Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Was there a good point from the Sermon you heard for this Sunday?

Let us know what it was.

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34 Comments

  1. mschu528 says:

    Missa in uso antiquiore….

    Why were Christ and His Mother at Cana? Because they were invited. If we want to advance in the Faith, we must invite Christ (and Our Lady) into our hearts. When we want to convert others — and as Catholics we must desire the salvation of all — it must begin with a simple invitation. Everyone likes to be invited, so even if someone turns down our invitation to come to the Church, it may eventually help lead to their conversion.

  2. Supertradmum says:

    Our priest compared the Wedding Feast at Cana to daily Adoration in the parish. We are invited to encounter Christ and have an intense relationship with Him, if we so desire. He is there for us, just as He was at Cana.

  3. Chris Garton-Zavesky says:

    Many excellent points, but I’ll include just a few.

    1) Cana prefigures the Eucharist in so many ways: Christ can turn water into wine, so he CAN turn the bread and the wine into His Sacred Body, Blood Soul and Divinity; the wedding feast is a figure of Heaven (the wedding feast of the Lamb); quoting St. Justin ” we were water, He made us wine”;

    2) Christ isn’t insulting His mother, since he uses the term “mulier” twice to address her: here, and at Calvary.

    3) Some days I ask myself what to preach about, because it’s hard to find one nugget; today, the Gospel is so rich that I have to limit my choices……

    Father: I don’t have a blog, but I would really enjoy your take on the Communion antiphon for 2 Epiphany: is the steward angry, or just puzzled?

  4. Quis ut Deus says:

    Attended a Maronite liturgy for the first time today. The priest gave a good homily on the importance of the priest and what he means to the Church and the role he plays in the salvation of others. He also talked about how the priest must realize his own important role and the awesome responsibility he has to the parish. He was from South Africa and talked about how a priest would come visit his family every Sunday for a meal and to go fishing on their land. He attributed the presence of the priest and his fatherly ways to planting a seed for his vocation. As a seminarian, it certainly got my attention and was a good reminder that I do not choose this path for my own glory but to serve the Lord and His people.

  5. DetJohn says:

    I have no idea what the sermon was about. Father never uttered a work during the whole mass.
    I was at Holy Angles Parish for the DEAF in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles There was a verbal translation in Spanish. I missed out on that too.

    They even sang in signlanguage. It was an awesome expierence.

  6. lydia says:

    Much the same as mschu528 heard. Fr. also suggested every morning before we do anything else we should invite Christ into our lives.

  7. Servant of the Liturgy says:

    Forgiveness and reconciliation, works of mercy, and appreciating the best in each other, even when we’re shown the worst; all in relation to the transforming power of Christ: water to wine, bad to good, mundane to extraordinary, death to Life, bread & wine to the Body and Blood. This, His first miracle and most repeated theme in His ministry.

  8. gatormom says:

    Our Deacon took the opportunity to castigate those loopy pro lifers, as the anniversary for Roe vs. Wade is coming up. Evidently it is to be presupposed that pro lifers do not care about the poor; we were informed that pro lifers do not understand the Church’s social justice teachings. We were enlightened with all the merits of seamless garment and informed we can look it up on the USCCB website, and he’s quite correct, I’ve looked it all up before. I came home and cried. Literally, I was moved to sobbing, headache inducing tears. If anyone can float a prayer my way; I feel like I’m losing my faith. Oh and then I got to see in the news that the Vatican is supporting the Obama regime’s wonderful efforts at gun control. I really have a headache.

  9. Peggy R says:

    This is our last Sunday in a 150 year old church. The new one…well, we’ll see. I haven’t been in it yet.
    We’re fairly new to the parish. We’ll have to go with the flow or move on if needed. That was the focus. What I can’t believe is that Fr., a lifelong devoted Cardinal fan, forgot to mention the passing of Stan the Man. I presume the final Sunday filled his mind today.

  10. cehwiedel says:

    One of our associate pastors announced after Mass today that Father Patrick, our pastor, has been diagnosed with cancer and is receiving treatment. I put this comment here because Father Patrick is an excellent homilist — everyone in our family feels like we win the “sermon lottery” when it’s his turn to lead Mass. I would humbly ask for prayers for Father Patrick, his caregivers and our parish.

  11. tmitchell says:

    Father focused on what exactly it means to be a servant. “Do whatever he tells you” means exactly that. Even if you have the admittedly miserable task of walking to the bottom of the hill and filling up the huge stone jar and lugging it back up the hill. If we are to be servants of Christ, we must do whatever He tells us, not whatever our interpretations of what he tells us are.

  12. nemo says:

    Father gave a catechesis on marriage, explaining that as the couple at Cana invited Christ and His Mother to their marriage, we Catholics are supposed to do that, too. We have to follow the 6 Precepts of the Church, including the laws on marriage. He went over those requirements in brief, stating that Catholics not married in the Church are not married, are living in a state of mortal sin, cannot receive the sacraments, etc. It was good, because I have not heard these things from the pulpit since the good ole Baltimore Catechism days when I was preparing for the reception of First Holy Communion in 1959. You can hear the sermon on http://www.livemass.net.

