Your good news and your weekend sermon.

51 Comments

1. JoAnna says:

   9 January 2012 at 12:38 AM

   Our fourth child, Gabriel (born 11/26/11), was baptized last weekend (on 1/1/12)! It was a beautiful rite and a wonderful day.

   Fr. Sylvester made a thought-provoking point in his homily today. He asked if, like Herod, we were letting the fear of change to our current circumstances keep us from welcoming a child into our midst.
2. asperges says:

   9 January 2012 at 1:32 AM

   Dominican Rite, for the Holy Family: To consider why Our Lord should separate himself from his parents. He caused some anxiety to them, but was “about his Father’s business,” so this absence was not some childish whim. His discussions in the temple should not be seen as the beginning of his ministry: he would have respected his physical age (11) and not drawn attention to himself other than through his erudition.

   He was absent 3 days which could be said to reflect the three days between the Crucifixion and his eventual resurrection at which point he was restored also to his mother, whose suffering but her eventual joy of finding him again was a foretaste of what she would have to undergo for her son in the future. But other than this incident, in every other way Our Lord was “subditus” and a perfect model to them as a child.
3. jeffmcl says:

   9 January 2012 at 1:54 AM

   Our wonderful ICRSS priest gave a sermon which covered, inter alia, the sin of detraction. Father said many noteworthy things, among them: detraction typically begins with a eulogy; it is theft, because it steals a man’s reputation; particularly when committed against good Catholics, the sin is very serious because it destroys an image of God and a channel of grace for others. It was an excellent sermon, and may I say how blessed we are to have the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and how consistently impressed I am with the caliber of their canons.
4. pberginjr says:

   9 January 2012 at 2:39 AM

   Perhaps the best homily I’ve heard (live) in my life. A few points:
   – The Three Kings were powerful, very educated people and they fell down on their faces to worship Jesus, a baby they recognized to be a great king. Would we do the same?
   – The transition to the new translation has been good, thanks for your work.
   – This change is important, the new words are the right words.
   – For over forty years we’ve been using a deficient translation. Those who wrote it didn’t think we could understand it, they “dumbed it down” and we’ve all suffered for it.
   – We must make sure that our worship is focused on God and not ourselves.
   – The changes in vocabulary aren’t insignificant, people died for the word consubstantial (I fought back tears here), we must understand why these words are important to our faith.

   I think I’m going to up my donation this month and write a nice note.
5. pberginjr says:

   9 January 2012 at 2:42 AM

   I forgot the bit about how the new language elevates God to where he belongs, and humbles us to where we belong. “You might not like saying ‘Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault,” but we are simply pointing out what we all are: sinners”

   Really quite amazing!!
6. Hieromonk Gregory says:

   9 January 2012 at 3:29 AM

   I preached on the humble circumstances of the New Born King and the exalted status of the magi who came to worship Him as King, Prophet, and God. Mentioned that even from the Manger , tied up in tight bands, He nevertheless touched those who come to Him in Faith and Humility. Jumped over a number of years to see Him touch and heal the leper. Are we ready to imitate Him in our love for the poor and disfigured? When we do truly our worship is made incarnate with His Love.
7. RebelKnightCSA says:

   9 January 2012 at 3:30 AM

   I couldn’t go to Mass today – Dad got injured and I had to help him at home.

   But I can tell you I have a road trip to New England planned for MLK weekend. So there’s that. ;)
8. Phil_NL says:

   9 January 2012 at 3:35 AM

   Not our own PP who did it, and it showed.

   All focussed on the 3 kings, who represented all mankind, including references to the tradition of depicting them as belonging to different races. Now one can make a good homily out of it, obviously, and it is a main point of Epiphany. The problem is, I must have heard it at least 20 times in the last quarter century (in different parishes) with few variations.

