Your Sunday and Holy Day Sermon Notes

What were the good points you heard in the sermons for the Holy Day and for the 2nd Sunday of Advent?

Let us know!

 

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38 Comments

  1. pinoytraddie says:

    Fr Jojo Zerrudo,(Pastor of Holy Family Parish,Quezon City,Philippines)Preached About the Immaculate Conception and a Bill filed in the Philippines that Mandates Government to do An HHS Mandate(a.k.a: RH Bill) (http://senseofthesacred.blogspot.com).

    Here are the Points of His Sermon:

    On President Aquino’s Pressuring of Congressmen to Support the Bill in a Private Dinner last week: “I don’t Think Cory Aquino should be a Saint(His MOTHER),It would make her Bastard Son Proud”.

    On a Politician’s Dismissal of Prayer Crusade for the Enlightenment of Pro-RH Politicians: “Who taught you to pray Mr Senator? The Church”.

    On the Scientist’s Assertion that Life Comes from Evolution: “Where is the Missing Link? God IS the Missing Link”.

    He even Mentioned Two Deceased Monsignors’ contribution to the Old Tagalog Translation of the OF Missal(one of whom was a TLM Celebrant and Close Friend of His):This Translation has the “Domine Non Sum Dignus” Right because Communion is NOT for the Purification of Body,but for the Soul”.

    P.S Please pray for My Country. Congress has chosen December 12(Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe) as the Day to Pass the RH Bill. Thanks!!!

  2. StWinefride says:

    Due to heavy snow, this is one family who will not venture out to Sunday Mass. We look forward therefore very much to Fr Z’s reader’s to fill us in!

    Yesterday 8th December, was the 5th anniversary of the publication by the Congregation for the Clergy – of the beautiful document entitled:

    “Adoration, Reparation, Spiritual Motherhood for Priests”.

    http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2008-01/25-13/Adoration.pdf

    A Blessed Sunday to all.

  3. Phil_NL says:

    Didn’t make it to Mass (pretty nasty cold), but – purely by accident – tuned in to the Mass broadcast on Dutch TV, to find myself halfway in s sermon given by Bp. Punt (of Haarlem-Amsterdam). And he was actually preaching on the last four things! Which is something very uncustomary for a Dutch sermon, even among (otherwise) solid and good priests. And now a bishop was doing it on national TV!
    Our new set of bishops is clearly a change for the better, slowly but surely.

    (On the flip side, the vestments – while undoubtedly valuable, lots of gold thread – were hideous, and the new altar that was consacrated in the same Mass not much better. But let that take a backseat today)

  4. a catechist says:

    For the Immaculate Conception, our new priest (ordained this summer) preached in the OF that the IC is a dogma, so Catholics must believe it. He went on to strongly proclaim the holiness of the Church herself, although individual members may sin. Ended with the promise of Christ that the gates of hell will not prevail against her, and Mary’s sinlessness is a sign of the Church’s victory in Christ. Right after he said “dogma”, the older gentleman sitting behind me said, “Wow.”

  5. Supertradmum says:

    The priest at St. Kevin’s made an excellent point that people prepare for Easter with Confession because of Church law, but forget that they should be preparing for Christmas by going to Confession. He also stressed one of my favourite themes, that we must be objective about our own selves and make realistic examinations of conscience. The difficulty, he stressed, was that it was too easy to lie to one’s self about sin and not face the sins which we need to face. Father also noted that in the particular judgement, we shall see our sins and condemn ourselves, so why not deal with those sins now instead of endangering our salvation. Great sermon. To underline the point, there were two priests in the Confessional boxes, until all who wanted to go. St. Kevin’s is one of the few places, like the Clarendon Street Carmelite Church, which offers Confession right up to, or in the case of St. Kevin’s even during Mass.

  6. Supertradmum says:

    sorry left out went…obviously.

  7. acardnal says:

    The TLM/EF gospel for the 2nd Sunday of Advent is Mt. 11: 2-10. It is about St. John the Baptist in prison. Father made a good point during his homily that I don’t think ever occurred to me before: John the Baptist was in prison not because he was a follower of Jesus but because he was defending the sanctity of marriage. King Herod had committed adultery with his brother’s wife! So now John would lose his head. From that starting point Father expounded further on our current society and its approbation of homosexual sin and the end times.

  8. Lepidus says:

    Got lucky and had our assistant priest from India on the Holy Day. He’s a religious order priest. Told a story about being in the seminary and was lucky if he could call home once a month. When he was ordained, his mother bought him a cell phone and told him to call her everyday. Then, he said God gave us the rosary as our cell phone and we should call our Mother everyday as well.