  13. Elodie says:

    Our deacon talked about the Roe v. Wade anniversary. It was an excellent homily. Statistics about how bad it is. And how many millions of people are missing from our lives because they didn’t have the chance to be born. Yes, people from all walks of life, but he mentioned the disappearing Downs Syndrome population.

    That was looking back 40 years. We’re meant to look forward at how things can be. Because PRAYER is what will get us out of this travesty. Pray, fellow pro-lifers!

    Thank you, Deacon! He was much more eloquent than I’m being.

  14. Bob B. says:

    Jesus was not demeaning his mother when he called her, “Woman” (though our priest made it clear he would never have thought to say that to his mom). The only other time “Woman” appears in the Bible is in reference to Eve, drawing the obvious parallel between the two.
    Our pastor talked about the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Tuesday and it horrifying results and he introduced our new “seminarian-intern” who will be with us for a year.

  15. Wayward Lamb says:

    Mary’s instruction to the servants, “Do whatever He says,” is sage advice for us all.

    The jugs are a euphemism for us: what is poured into us is rarely what we draw out. Jesus has water poured in, yet the servants draw out wine. God permits all sorts of trials and sufferings to be poured into our lives, but this can lead to such immense grace if we will cooperate with God’s plan, as the servants at the wedding feast cooperated with their instructions.

    Father also spoke of Dr. King and the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. To paraphrase Dr. King, a threat to life anywhere is a threat to life everywhere.

  16. SPWang says:

    A really good sermon on marriage and the importance that Christ puts on this sacrament by performing his first miracle at a wedding. The reason why marriage is being attached is because Christian marriage (like all sacraments today) isn’t being treated seriously by (not all) the faithful. Really kicked it home.

  17. SPWang says:

    *attacked. :)

  18. backtothefuture says:

    The priest at today solemn high mass talked about the crisis in the church. This almost never gets mentioned, then again this parish isn’t your typical parish. He talked about the church not doing enough spiritual penance for the abuse scandal. He also talked about the parish’s mission in helping bring back the traditional catholic liturgy.

  19. Joy says:

    Visiting priest: he said the Wedding at Cana was an example of intercessary prayer, especially as we call upon Mary to intercede for us. He also stated that we are all called to turn water into wine…figuratively speaking.

  20. ByzCath08 says:

    Today was the start of the lenten triodion and the Gospel reading was the Publican & Pharisee. Our priest talked about the importance of your prayer life and tied the gospel & epistle readings together by talking how the Publican was justified with his simple prayer, while the Pharisee was not.

  21. fvhale says:

    Bob B. above said about the homily he heard: “Jesus was not demeaning his mother when he called her, ‘Woman’ (though our priest made it clear he would never have thought to say that to his mom). The only other time ‘Woman’ appears in the Bible is in reference to Eve, drawing the obvious parallel between the two.”

    Groan. I am sure the intention was good, but to anyone with some familiarity with the text of Holy Scripture, this is an example among many of preaching “facts” about the text that just are not true. The English word “woman” occurs hundreds of times in the text of the NAB-RE, and the Greek “gunai” (woman) occurs more than 200 times. Other NT (vocative) examples are the woman of great faith in Mt 15 (“O woman, great is your faith”; the woman healed in Mk 13:12 (“O woman, you are healed…”); Mary of Magdala at the resurrection in Jn 20:13 (“O woman, why are you weeping?”); Peter denying the Lord to the servant in Lk 22:57 (“Woman, I do not know him.”). It does no good when preachers say things about Scripture that are just not true at a simple, factual level, not even getting to questions of meaning and interpretation.

    Now, for my own experience, we had an elderly, retired priest visiting as my pastor was away on retreat, and it was hard to hear anything of his homily. But as I was assisting him before Mass, I was a bit surprised that he wanted to wear alb and chasuble, but no stole. I had never seen that before. I just gave him a “Yes, Father” and put away the stole.

  22. frjim4321 says:

    In many of the selections we make we are forced to compromise between quality and quantity.
    With respect to the first of the signs in John’s gospel the transformation was both qualitative and quantitative.
    For John, a critical point is that the water of Judaism is transformed into the wine of Christianity.
    John has the Baptizer insisting that he is not the Messiah (as we saw last week, not even fit to untie the Messiah’s sandals) because transformation in Christ is on an entirely new level of magnitude.
    It is not unlike the qualitative and quantitative transformation that comes upon a person (each of us) at the time of our baptism in which we are made one with Christ in both his death and his resurrection, both of which are necessary, and one cannot be emphasized to the exclusion of the other.
    As we grow in Christ and as members of the Christian community we see signs of this transformation. For instance, we see that transformation taking shape as we mature and begin to appreciate (as the Corinthians often did not) that our various gifts and talents are not given for out own personal betterment but rather that we can implement them for the good of the community. A reminder that this except is followed by the 13th chapter in which the common gift of love is elucidated. We all have many different kinds of gifts to share, but we are all able and gifted to love, the kind of love that is manifest both in service and in sacrifice.
    As we dedicate our gifts in service and sacrifice we can forward the transformation in Christ of both others and of the world around us. In so doing own amazement will be as was the steward in Cana, and greater still.