   Add to this that the replacement priest has a tendency to be very focussed on the ”horziontal dimension” of the church – i.e. our relation to eachother – and rarely if ever speaks of our relation to God, and I’m writing this down as one of the homilies I was least receptive to. The priest means well, probably is holier than I, but he’s also a liberal (politically, and it shows), and it’s hard for me to listen with charity, especially if it’s a ‘same old, same old’ homily.
9. Supertradmum says:

   9 January 2012 at 4:32 AM

   Excellent homily on how love your family. The Feast of the Holy Family was observed and the priest talked about how to love. He said that the Church there, the Tridentine Catholic in Dublin, was the first place to start changing your family. Secondly, he lamented the fact that young people were missing, although I saw more youth among the crowd of 400 than I have seen in Masses for years. There were at least 40 young single men and about 20 young single women in their 20s and 30s. Good omen for the carrying on of the TLM. The priest did talk about the fact that most Irish families had some, if not many fallen away, members. He emphasized love and prayer. What is hard for my Irish friends is to let people go, as this relatively new phenomenon of more non-practicing Catholics than practicing in some areas is an adjustment. Those of us from Protestant or secular societies are a more used to the changes as we grew up with such. The priest was being both loving, pastoral and realistic, a hefty balance.
10. Rev. Michael Church says:

    9 January 2012 at 5:02 AM

    It was the Baptism of Our Lord on the Lutheran calendar. Our preacher — not me — talked about the heavens being “torn apart” in Mark’s version of the story, as a reminder both of the intensity of God’s love for us and — primarily — the durability of the bond with God created by baptism. This was especially good news, I think, to an assembly which included many people born under Communism, who had struggled both to claim their own faith and to understand the many difficult decisions faced by their parents and grandparents during the dark years.
11. DJPNicholls says:

    9 January 2012 at 5:18 AM

    Good news: I came back to university yesterday, so I can now start attending Mass in the Extraordinary Form again, and I may have the honour of being given the chance to learn how to serve the EF Mass.

    Sermon: After some background on the feast of the Epiphany (how it was first celebrated in the East, while we in the West celebrated on the 25th December until we adopted each other’s date), and some short reminiscences of Epiphany in Ireland when Father was growing up (it was, apparently, one of the only 2 days of the year on which they had turkey, the other being Christmas), the sermon was mostly about having Christ as both Friend and Saviour, and how He is a more constant Friend than any human friend. A little bit wooly, and not one of Father’s best sermons (he’s one of those priests not afraid to mention the Devil and the reality of sin, and even occasionally promotes Confession), but quite good all the same.

    Dan
12. bsjy says:

    9 January 2012 at 5:23 AM

    Fr. Tim Hepburn, vocations director for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, preached on Epiphany as the great light that, when turned on, changes everything, including the three great kings. He told a couple of stories of people in the parish who had their light “turned on” by somebody, one a man converted to the faith by the example of his fiance, another a lapsed Catholic brought back to the Church by his Protestant neighbor’s willingness to offer to take him. He told the faithful they could be the light. He reassured the faithful that God would meet us where he finds us, noting that the three kings were astrologers. So God gave them a star to follow until they could meet the Light and be changed forever.

    Fr. Tim is a great priest, with a wonderfully accessible approach to preaching. As chaplain to Georgia Tech, he preached on the formula that leads to Christ — surely a modern analogy to the gift of tongues on Pentecost such that the Medes and Syrians could hear the Gospel in their own languages.

    With men like Tim Hepburn as active priests serving the children of God, we can be confident of more strong and faithful men responding to the voice of God calling them to feed his sheep.
13. Tonia says:

    9 January 2012 at 5:29 AM

    Our AP wore a magnificent ivory chasuble with gold embroidery and had a new altar server with him (possibly a seminarian). The reverence of both priest and altar server was inspiring and our 2 boys (9 and 11) were better behaved than I’ve ever known them to be at Mass.

    Father preached about 3 groups of people in the gospel (for the Epiphany) and their differing reactions to the birth of Christ, the anger and hatred of Herod, the indifference of the Jewish leaders and the adoration of the magi. He asked us to consider our own response.
14. xsosdid says:

    9 January 2012 at 6:30 AM

    My eldest boy (18yrs) has applied to enter the seminary this fall. He has already spent a “Come and see” weekend there and is really looking forward to it. My daughter’s (12 yrs) Indoor soccer team, that I coach, beat their arch rivals over the break whom they’ve never beaten before and my girl got the game winner!