  9. Joseph-Mary says:

    Our young pastor preached, very nicely and with some humor even, on the necessity of confession. And we have 11 confession times a week but still many are not taking advantage of the opportunity. I visit a senior center and most refuse confession and as father said, for some years people were rather discouraged from the sacrament. I went from age 21 to 40 without confession. And still in large parishes there is only confession for 45 minutes on a Saturday which still shows that it is not all that important and not part of the ‘being nice’ that we are called to. But we are called to holiness–that is the great “secret”–and so frequent confession is mandatory.

  10. Wayward Lamb says:

    Father expounded upon the necessity of confession. He raised many different reasons people offer for not going to confession and specifically refuted each one. He strongly encouraged everyone to attend at least one daily Mass during Advent, not because we have to, but because we have the privilege of doing so. Father stressed how much quiter and calmer daily Mass can be, offering a greater opportunity for meditation and reflection. Further, Father would make himself available to hear confession right then for anyone who wants it. If it helped, we could think of this as a Christmas present to ourselves.

  11. jameeka says:

    excellent sermon on the readings from Baruch and Luke. Both were writing to people very oppressed by the leaders of the day: the Jews in exile, and the people under Caesar, Herod and the Jewish high priests who had made the temple of Jerusalem a “den of thieves”.

    Both Baruch and St John the baptist were saying: “Prepare the way for God, re-make/change your minds and heart. He is coming”

  12. Imrahil says:

    frequent confession is mandatory

    While of course the motive of saying so is to be appreciated, this is simply wrong. It is problematic if the call-to-holiness is used to foist some obligations which do not, in fact, exist. What is mandatory is going to Confession each year if there are grave sins to confess. If a priest thinks this is too light, the appropriate thing to do is to petition the Pope (or does the bishop suffice?) into changing the law.

    What is true is not that frequent confession is mandatory, but that frequent confession is a pious and (I’d guess) meritorious practice; that it confers helping graces upon us; that it forgives sins in a more complete way (about venial sins this is difficult to say, but I do feel it is in very much true); that it is the only ordinary way to forgive grave sins; that this is the only feasible way to relieve the grave sinners of a great part of the burden involved in approaching the Sacrament; that it forgives temporal punishments (I’d guess); and that it is mandatory if you want to remain in possibility to gain plenary indulgences; that it restores peace in the recipient and this mostly in a practically feelable way; that it helps in building a conscience; that it especially also helps in not burdening oneself with shame and feeling of inferiority about such things as are no sins, and a sense of what Christian freedom does consist in; and so on and so on and so on.

    But “mandatory in spite of not mandatory”? No.

  13. OrthodoxChick says:

    I was blessed to be able to attend the TLM/EF today and heard the same reading for the second Sunday of Advent that acardnal noted in his comment above.

    The pastor spoke about St. John the Baptist and he said that we should all adopt St. John’s words as our personal motto, “I must decrease, He must increase”. Father explained why this is necessary in order for a soul to grow in holiness. He explained how St. John shunned the trappings of the world in his day and any attention given to him, and humbled himself in order to point everyone toward Jesus. We are called to do the same. Humble ourselves and detach from the things of this world so that Jesus will increase in us; so that others around us will notice Chist within us rather than noticing us.

  14. bookworm says:

    Short, sweet and to the point homily comparing John the Baptist’s relationship to Christ to that of the opening act and a headline performer. The opening act gets the audience into a more receptive mood for the main performer. An opening act is important, and he/she has to be good, but not so good that he/she overshadows the headliner! Likewise, we should consider how good of an “opening act” we are for Christ — do we make other people more receptive to Him by our actions? If we don’t, there are a number of things we can do to improve the quality of our “performance,” including (and our priest does emphasize this often) the Sacrament of Penance :-)

  15. Gail F says:

    Father followed up last week’s homily on Advent with a talk about the late Dave Brubeck (RIP)! I knew the story about his becoming a Catholic because of composing a Mass, but Fr. H told details about the editor of Our Sunday Visitor getting him to write the Mass after he initially said no, and about how the finished Mass did not have an Our Father (not being Catholic he didn’t know it was part of the Mass) and he said he didn’t have time to write one because he was going on vacation. During the vacation, he had a dream in which he heard the entire Our Father with all the instrumentation. Father told us never to give up on people, that the editor of OSV didn’t give up and that God didn’t give up.

  16. ad Deum says:

    FSSP in Vienna, Ohio. Fr. Bouchard on mortal sin (part of series of sermons lately). Great to hear this. Aside: confession prayers by him were in Latin!

  17. Rellis says:

    Immaculate Conception: went to Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. The priest talked about how God chose Mary to be conceived without sin not simply because it was useful for the incarnation, but because it was a good in itself. Like I said, Dominicans.

