To the Family Promise Staff, Volunteers and Board Members, Thank you so much for everything you have done for me and my family over the last six months. You have touched our lives in ways you will never know. When we came into this program, we were in a really bad time in our lives. I felt so low [and] broken. You guys helped me build myself back up. You gave all of us hope and peace of mind. Thank you for giving us what we needed and more. I will cherish the memories made and the lessons learned. You made me not only a better person, but a better parent. God bless all of you and everything you do for the families in this county that are in need. Thank you again!”

Everyone is invited to attend St. Mary's Lasagna Supper at St. Mary School on Saturday, January 25 from 4:30-7:30 p.m. There will also be a Silent Auction and classroom displays.

THANK YOU to everyone who supported the Scrip Push! The goal was $30,000 and $69,700.00 in Scrip was purchased! The St. Mary's students will enjoy a pizza and movie party hosted by the Home & School Association.

Thank you to everyone who generously gave donations for the flowers and decorations and to everyone who worked to make our church look beautiful during the Christmas season. We are deeply grateful for your support of our parish! God bless.

Thank you to everyone who generously gave donations for the flowers and decorations and to everyone who worked to make our church look beautiful during the Christmas season. We are deeply grateful for your support of our parish! God bless.

Thank you to everyone who generously gave donations for the flowers and decorations and to everyone who worked to make our church look beautiful during the Christmas season. We are deeply grateful for your support of our parish! God bless.

Thank you to everyone who generously gave donations for the flowers and decorations and to everyone who worked to make our church look beautiful during the Christmas season. We are deeply grateful for your support of our parish! God bless.

Thank you to everyone who generously gave donations for the flowers and decorations and to everyone who worked to make our churches look beautiful during the Christmas season. We are deeply grateful for your support of our parishes! God bless.

The 2025 St. Clement Parish calendars are here and can be picked up in the back of church. We wish to extend a big Thank You to Rita Schmitz and Katie Miles of Homeward Bound for once again supplying our calendars for us. This year’s calendars have been donated by them in memory of their dear husband and father, Greg Schmitz, co-owner of Homeward Bound. Greg was a fabulous man of faith, joy and love to family, friends and so generous in our parish and community. Thank You Rita and Katie for your generosity!

This week in our continuing series on evangelization tips, we’re talking about evangelizing Protestants with One Good Reason. While we certainly have a lot in common with our separated brethren, there’s a lot that makes us different too. We need to strive for genuine Catholic ecumenism … promoting unity among the world's Christian Churches. Here’s a quote from a document of the Second Vatican Council that helps describe how we should practically approach this ecumenism: “Catholics, in their ecumenical work, must assuredly be concerned for their separated brethren, praying for them, keeping them informed about the Church, making the first approaches toward them … But their primary duty is to make a careful and honest appraisal of whatever needs to be done in order that its life may bear witness more clearly and faithfully to the teachings and institutions which have come to it from Christ through the Apostles.” (Unitatis Redintegratio, Ch. 1, Par. 4) You might still be wondering, what does this ecuminism look like in everyday life, applying the One Good Reason technique? Here are two examples: Maybe you’d like to focus on the beauty, truth, and mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist. You could say something like, “One good reason I’m Catholic is that we have the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. During the words of consecration, we believe that He becomes present under the appearances of bread and wine. We then consume Him, which means His divine presence lives inside of us. Having Jesus in me keeps me on the path to heaven.” Or how about the sacrament of penance? Here, you might say something like the following: “One good reason I’m Catholic is that I can go to Confession. Jesus established this sacrament in John 20:23, saying to the apostles, ‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ He knew that we’d need to unload our transgressions to another human being, and hear the words of forgiveness … so he allowed the priest to stand in as a representative of Christ.” These are just a couple examples. However you approach it, just make sure to remain charitable without straying from the truth. This evangelization tip was brought to you by St. Paul Street Evangelization. Take our course One Good Reason for Protestants at evangelizationschool.com.