    The sermon was about the magi and how they were the first indication that Jesus was here for the gentiles as well as the jews. It was good.
15. PostCatholic says:

    9 January 2012 at 6:44 AM

    Our sermon was on “Spiritual Freedom” and made mention of martyrs like Ferenc David. I don’t think you’d have enjoyed it.
16. InfiniteGrace says:

    9 January 2012 at 6:48 AM

    We are finding with the new translation that our daughter is pestering us during Mass for definitions of all if the new words she is hearing! I think we need to prepare a study guide ahead of time for her. The youngest is currently leaning prayers in school which she feigns she doesn’t know at home. But we heard her tiny voice this weekend during the Our Father. It was fantastic.
17. DomesticaEcclesia says:

    9 January 2012 at 6:57 AM

    Mostly Father kind of wanders from one thought to the next, but he did say one thing in his homily that caught me. He said, “Jesus wasn’t born to live. He was born to die. He was already living.” Having given birth four times, a birth is always a celebration of a life, and usually a new life full of hope and potential with endless possibilities for the imagination. And we, as human beings, spend a lot of time concerned with living: living comfortably, living happily, living healthily, etc. It kind of blew my mind that a newborn baby could/would be looked at in terms of his death, even knowing that the manger would eventually lead to the cross.
18. Darren says:

    9 January 2012 at 6:58 AM

    I made the slightly-over-an-hour trip to Mater Ecclesiae yesterday morning and heard a wonder homily on the Holy Family by Fr. Pasley. He not only spoke on how Jesus was subject to Mary & Joseph, the divine subjecting Himself to two human beings… …but talked at length on how the attack on the family in our society is leading to so many breakdowns in society in general, beyond the family. Parents telling their children that they don’t have to believe what the priests are telling them, and how a home without Christ becomes a home a crumbling. I have to admit, I have seen the fruits of all this all too much. I don’t want to go on and butcher a great homily – but I am very happy to have been there yesterday morning, for a beautiful EF mass, and a great homily.

    I also have to add, that I stopped at a Chinese buffet for lunch on Saturday. My fortune cookie fortune read, “God will help you through all of your problems”. Quite different from others, such as “The rubber bands are flying in the right direction”!
19. Suburbanbanshee says:

    9 January 2012 at 7:03 AM

    I don’t think we had a homily, per se, although it’s possible I was just too sleepy to remember it. We did have the Confirmation and First Communion of a man being deployed to Afghanistan at the end of the week, and his young son was allowed to receive Baptism and those same Sacraments also. (I suppose the announcement by Father of what was going on and why, did count as an edifying homily, because people didn’t do any restless rustling during the whole process.)

    The kid’s religious Ed. class came over to Mass for the occasion, which was nice, and the teacher instructed the kids well on going in and out, which was nice; but apparently it slipped her mind the whole time that we kneel to the tabernacle. (Which the kids were sitting directly in front of, and passed both going in and out.) I’m really starting to think that we need to make up some tabernacle altar frontals that say “Kneel.”
20. Suburbanbanshee says:

    9 January 2012 at 7:08 AM

    Btw, do bishops specifically give permission to priests to perform specific Confirmations, or something like that? Because somebody was talking about how it only took a week to get permission from the Archdiocese for all these Sacraments — but I would have thought that was a pastor’s place to judge, and that our pastor had permission all the time to do Confirmations when the archbishop or the auxiliary can’t come up. (And I’m assuming nobody is micromanaging when pastors choose to Baptize or give First Communions.)
21. NoTambourines says:

    9 January 2012 at 7:13 AM

    Our pastor’s question this week: Are we preaching our faith, or the surrounding culture?

    The theme of his sermon was the separation of church and state. He didn’t name any one policy issue outright, perhaps wanting to lay out broader principles and plant little seeds of thought as parishioners encounter various issues in the news.

    But he noted that the separation of church from state protects the church from having to make compromises with the state for the sake of politics, noting that the state can, in turn, use the church to its own ends, as Herod tried to use the Magi to get at Jesus. Herod went on, he observed, to slaughter the Holy Innocents on his own.