    2nd Sunday of Advent: St. Rita Parish in Alexandria, VA (ROTR Mass). The way we prepare the way of the Lord is by a lifetime of making frequent use of the sacraments. In particular, we should again and again repent and make penance with the Sacrament of Confession. Almost every week, this holy parish finds a way to exhort use of this Sacrament in the weekly homily.

  18. Joboww says:

    St. Stans in Milwaukee (ICKSP)
    Cannon Jayr mostly hit on St. Pauls epistle to the Romans for the day. He also talked about his impressions of the parishioners focusing on gossip and disheartening things like that the institute and the TLM will be eliminated, the end of the world is near and so forth. He attempted to remind all of us that the Parish was growing and seeing a higher rate of Baptisms to funerals, the EF at St. Peters recently, an RCIA class that now is up to two days a week, and the growing youth (18-35) at the Oratory where the possibility of Priesthood is on many of our minds.
    I thought it was great to hear some of this good news to combat the depressing gossip. Plus included how it related to the assigned Holy Writ of the day so always a plus
    +JMJ+

  19. AttiaDS says:

    -The Church focuses on St. John the Baptist during the Season of Lent.
    -“Reed,” is a person without conviction.
    -“Soft clothing,” is representative of those who give in to the body with food or drink, or other bodily pleasures, whether licit or not, and if it is licit, they will give in so that it is not licit.
    –This is an effeminate trait.
    -Saint John the Baptist obviously knew Jesus was the Messiah because he was the one who pointed Him out earlier.
    -Saint John the Baptist sent his followers to Jesus for their benefit, not for his, because, in all things, Jesus was very comely and neither extravagant nor extraordinary; His lifestyle was not magnificent or boastful nor was he fasting and mortifying like SJtB.
    -Jesus praised SJtB, which is the only praise that matters.
    -Fortitude is the most important virtue, and without it, we cannot get into Heaven.
    :All the above was from an FSSP priest. I know I am forgetting some as the sermon was packed full of edifying information.

  20. aarmstrong says:

    Today at a parish of the Institute of Christ the King, we heard a sermon about the Majestarium of the Church and Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus…

  21. Will D. says:

    Father W. preached on confession as well. Somebody must have sent out a memo!

    He framed it by mentioning the dubious predictions of “TEOTW” for 12/12/12 and 12/21/12 and, of course, the actual last day, and pointed out that we need to be always prepared and expecting the Lord to return. He talked about examining our consciences and repentance, and how he was adding confession times on Tuesday evenings and mentioned all of the other opportunities in our diocese to take advantage of that Sacrament. It was really good stuff.

  22. NickD says:

    2nd Sunday of Advent at Our Lady of the Atonement, an Anglican Use parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio.

    a beautiful Mass; a wonderful sermon. Father noted that we must go beyond contrition (being sorry) to repentance (turning away from sin and back to God). He said that we do not know when we will breath our last or when Jesus will come again in glory, so we must ready ourselves by repenting and going to confession; he said confession is a good practice for Advent. After Mass, one of the priests in residence was hearing confessions! So all in all, an overall great time

  23. FloridaJoan says:

    Father J. preached that St John the Baptist’s ” Prepare… ” includes our spiritual preparation for Christ’s coming into our lives ( always but especially in this season ) ; a submission of our wills to His will.

    pax et bonum

  24. nemo says:

    Just a note to those who are snowbound or sick on Sunday–you can always watch the Holy Mass from Christ the King in Sarasota on http://www.livemass.net live at 8:30 AM (low) or 10:30 AM (high). About an hour after the Mass has ended, it can be downloaded and played in the browser.

  25. Cath says:

    Father spoke of his desire to begin Perpetual Adoration at our parish! He spoke eloquently as always, but I cannot remember specifics since I was so excited! Deo gratias

  26. Chris Garton-Zavesky says:

    In our own day, the world is filled with the blind (he meant morally blind); the lame (because our education informs the mind, but not the soul); the deaf (including the young, who no longer have the ability to hear); the poor (both materially and, more importantly, spiritually); I think he also mentioned modern lepers, but I don’t recall his example.

    Our light should shine because it is Christ’s light in us: we aren’t circumcised, but we ARE marked by God.

    Point he didn’t make, but I thought he might: Jesus doesn’t rely on secret knowledge, but on the clearly visible. He doesn’t tell the disciples of John, “Tell him to remember what we used to do as cousins, playing together……”. In our age of all kinds of (sometimes ridiculous) secret knowledge, the Church still relies on public testimony and truth available to all.

    Commenting on the end times, he said this (in paraphrase): I don’t believe that the end of time is coming on December 21st, but if it is, shouldn’t we all be working for an increase in charity?

    We are SO blessed with our Institute priests.

  27. benedetta says:

    On why our Lord said “Blessed is he who is not scandalized by me”, on the need to regain holy zeal when we await His coming, on the reality that we meet our Lord face to face when receive Him in Holy Communion.

