Your Sunday Sermon Notes

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17 Comments

  1. CantareAmantisEst says:

    Today also being Remembrance Day, one of my parish’s resident Dominican friars preached about both that and the day’s readings.

    He started off being saying that remembering the dead is a fruitful activity if we are actually also praying for their souls. But then he went on to say that the most important memorial we have is the memorial of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ — the Mass, where Christ Himself says, ‘do this in REMEMBRANCE of me’. Only in the memorial of the saving Passion can we make sense of the memorial of the dead, because there Christ conquers Death and gives us hope.

    Towards the end of the homily, he pointed out that Remembrance Day asks us whether there is anything worth giving up our lives for, and he went on to say that there should be two things: 1) In defence of another human life and 2) in defence of our Catholic faith. It is with this that he came back to today’s OF readings, of the two widows who gave all that they had, trusting in divine providence. Are we ourselves willing to give up our lives (whether literally or figuratively) for others, not stinging on what God has given us? We may not all die for our country, but with the little that we have to offer to God each day in our prayer, work, suffering and joy, it is enough for God to work wonders.

  2. Matt R says:

    Trust in the Lord, and be not afraid, even in the most troubling times for us.

  3. PhilipNeri says:

    I used the reading from Hebrews as a template for Christian generosity. . .Christ gave us his all!

    http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2012/11/give-from-your-poverty.html

    Fr. Philip Neri, OP

  4. Charivari Rob says:

    Had a nice conversation with Father after Mass as I drove him home (visiting priest).

    I had spent a few days earlier this week checking on family and witnessing relief efforts in hometown NJ (bad enough, but far from the worst-hit areas). Having seen desperate needs provided for, the readings (particularly Elijah – God ensuring that the jar never went empty) and Father’s homily really hit home for me this week.

  5. LisaP. says:

    Great visiting pastor, army vet, noted that the last three words of the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier could be written on the tombstone of any of us.

    “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”

  6. Vecchio di Londra says:

    Armistice Day. Church doors closed to latecomers, for a two-minute silence at 11am.

    A very moving Solemn (Latin) Mass for the Dead. Celebrant and two priests functioning as deacons, deep black vestments, altar stripped down, choir singing the Ordinary and Propers of a classic a capella Flemish 16th century Requiem.

    Sermon: Holy Mass is the bridge between life and the eternal, and an opportunity – and a command, particularly in November – to pray for dead souls, not just our families, but all dead souls. And in these days, particularly those who defended our country. Each generation can lift the previous one into heaven, by prayer.

    (A field of red poppies on display, worn on lapels by most massgoers.)

    The sermon included classic quotations from “For The Fallen”, by Laurence Binyon (b.1869, volunteered at the age of 46 as a hospital orderly on the Western Front in France in 1915, to aid dying soldiers).

    “Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
    Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
    There is music in the midst of desolation
    And a glory that shines upon our tears.”

    …and the more well-known lines:
    “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
    Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
    At the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them.”

    There’s usually no final hymn here (we have sung chant, responses and choral singing like the old-fashioned curmudgeons we are!), but today it was our National Anthem, dating from the 18c. It used to be the official end of every film show in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Now it’s embarrassing how many of us struggle with the words of the second verse.

    Personally, I like the robust v.3 (used to be v.2)
    “O Lord our God arise,
    Scatter her enemies
    And make them fall;
    Confound their politics,
    Frustrate their knavish tricks,
    On Thee our hopes we fix,
    God save us all!”

    Afterwards, there was a procession by cadet armed forces to lay wreaths in the War Memorial Chapel.

    And a magnificently-played organ postlude (Bach’s great, granite-chiselled Prelude and Fugue ‘St Anne’) to remind those who weren’t already chatting away after the exit of the clergy (when did that gabble-friendly custom start?) that the Germans whom we were fighting in defence of our realm also suffered terrible losses in WW1 and WW2 , and bore them bravely and stoically.