    It was an unusual sermon for that priest, who usually ties in some worthy bit of reading or the like to amplify some point from the day’s readings, but things in the world are getting pretty unusual themselves.
22. JenB says:

    9 January 2012 at 7:19 AM

    This wasn’t in the homily, but rather my pastors plea during announcements. He begged us (literally) to take a day off of work and join the parish for the Walk for Life in DC. He took ten minutes of “our time” to talk about how important it is, and how the sacrifice of one day’s work might be worth it.
23. NoTambourines says:

    9 January 2012 at 7:24 AM

    Oh, and good news:

    For the parish, a major financial milestone.

    For me a job interview in a couple of weeks. Could be a major upgrade, professionally and in terms of quality of life, but thanks be to God that I’ll be okay either way.
24. CJD89 says:

    9 January 2012 at 7:50 AM

    Almighty God has blessed the parishioners of St. Matthew’s and me abundantly with Fr. Hewes. He always gives a fantastic homily at the 9am (TLM). My soul rings out with joy as I listen to his poetic maxims, quotations of the Church Fathers and his wonderful insights on the Gospel. He is able to make the history of the Church something that needs to be revered and honored; a tradition of true nobility and esteem rather than something that should be forgotten and deemed irrelevant. With Fr. Hewes one receives a true liberal arts education in the purest and highest regard.

    Speaking about the Holy Family at Holy Mass, he spoke in such a way that I thought I was with St. Luke listening to the Blessed Virgin giving her account of the Finding of Christ in the Temple. Every Sunday I go home and my family waits to hear about how Holy Mass was. The beauty of the Extraordinary Form is that the homily is the gravy, the music is the potatoes on the side, yet the Mass itself is the meat to feast upon!

    Dare I say: I like my Mass in Latin and my meat well done!
25. Frank H says:

    9 January 2012 at 7:56 AM

    Solid homily on the Epiphany from our young, traditional parochial vicar, with some commentary on the impact of the transferring the feast to Sunday, thus disconnecting it from the “Twelve Days of Christmas”. He noted that last year we had 8 days of Christmas, and this year we have 14. He also got in a little shot at the phenomenon of “Ascension Thursday Sunday”. I bet he reads this blog!
26. thickmick says:

    9 January 2012 at 8:01 AM

    Fr. Cullen focused on the phrase “and he was subjected to them” in the gospel reading. Our Lord and Savior, King and Creator of all, still had to obey his parents when they told him to wash behind his ears or wear an extra sweater because it was cold outside. It was a wonderful lesson for my 5 yr old; If God had to do it, then you darn well have to also.
27. Allan S. says:

    9 January 2012 at 8:08 AM

    The good news is that the below remarks from Sunday are becomming less common:

    From Sunday’s homily:

    “Let us pray that the Church will reconcile itself to be more accepting of all people, especially those who have divorced and remarried, those who choose to live in common law relationships because they do not wish to go through the expense of a wedding, and those in committed, loving same-sex relationships.”

    And at the end of Mass, we were dismissed thusly:

    “You know, this new Mass [translation] is simply AWFUL.”

    Reason for S.P. #…(what number are we up to now…?)
28. Cassie says:

    9 January 2012 at 8:15 AM

    Went to confession Saturday for the first time in over a month (I usually go 2x/month but hadn’t been since the first week of Advent) and God spoke beautiful things to me through my confessor. It strengthened my already sincere belief that, in the confessional, the priest is absolutely, without a doubt, acting in persona Christi. It also drove home the fact that this truly IS a sacrament of healing. I pray that more people avail themselves of this beautiful sacrament. Our parish priests, God bless them both, certainly make the sacrament readily and easily available. A prayer of thanksgiving to God for our good, holy priests!
29. HyacinthClare says:

    9 January 2012 at 8:36 AM

    It wasn’t our sermon at church, it was a sermon preached by Blessed John Henry Newman. He was talking about Jeremiah particularly, and said that all God’s prophets and most of His servants looked back on their lives and felt like they had accomplished nothing, that no one was improved or saved by their obedience. But they’re saints rather than depressed people because they accepted the reality and planted their hopes in the next life rather than this one. It was a very comforting word after a day of disappointments.
30. rhhenry says:

    9 January 2012 at 8:58 AM

    Basic idea: a star led the Magi; what is leading us? Addiction? Egotism? Fear? Money? Let us instead pray to be led by the Holy Spirit.