  28. Homily was on sins of the tongue in preparation for Confession: detraction, calmuty and slander. At the FSSP parish in Coeur d’Alene.

  29. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Homily was about making straight the way of the Lord both in the world (by helping to make it a better place) and in our own souls and habits (Father mentioned various things, and then went straight to preaching not having sex outside of marriage, to a college audience). The college kids took it very seriously and seemed much struck.

  30. avecrux says:

    Our Pastor spoke on the historical reliability of the Gospels. I suspect this was in response to the mess the media is stirring up through their selective quoting and misrepresentation of Pope Benedict’s book on the Infancy Narratives.

  31. chantgirl says:

    pinoytraddie- I will pray for your country. It seems that God has had a hand in delaying this bill from being passed several times. Perhaps Our Lady will work a miracle for your country.

    In the EF homily today, the Institute priest mentioned that John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to help his disciples believe in Jesus. I had always wondered if John the Baptist was having a moment of doubt in prison as he approached his death, but this makes more sense to me as John seemed to be pretty convinced that Jesus was the Messiah when Jesus asked for Baptism.

  32. anachy says:

    I attended one of my local N.O. Masses and got to hear the deacon begin his homily by recounting a story told by Andrew Greeley, “one of the most famous and influential Catholics,” according to the deacon. From that point on I didn’t pay much attention to what he had to say (it was a canned homily anyway). Instead, I focused on the statue of St. Anthony holding the Christ Child. I could have sworn the Babe was laughing.

    I very much appreciate hearing all these points from great homilies as it helps to make up for the one I didn’t hear. Many wonderful things from these homilies to reflect on. My sincere thanks to all who contributed.

  33. Bea says:

    Two good sermons

    HOLY DAY

    Adam passing the buck and not admitting guilt. “The woman that you gave me”
    Eve passing the buck and not admitting guilt. “The serpent tricked me”
    All 3 given a penance
    Eat dust all the days of your life.
    Bring Forth offspring in pain
    Toil by the sweat of your brow.

    We too, must not pass the buck.
    Examine your conscience.
    Do penance.
    Make way the ways of the Lord.
    Admit your guilt.
    GO TO CONFESSION.

    2ND SUNDAY OF ADVENT/different priest

    on the song “I’ll be home for Christmas”
    Easter and Christmas is when everyone comes back to Church.
    Instinctively we know THIS is home.
    Do not stay away from home.
    Come home. Find peace love and forgiveness.
    Like the prodigal son. He came home.
    Home is in your heart. Your heart is the home where God wants to be.
    Clean your home to receive your God
    GO TO CONFESSION.

    Both had the same themes GO TO CONFESSION

  34. NoraLee9 says:

    FSSP Father preached on Elias, John the Baptist, and the Order of Mount Carmel. Elias is the founder of Carmelites, pre-dating the church. John the Baptist was a member of this ancient order. At the end of the world, Elias will come in a firey chariot and convert all the Jews.
    I love this priest. He really knows his stuff. There was nothing here I haven’t heard before, but I always enjoys good exegesis.

  35. JonPatrick says:

    We were in Downeast Maine for a few days last week, drove 4 hrs back to Lewiston in a driving rainstorm (at least it wasn’t snow!) just in time for the 12 PM EF Mass for Immaculate Conception (well we made it in time for the Kyrie). The next day my younger son and I attended the 8 AM EF Mass then the whole family went to the 10AM Ordinary Form which is always beautiful and reverent there at the basilica – much chanting, incense, plus they always use the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer 1). The homily started with the fact that God is forgiving but does not force his forgiveness, instead we must ask for it. He then went through a brief examination of conscience, also mentioning that there will be confessions every day next week, plus a penance service with 9 priests hearing confessions in English, French, and Spanish! Good for the parish of Lewiston!

  36. MWindsor says:

    Msgr read three long jokes from his notes. He then read a quote from a nun “theologian” that explained what John the Baptist really meant.

  37. For our Lady’s day, I did what I’ve been doing for years: carefully explained what the feast is–and is not–about. Some time back I got tired of hearing how people didn’t understand whose conception was being celebrated, and I promised myself that no one who went to Mass with me would not have it explained. I included a couple of points about why we believe it that folks could share with non-Catholics who might ask.

    For Sunday, like many others, I talked about confession; I talked about my own experience with confession. I often wonder if people think we priests don’t go to confession, and I pointed out that I certainly need to, and like everyone else, I sometimes drag my feet and make excuses. Both are here.

  38. An American Mother says:

    Monsignor started on the ‘voice crying in the wilderness’ and knocked it out of the park on “cafeteria Catholics”.
    Then reminded everyone to come to confession.
    He’s been on fire lately.

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