighters and first responders.

SECURITY. Father Terrence Gordon, a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter who served as parochial vicar at Immaculate Conception Parish in Security, died April 28 of an apparent heart attack. 

This month marks the eight-year anniversary of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter, “Laudato Si’” (On Care for Our Common Home).  When it was initially published in May 2015, it received both praise and criticism from Catholics and non-Catholics alike.  In a somewhat less politically polarized world than the one we are living in today, Francis’ plea for environmental consciousness and care became linked with partisanism.  Progressive, non-Catholics for whom much of the Church’s moral teaching is objectionable, nonetheless praised the letter, while some conservative Catholics took exception, mostly to what were regarded as critiques of capitalism. 

COLORADO SPRINGS. On April 19, a small but dedicated group of prayer warriors walked from Divine Redeemer Church to the Colorado Springs City Hall as an act of reparation for the state of abortion in Colorado.

As my time starts to wind down here in the diocese before taking on a new assignment overseas, I hope that these articles have been an encouragement to the reader, even a challenge, to embrace the gift of Sunday as the Lord’s Day — a day of worship, rest, and recreation. In the face of our culture’s worsening health, many Christians instinctively want to push back and “do something” about it. Setting Sunday apart for the Lord and his purposes is tantamount to an act of rebellion.