This week in our continuing series on evangelization tips, we’re talking about using the One Good Reason method to evangelize atheists. For our purposes, atheists are people who either say there is no God, or say they don’t know whether or not there’s a God. Here’s a refresher on the One Good Reason method: Listen. Start with questions and not arguments. Befriend. Search for common ground and try to relate to them. Make it personal. Share your struggles and let them know they’re not alone. One Good Reason. When the time is right, share your one good reason for (in this case) believing in God. Invite. Offer them to take the next step, whatever that may be. If they are open to listening to your one good reason for believing in God, let them know that God is the best and simplest explanation for so many things. God is, 1. The best explanation for why anything exists instead of nothing 2. The best explanation for why the universe began to exist 3. The best explanation for the fine-tuning of physics for intelligent life 4. The best explanation for our perception of of objective moral values and duties 5. The best explanation for religious experience, mystical experience, near death experience and miracles 6. The best explanation for why consciousness is not reducible to mere physical processes alone 7. The best explanation for the order and intelligibility of the universe 8. The best explanation for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the rise of Christian belief This is just scratching the surface of the topic, for you will need to study one or more of these areas to get any traction in a conversation. But these should at least get you started. This evangelization tip was brought to you by St. Paul Street Evangelization. For more information, take our course One Good Reason for Atheists at evangelizationschool.com.

This week in our continuing series on evangelization tips, we’re talking about how to evangelize Catholics that have fallen away from the faith. Many Catholics have fallen away completely from the practice of their faith, and a large number of them have done so primarily because of the recent clergy sex abuse scandals. How are we to handle such a difficult situation? We must remind them that from the days of the Apostles to present day, the church has faced scandals. While it is normal and reasonable to be outraged, what ultimately is the proper response to these scandals? The answer is to stay in the Church and fight. Why? Because the Church is the one true church established by God for our salvation. Also, because scandal doesn’t change the Church’s authority. The personal lives of the clergy and hierarchy might be scandalous, but that doesn’t affect the divine calling and authority of the Church herself. Think of democracy. Just because America has had some corrupt presidents and politicians doesn’t mean we should throw out the democratic process. We must gently remind the person we’re evangelizing that we’re not Catholic because of the current leadership, or lack thereof, but because Jesus established the Catholic Church. It may help to also add that when we love something, we don’t abandon it or desire to change it, but strive to help it. This evangelization tip was brought to you by St. Paul Street Evangelization. Take our course entitled One Good Reason for Catholics at evangelizationschool.com. © Copyright St. Paul Street Evangelization 2024

The upcoming Southwest Wisconsin CEW (Christian Experience Weekend) will be held at Immaculate Conception School in Kieler, WI. The women’s weekend will be February 14-16, 2025. The men’s weekend will be February 21-23, 2025. These weekends begin at 7:00 p.m. Friday and end on Sunday at approximately 4:30 pm. If you want to do something special for yourself, attend a CEW weekend. Application forms are available at www.swwicew.org or in some of the church entrances. For more information on the women’s weekend, call Patti Eggers at 608-574-6665. For the men’s weekend, call Jeff Schaefer at 608-778-9321. Weekends fill up fast. Applications will be taken on a first come first serve basis.

Thank you to everyone who worked to make our churches beautiful inside and out for Christmas. Thank you to all who gave donations for the flowers and decorations. We can be very proud of our beautiful churches. Thank you to everyone who has very generously supported our parishes throughout the year and at Christmastime. May God’s love and blessings be with you and your family in 2025! St. Mary’s School is deeply grateful to everyone for their very generous gifts to St. Mary’s teachers and staff. A special thank you to all the families who have participated in Family Faith Formation. It is such a blessing to watch the families share a meal, pray together, and grow in their faith. Thanks to our prayer warriors, snack providers and catechists who provide their time to help build God's Kingdom on Earth.