    Young priest (less than a year after ordination). Homily may be a standard, “go-to” theme (I don’t know), but I, at least, had not heard something like that in a while, if ever.
31. antipodeantony says:

    9 January 2012 at 9:10 AM

    From Fr Duncan Wong FSSP at Maternal Heart of Mary Traditional Latin Mass Community in Sydney NSW Australia on Holy Family Sunday:

    Basic thrust was that men need to follow the example of St Joseph and become men again by leading their families in both spiritual and temporal matters. Fathers need to be seen holding rosary beads and leading prayer as well as teaching their children basic chores like growing a vegetable garden and changing light bulbs that most children arent’ taught any more.

    Children need to respect the authority of their parents and while under their guardianship obey them. When the children grow up they may disagree with their parents but politely and respectfully and parents must not seek to micromanage the lives of their adult children especially in terms of the rearing of grandchildren. They must realise that they have a role, but as grandparents, not parents.
32. gloriainexcelsis says:

    9 January 2012 at 9:31 AM

    Since commenting on my grand-daughter’s Baptism & daughter’s reception of Holy Communion for the first time in forty years – there is more good news. Grand-daughter arrived in Florence, Italy, a couple of days later. She is there for a between-terms education (her second minor) class with Chapman U in Orange, CA. She texted her mother that she would be attending traditional Latin Mass at the Duomo on Sunday.

    Father’s homily was excellent as usual for the Feast of the Holy Family. One thing he emphasized was that marriage is the basis of society and that marriage came BEFORE any state or government was instituted.

    On the back of our weekly bulletin was a reflection after the thought of Dom Gueranger. The last paragraph quoted from Luke 2:51-52 and ended: “However brief this sacred text, it offers us the luminous vision of order and peace in the authority, submission, dependence and mutual relations within the Holy Family. The holy home of Nazareth thus offers us the perfect model of the Christian home.”
33. kjmacarthur says:

    9 January 2012 at 9:43 AM

    Our good news and our Sunday homily were the same thing. At Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, we heard the first homily of Fr. Steenson since he was named to be the Ordinary of The US Anglican Ordinariate. His remarks were humble and very encouraging. He connected the readings, especially Ephesians, in respect of the extension of the Covenant to the gentiles, to the evangelical aspect of the Ordinariate.
34. digdigby says:

    9 January 2012 at 10:07 AM

    re DomesticaEcclesia:
    I remember reading that a manger is similar to a stone crypt and that the spices brought as gifts were also what were used to embalm the dead. I had the same insight that you had but it came in a visceral, visual way.

    I am too deaf to hear the homilies so I am drawn to the ‘sermons in stone’ of my beautiful traditional oratory. My ‘line of sight’ incorporated the open arms and welcoming hands
    of our Sacred Heart statue, the exact same open arms and hands of the infant in our Nativity scene and (with a shock of understanding) – the ‘open arms’ of Christ Crucified central to our 50 foot high altar. Those crucified arms open to receive you and I ….words fail me.
35. pookiesmom says:

    9 January 2012 at 11:01 AM

    So blessed with now 2 FSSP priests to serve our fledgling parish. Our wonderful pastor delivered a stirring defense of the family to commemorate the Feast of the Holy Family–our wonderful “Catholic” governor just endorsed last Thurs. the legalization of unnatural unions as “marriage”–could she along with our two women US Senators also Catholic just be publicly excommunicated already!
36. irishgirl says:

    9 January 2012 at 11:10 AM

    The young priest at our small TLM chapel preached about the Rosary, and the necessity in praying it to remember (and imitate) the life and virtues of Our Lord. He started with a story from the life of Blessed Alan de la Roche, who had a vision of Our Lord in the Host at Mass. He told Alan, ‘You are crucifying Me all over again!’ Shocked, he asked Our Lord what He meant; and He said, ‘Because you are not preaching My Rosary (notice He said, ‘My Rosary’ and not, ‘My Mother’s Rosary’).
    Father also made mention of the life of the Holy Family, since the Mass was for that Feast.
    Good news: last Friday, January 6, besides being the Feast of the Epiphany, was the 600th anniversary of the birth of one of my favorite Saints, Saint Joan of Arc. In the morning, I prayed a Chaplet of Saint Joan in front of an icon I have of her, plus two Litanies. Then, on the way home, I stopped at the local Panera’s and bought three cookies (there were no brioches or eclairs, sorry to say), and I had one of them for dessert in Saint Joan’s honor.
    And…..I was so happy that ‘my Giants’ AND Tim Tebow’s Denver Broncos won their playoff games yesterday! I heard the winning touchdown of the Steelers-Broncos game on the radio, and I cheered and hollered, ‘IT’S TEBOW TIME!’ What a great win! Now if they can do the same thing against Tom Brady and New England next week, that would be even more incredible!
    Interesting stat: know what Tebow’s passing yardage was? 315 yards….as in St. John 3:15 ….’God so loved the world….’…..pretty cool….
37. Maggie says:

    9 January 2012 at 11:46 AM

    I received some great news this week! My pastor is retiring this summer, and I was terribly concerned that given the priest shortage in the diocese after Father’s retirement we would end up with an angry pantsuit-wearing-nun “parish director” and only have a sacramental priest at week-ends. But a priest friend of mine who is quite close to the bishop reassured me that that will not be the case; he is quite certain we will be assigned a new priest. I am much less worried now about Father’s retirement.
38. MyBrokenFiat says:

    9 January 2012 at 11:53 AM

    Sermon was both beautiful and heartbreaking this weekend.

    Having gone back to Philly to hear how they’d handle the massive blow we got on the Epiphany (double ow), I was pleasantly surprised.

    The young priest gave a beautiful sermon on the 3 Kings. Yes, he explained it in the “same old” terms of “they represent all humanity” but more importantly, he expressed God’s all-encompassing love that beckons ALL of humanity to come and recognize His Love for us. God is the God of ALL, regardless of where they’re from or what they believe. God loves ALL of us and wants to reveal Himself to each of us.

    Also, since we’re going through such a dark time in Philadelphia, he reminded us to keep an eye on Christ, the true light, who would undoubtedly lead us into the place we’re meant to be. The Wise Men, too, were confused and baffled as they went from town to town following the Star. People treated them as fools because they didn’t believe in their “celestial talk.”

    Just as we’re now wandering around, being ridiculed and seeing a severe blindness in those around us to the beauty of our faith, it is God who leads us.

    As for the closings, just as the wise men were united around the Christ-Child, we too must understand that we don’t unite around schools or parishes… we unite around the God those places honor.
39. teomatteo says:

    9 January 2012 at 12:56 PM

    Sermon for the Holy Family. The priest said that holiness isnt just about getting your family to mass on sundays but its about being holy in those areas that no one sees. Our holiness is infectious within our family and the world. But it involves every thought and deed, seen and unseen. Its what our children/spouse need, its what our God expects. Thats what he said. That needed to be said. For me.
40. Justin_Kolodziej says:

    9 January 2012 at 1:10 PM

    I don’t know if it was “good”. Father preached about how wonderful the armless guitar player is for overcoming his handicap, and we are all handicapped in some way (original sin was not one of the ways mentioned), and we can do anything if we remember to ask for God’s grace first. Semi-Pelagian at best?

    The good news? Events are forcing me to realize I have zero charity, and that is better than thinking one has charity when one doesn’t because now I can pray for the gift described in 1 Corinthians 13.
41. irishgirl says:

    9 January 2012 at 1:29 PM

    Oh, duh….I meant ‘316 yards’ and ‘John 3:16’….not 315 and 3:15.
    Sigh…I think I’m ‘losing it’ mentally…..
42. mc mike says:

    9 January 2012 at 1:53 PM

    Our Sunday was quite profound. Since the introduction of the new translation in our OF parish, Fr has taken the opportunity to sing most of the mass. He used to do this as well, but now almost all of the peoples responses are sung. Also we have made a move to elimate the “closing hymn” and instead tried a marian antiphon followed by a classical piece of music. Excellent all around. But of course so much change in a short period of time is confusing for people, be it positive change towards a better liturgical practice, or the arbitray change of creativity.

