Though the weather has not been all that bad this winter, I am ready for spring to get here. I like my lemonade (or Arnold Palmer, which is half tea and half lemonade) as my drink of choice when I go out for a meal. I get frustrated when restaurants tell me, “We do not have lemonade during the winter,” and yet they have iced tea? I don’t get it, but so be it!

Discussions abound about “being Catholic first” — how our moral vision should judge partisan positions, not vice versa. Also essential for a Catholic view of politics is a sense of perspective, or “taking the long view.”

Doesn’t it seem like it was just yesterday when the world was watching the Cubs win the 2016 World Series in baseball over the Cleveland Indians? Now, here we are and the 2017 exhibition baseball season is already under way. All the great players are gathering with their major league teams and have started their drills, and preparation for “spring time” baseball.

The best Lent of my life involved getting up every day at 5:30 a.m., hiking for miles through ankle-twisting, cobblestoned city streets, dodging drivers for whom traffic laws were traffic suggestions, avoiding the chaos of transit strikes and other civic disturbances, and battling bureaucracies civil and ecclesiastical — all while 3,500 miles from home sweet home.

The Jan. 29 ecumenical event at the Chiara Center in Springfield — a Lutheran-Catholic event intended to begin a series of commemorations of the beginnings, in 1517, of what came to be called the Protestant Reformation — was very well attended, giving evidence that there is great interest locally in addressing the mandate, implicit in the fact that there is one Lord Jesus Christ, that Christians seek the unity which Jesus intends for his people. A planning meeting for further events will be held Thursday, March 2, 7 to 8:30 p.m., at Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Springfield.

You are only as good as the crowd you hang around.” I remember being told that by a guidance counselor at a school I attended. I probably didn’t want to hear those words of wisdom then, but now at 58, I have come to know how true these words are. In fact, I was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this column because of an experience I had while attending a recent funeral Mass in Quincy.

The sun rose this morning in dramatic flourishes of pink and orange. Never mind that later the clouds and the gray winter reasserted themselves as members of my family left for the airport.

I am grateful for the memory of standing in the front room with my youngest daughter and marveling at the stunning moment that was today’s brief sunrise.

On Jan. 22, approximately 300 clergy, religious and laity representing the seven deaneries and 129 parishes that make up the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois gathered in prayer with Bishop Thomas John Paprocki at our mother church, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield.

Q I belong to one of those parishes where the whole Mass stops for what feels like an hour during the Sign of Peace. What I want to know is, what does the General Instruction of the Roman Missal say is the proper way to do the Sign of Peace? Do you have to shake hands, or is polite nod acceptable? And was there talk a few years ago about changing when we do it during the Mass? It seems really disruptive where it is.

Abortion is the killing of an innocent infant in the womb of its mother. That is an incontrovertible fact. The growing child is not a disease to be cured nor a “tumor” to be excised. There is no biological doubt but that the fetus is a human person in development and for that reason pro-abortion supporters will not even argue the issue any more. The evidence is clear. If the developing embryo were not a human being in development, why would there be a need to kill it? Given enough time the child would exit the womb and enter the world, a crying boy or girl.

When I was a young woman, I went to the grocery store with my mom in the farm town where I grew up.

It was before the days of computerized cash registers that automatically revealed the amount of change due. You needed some rudimentary math skills back then to work at a store.

I was asked by a non-Catholic whether Pope Francis is a hypocrite because he won’t sell everything and give it all to the poor. I was not sure how to respond. Thoughts?

Hello. I feel like I should re-introduce myself to you as I have just finished my five-year term of service at Catholic Relief Services and now write to you in my status as “me” and not president and CEO, or dean, or professor or whatever titles I have held since starting my professional career in 1979. Yes, this is the big step: retirement.

Last fall the [Springfield] State Journal-Register ran a guest column by our Sister Teresa Marron, OP, in which she explained that our vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are “a prophetic witness against the abuse of money, sex, and power.”

Back in November, I let you know that there was some planning going on among Catholics and Lutherans in the Springfield area to commemorate the beginnings of the activity, five hundred years ago in Europe, which led to what is today called “the Protestant Reformation.”

Gold, frankincense and myrrh have never been under my tree. No one has ever given these gifts to me and I have not given them to others as a Christmas gift. They were the three symbolic gifts that the wise travelers laid at the manger as they honored Jesus as their Lord and Messiah.

I have made a commitment to offer the greeting “Merry Christmas” as many times a day as I can. I applaud the Knights of Columbus who have been strongly supporting this effort “to keep Christ in Christmas.” I do this with no disrespect to any person of another faith. I would hope that in the particular important dates of their respective faith, they would share these moments with me so that I may celebrate with them their faith, too.