After Abortion, Find Hope Whether recent or long ago, the decision and experience maybe haunting your mind and heart. Find hope and healing by contacting Project Rachel for private consultation or by attending a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat. You don’t have to suffer anymore. Contact Mary 608-821-3177, rachel@madisondiocese.org or visit madisondiocese.org/rachel Confidentiality is assured.

Every parent has the serious responsibility of raising their children to love the Lord, and of making sure they do everything in their power to get them to heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the 'first heralds' for their children" (CCC 2225). A simple, but profound daily practice that parents can utilize is the daily blessing. You have spiritual authority over your children, and can call down God's blessing on them as often as you wish. This will leave them feeling safe, protected and loved. A parent can say one of the following brief blessings at basically any time, such as when a child is going to play or to school, or when the child is going to bed each night. The parent makes the sign of the cross on the child's forehead or heart and can say one of the following blessing options offered by the USCCB: May God bless you. May God keep you safe. God be with you. God be in your heart. May God bless and protect you. Or you can offer your own personally worded blessing. One of our staff members likes to say "May God bless you and keep you today and every day of your life." Either way, this practice will likely help your child live in peace, and may help ensure their practice of the faith down the road. This evangelization tip was brought to you by St. Paul Street Evangelization. To learn more or to enroll in our online classes, make sure to visit St. Paul School of Evangelization at evangelizationschool.com.

We invite you to find help through Retrouvaille, (ret-tro-vi), where husbands and wives are helped to re-discover each other. In Retrouvaille, couples discover they are not alone. There is hope and grace. Madison’s upcoming Retrouvaille program is January 31 – February 2, 2025 at the Green Lake Conference Center. Follow up sessions will be in Madison. Call (920) 369-8836 or check our website at www.helpourmarriage.org Your confidentiality is always respected.

St Mary’s School has teamed up with Hamann’s Helping Hands again this holiday season to help gathering gifts for children that are spending the holidays in the hospital. We will be collecting gifts until December 20.

This week in our continuing series on evangelization tips, we’ll be talking about how to evangelize your family. They say that the hardest people to share the Gospel with are members of your own family. For those of you who have tried, you likely know it’s all too true. Remember how Jesus’ own townsfolk treated him when He told them He was the son of God? They were the people that knew Him best, and they tried to throw Him off of a cliff! How do we approach this seemingly monumental task? Well-known Catholic apologist and pilgrimage guide Steve Ray has lots of experience with this topic. Over the years, he’s formulated seven rules to follow: 1. Don’t argue. Family members can get defensive very easily, and will only wind up putting up a wall. (If you do get into an argument or come across too strongly, make sure to apologize.) 2. Love them more than ever. As he puts it, “Love is an argument you can’t argue with.” When you love people, it disarms them. People will listen and engage with you because you love them. 3. Show the joy of the Lord. People are attracted to joyfulness. They often wonder “what do they have that I don’t have?” And that opens the door to sharing the faith. 4. Pray and make sacrifices. Nothing is more powerful than when we pray and fast. It will get God’s attention. When we pray with expectant faith, wonderful things will happen. 5. Study. Do your homework and be prepared for any objections that people may have to the Catholic faith. As scripture says, “Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you about the hope you have” (1 Pet. 3:15). 6. Patience. This can be a hard one for most of us. We must be patient and let God work. He is outside of time and works in the absolute best way possible, so we need to trust Him. 7. Ask God to Bring Someone Else into Their Life. This helps us admit that our family member(s) probably won’t listen to us. Use these common sense rules and God will help you, in one way or another, to bring your family back into the fold. This evangelization tip was brought to you by St. Paul Street Evangelization. Take our course on 7 Ways for Relating to Non-Catholic Family & Friends on evangelizationschool.com. © Copyright St. Paul Street Evangelization 2024

St. Mary's Home and School Association is sponsoring a Calendar Raffle for the month of January. Please contact the school office at 608-994-2435 if you are interested in purchasing a chance to win. All money must be turned in by December 20.