  7. r.j.sciurus says:

    Last week we actually heard the 4 letter word that begins with H. This week we heard the 6 letter one that begins with H and rhymes with “bear is sick.” We need to be prepared, bold and engage them to save them and others.

  8. Manhattan Trid says:

    A very beautiful sermon on the Holy Souls based on Newman’s “Dream of Gerontious”.

  9. jfk03 says:

    In the Byzantine churches, the Gospel for today is the parable of the good samaritan. Our UGCC parish also actively celebrates St. Martin’s day (Martinmas in the West), and also the feast of St. Theodore, abbott of the monastery of the Studios in Constantinople.

    The focus of the sermon was the Good Samaritan as a figure of Christ. The man robbed on the road descending from Jerusalem to Jericho was passed by representatives of the Mosaic law, the priest and the levite. Only the Samaritan, rejected by the Jewish faithful, came to his aid. The lesson involves more than an act of charity; it points to the new order of Christ’s kingdom. Martin of Tours is like the Samaritan. While still a catechumen, he performs a Christ-like act of charity to a naked beggar. Later in a dream he sees the beggar glorified.

    It is a great mystery.

  10. mike cliffson says:

    Neat tie-up twixt the widow with nowt for the foreseeable future but the dregs of oil and the bottom of the barrel of flour giving it to the prophet and trusting in divine providence ,the rich and bourgois( Fr just might have been referring indirectly to us in the congregation with a cupla word-pictures, perish the thought, ) putting into the temple collection box what they could easily spare then the widow putting in the two coins, ALL she had to live on, elaborated , no social security, etc in those times, Those two coins are Christ, giving his very life for our redemption on the cross, cut back to the temple, double edged sword to the marrow, Our Lord saw, only saw, that woman and KNEW her, knew her trust in God.
    Final bang, slowly and tellingly delivered:
    We think “Poor widow”. The Gospel words are “poor widow”. She wasn’t. She may have been a woman who was widowed and materially poor, but she was immensly ,and unbeatably, rich.

  11. deliberatejoy says:

    I tried to pay attention to the sermon; I really did. I didn’t succeed though, because I was too preoccupied with thanking God that my 15 year old daughter informed me earlier this week that she wants to take instruction in Catholicism. :)

  12. SWP says:

    Here in Northern Michigan, the opening day of hunting season, Nov. 15, is a day off from school. So our pastor opened his homily tongue in cheek when he quipped, “As you all know, this Thursday is an important day for the Church- I am referring of course to the feast of St. Albert the Great!” and everyone chuckled. He did a blessing over all the hunters from the Book of Blessings, and I had never seen that before.

  13. I must admit that for the purposes of the homily, I completely forgot about Veteran’s Day. Too caught up in preaching on the election & the need for conversion.

    http://www.acts24.com/blog/2012/11/11/decisions-consequences-a-fathers-reflection/

  14. SWP says:

    oh yeah- and he quoted Venerable Bede regarding the widow’s mite. We are meant to give our time over to Jesus, and allow him to use it as he has need.

  15. JonPatrick says:

    The Gospel for the Extraordinary form yesterday was the familiar parable about the sowing of wheat and subsequent sowing by an enemy of weeds. Weeds are a metaphor for sin. We all have some weeds along with the wheat, and even “bad” people have at least a a little wheat in their hearts. God does not judge us as good or bad just as the farmer does not pull out the weeds right away but waits for the crop to grow. We are given graces so that some of our weeds may be transformed to wheat.

    It made me think of the error of Calvinism where people are predestined to heaven or hell; in our faith we have the opportunity if we accept the graces we are given to grow in holiness.

    This sermon was in the context of a wonderful Missa Cantata at the Basilica in Lewiston ME.

  16. Bev says:

    Sunday sermon note: We got what we deserved in Obama’s win. Now suffer well the persecution; become a saint.

  17. PostCatholic says:

    Our minister transmitted the thoughts of a chaplain returning to the United States after a lengthy service in Afghanistan. The chaplain said that he prefers “redeemed violence” to “peace,” awkward though he admits the phrase is, as a more accurate way to think of the process of ending wars.

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