Q I have a question about the readings throughout the year. Who decides on the selection of readings? What is the logic of the order? What are the cycles supposed to do? Help me to understand, because I seem to be missing the rationale for all of it.

The Wednesday after the presidential election was a very emotional day in America.

Like millions of others, I was up way too late on election night, waiting for results to be clear before heading to a sleepless bed.

In the morning, social media exploded. No matter how one voted, passions prevailed. People exulted or were despondent; people were euphoric, depressed, angry, at times, simultaneously.

In the past few weeks I’ve been asked to speak about loneliness in the elderly on numerous occasions. I was even quoted in a recent article by Catholic journalist Mary Rezac, entitled Our Elders Are Lonely — Do We Care? As we look forward to Christmas, let’s hope we can all say, “Of course we do!”

It was in the seminary that I truly began to realize how much I took some things for granted. I also learned once I left home that I probably had not been truly a “thankful” person for most of my early life. Certainly I said the word “thanks” enough. But did I really possess a spirit of gratitude? Probably not.

Pope Francis visited Sweden this past Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. He met with Lutheran leaders at a time in which all Christians must be attentive to the sad reality of division among Christians and eager to encourage the unity which Jesus intends.

On Oct. 31, 1517, the Augustinian monk and Scripture professor Martin Luther, of Wittenburg, Germany, sent 95 “theses” or debate topics to the Archbishop of Mainz. He may also have nailed a copy of these theses to a church door. There is no evidence that any debates on these topics actually took place. The date Oct. 31, 1517, is considered the beginning of what is now called the Protestant Reformation, which led to great brokenness within Western Christianity, as many felt compelled to leave the Catholic Church.

Recently I received an article written by Paula Rehkemper of St. Paul Parish in Highland, sharing with me their success story of a wonderful event hosted at their parish after the four weekend Masses. Paula and her husband Jerry, along with their parish stewardship committee — also made up of Michael and Mary Kay Durbin, Shannon and Dawn Autry, Deanna Harlan, Austin and Shari Meyer, and Eric and Heidi Kukowski — are St. Paul’s representatives who are a part of the diocesan efforts to help bring “Discipleship as a Way of Life” to our diocese and its 128 parishes.

I truly feel it is an exciting time to be a Catholic in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois. To be a part of the church’s invitation to create a “Total Stewardship/Discipleship Diocese” and to be a part of the Holy Spirit’s fire and tug has been wonderful. I am blessed and really feel the joy in this role of being director of Stewardship and Discipleship.

September is already in the rear-view mirror; still, I wish to reflect on an event, announced in this column, which occurred in Springfield on Aug. 25.  A large crowd gathered at Westminster Presbyterian Church to hear Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, a professor of New Testament at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, speak about our need to understand better the intertwined yet distinct traditions of Judaism and Christianity.

I visited with Bishop Eugene Gerber, bishop emeritus of the Diocese of Wichita a few weeks ago. I told him about our diocesan efforts to begin to encourage “Discipleship as a Way of Life” as has been the “way of life” in his diocese since the early 1980s. (Wichita is the only diocese which is 100 percent a total stewardship [discipleship] diocese in the United States.)

Each October we observe Respect Life Month in dioceses throughout the United States. Although ending abortion remains a priority of the utmost importance, threats to the disabled and those at the end of life deserve our attention as well. The legalization of medically assisted suicide in Canada in June should serve as a wake-up call compelling us to reach out in solidarity to our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.

Have you ever been to Kirchenfest? Every year on the fourth full weekend of August, St. Paul Parish in Highland opens their doors and hearts to an average, I once heard, of over 15,000 attendees for their weekend parish picnic. In German, “Kirchenfest” means church (kirchen) festival/picnic (fest). It is an amazing event filled with countless examples of “discipleship,” especially in the stewardship of time, but likewise in the stewardship of talent and treasure.

Numerous people around our diocese are reading Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell (Our Sunday Visitor, 2012). We are doing so upon the recommendation of Father Chuck Edwards, who is leading diocesan efforts in stewardship and discipleship.

After his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples: “Go … and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28: 19). The term disciple — learner — is to be preferred to any other description of a Christian. We are not passive recipients of our church’s pastoral care. We are active in our openness to being changed and formed by our union with God and, in particular, by our friendship with God the Son, Jesus, true God and true human, the Word upon which all disciples depend for salvation, identity, and peace.