    After the mass, a few of us stood around and discussed it all, and were able to draw out each others objections. The people who did not like the changes, were mostly offended by the fact of it being changed, not necessarily the actual change itself. We will now be providing people with more education and resources.

    This was a moment for me to reflect on how much knowledge some of us have about the Church and her Liturgy, and yet we often don’t take the opportunities to share it with others.
43. JohnE says:

    9 January 2012 at 2:31 PM

    In Father’s homily he said that we too can be stars that lead others to Christ and give others hope. We often don’t realize how much good our small acts of kindness can be to each other.
44. JohnE says:

    9 January 2012 at 2:39 PM

    Oh no, irishgirl. I truly admire Tebow and his courage in sharing his faith, but I think he is a little over-hyped as a quarterback, as he himself would humbly admit. Now people will add scripture interpretations to his game stats?! I guess it beats fortune cookies! ;-)
45. irishgirl says:

    9 January 2012 at 2:58 PM

    JohnE-oh, no, it was coincidence that Tebow’s total passng yards were the same number as the Scripture verse.
    Anyway, I was happy for him and that the Broncos won….and yes, he is a humble man. Only wish he was a Catholic….
46. AvantiBev says:

    9 January 2012 at 3:36 PM

    JohnE and Irishgirl: “Coincidence” is God acting anonymously. This morning when the yardage stat was released John 3;16 was THE most Google search item. San Francesco d’Assisi said we were to preach the Gospel always, use words if we have to. Tebow’s behavior and manner on and off field does that moreover, in a sport and greater culture where “manly” has come to mean cussing, womanizing, siring out-of-wedlock children and fighting our best friends of the animal kingdom to their death.
    AND his manner of Christian manliness reflects so well on his mom and dad another tie in with the Feast of the Holy Family.
    Our sermon on Sunday was about St. Joseph and the need for fathers and husbands in our broken society.
47. Charivari Rob says:

    9 January 2012 at 3:48 PM

    Doubled up on good preaching this weekend.

    At a funeral on Saturday, the pastor preached along the lines of When you die, where will you go? There are only two possible answers. We can’t answer that question “someday”, we must make our answer today and each day that we live. Came back to that theme at the end to remind us that it’s to the Almighty Himself that we must answer.

    Sunday, Father preached on the Light of the World. Made an interesting point about human inventions and achievements that brought light (or sent new light) – Edison’s lightbulb, Hoover Dam (electricity for light), and Apollo 11’s transmissions from the Moon Landing (sending images from another world). Each of those came in the fullness of time (measured in the scale of the human scientists and engineers). God’s own Light, too, came to us in the fullness of time, also reminding us that our judgment, our perception (of “fullness”) is not on a par with God’s.
    Went nicely hand-in-hand with the offertory hymn. Blanking on the title now, but one of the later verses reminds us that [God’s Grace] comes “…not by built things” or “not by man’s light”
48. Mary Jane says:

    9 January 2012 at 4:27 PM

    Homily was on the 3 kings, and how they searched for Christ as pagans but left (after having found them) as Christians.

    Good news: teeth cleaning appointment last week went fine (no cavities), our polyphony choir is beginning rehearsals for singing on February 2nd, and, last but not least, ribs are on the menu for dinner!
49. philologus says:

    9 January 2012 at 5:21 PM

    Rev. Philip Altavilla, VG of the Diocese of Scranton, gave a brilliant homily on Saturday evening in St. Peter’s Cathedral. The main point of emphasis was the different route taken by the Magi after they had encountered the Christ child. They were changed men afterwards. We too ought to allow ourselves to be changed after encountering Christ. After all, he said, that’s why we come to Mass – to be changed for the better.
50. tioedong says:

    9 January 2012 at 5:42 PM

    Eight Million pilgrims attended the Black Nazarene processions and masses in Manila…no deaths and no terrorist bombs, thank God.
51. Genna says:

    10 January 2012 at 1:37 PM

    For OF Epiphany Sunday (UK) we got the Battle of Marathon. No, I don’t know why, either.

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