  23. frjim4321 says:

    = excerpt
    = steward of Cana

  24. fvhale says:

    Forgot one of the most touching examples of Jesus speaking to his mother using the “Woman….” (gunai, vocative or Latin “Mulier….”) construction: as He spoke to her from the cross in John 19:26, “Woman, behold your son.”

  25. southIndia says:

    The bride and the groom are the main characters of any wedding narrative. However, in the wedding feast of Cana narrative in the Gospel, Christ Our Lord and His Mother are the main characters. The wedding is symbolic of the Divine Wedding – God is the bride groom and humanity is the bride. Its perfect union/wedding is in the Divine Incarnation, in the Most Holy Person of Jesus Christ Our Lord. We are all invited to this Wedding Feast. We are invited as adopted sons and daughters of God, as children of this wedding. We receive a foretaste of this Wedding Feast in the Eucharistic Celebration. One day we will see the Lamb of God face to face and join Him in His Wedding Feast.

    The old wine running out is symbolic of the end of the temple rituals, sacrifices, rubrics and circumcision. The new wine, unlike the cheaper wine that ran out, is a choice wine. Christ Himself, through His sacrifice on Calvary established this Novus Ordo – et antiquum documentum, novo cedat ritui. We cannot join in the eternal Wedding Feast of the Lamb – unless we are washed in His blood and born of the Spirit. We are born of the Spirit through baptism and washed in His blood with the Sacrament of Penance. Our salvation is no more through the Old Order but only through this Novus Ordo.

    When God the Father uttered ‘FIAT LUX’ – light can to be in creation. When Our Lady answered ‘FIAT’ the Eternal Light, the Son of God entered into creation through His Most Holy Incarnation. The Blessed Mother was instrumental in the Divine Plan. She first manifests that role to us during the wedding feast at Cana. She teaches us ‘to do whatever He tells us to do’. Only through a perfect submission to God’s Will, we will witness miracles in our life.

    Our Lord called His Mother ‘Mulier’ to emphasize Her role as the promised woman in the Proto-Evangelium – the enmity between the Woman and the serpent. According to the Septuagint – the Woman will crush the head of the serpent . She stands at the altar, as the most beloved daughter of the Eternal Father, as the immaculate mother of the Son of God, as the spouse of the Holy Spirit – calling us to join the Wedding Feast; calling us to join this Novus Ordo – the New Order established by Her Divine Son for our salvation.

  26. pmullane says:

    Fr tied the miracle at Cana andthe role of Our Lady to the fall in the Garden and the role of Eve, and how Our Lord was the new Adam who would undo the fall of the first man, and how Our Lady was the New Eve. Father explained how before the fall there was ‘abundance’ and how that was contrasted with the wine ‘running out’. Father than explained the importance of Marriage and the fact that our lord performed the miracle at the wedding feast. He spoke about how marriage is ordained by God, but also how it is written into the law of Nature which is itself, of course, written by God. He then gave a defence of marriage against the arguments of those who want to try to redefine it, and that this is nothing to do with ‘hate’, if we hated gay people we would not care that they were throwing their souls into damnation (not his words), but we love them and want them to get to heaven and thats why we speak the truth to them.

    Brilliant sermon, we are very lucky.

  27. Fuquay Steve says:

    Fr. P’s sermon was all about marriage and Mary. The Graces needed to live a sacramentally joyful marriage spring from Our Lord through Mary. Who responded to the murmuring of the servants ?Our Lady did and she let Our Lord know the situation and because of His love for the Blessed Mother and us, he changed the water not only into wine but the finest wine. Our own marriage feast can be so blessed IF we petition The Blessed Mother and do as Our Lord commands.

    On a personal note, this sermon hit home as 1) my marriage could improve in many areas and 2) I am working my way through St. Louis de Montford’s “The True Devotion to Mary” (working is the operative word as it is not light reading) and the sermon reinforced how consecration to Our Lady brings forth wonderful graces if ‘we do what He commands’. Life changing may be an understatement.

  28. Skeinster says:

    Fr. pointed out that the miracle at Cana was another epiphany of our Lord, like Epiphany and His baptism. Here, though, He publicly manifests His divine power, which draws the attention of the Powers that Be and starts Him on the road to the Passion. Mary knew this, but asked for the miracle anyway: so, the exchange about “my hour is not yet come”.

  29. JohnE says:

    Roe v Wade
    Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

  30. Facta Non Verba says:

    Father preached on the intrinsic evil of abortion, as we approach the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. He referred to it as the number one social justice issue of our day.

  31. Fr. spoke about God’s generosity: the amount of water Jesus changed into wine would make about 700 bottles. Isn’t it time we were also generous with God, giving our life to Him?

  32. harrythepilgrim says:

    Mass yesterday was the usus antiquor at St. Theresa Parish in Alhambra. I cannot recall ever experiencing anything so lovely, even at the nearby SSPX parish. The sermon was about Mary, marriage, and the various references to Mary as “woman”. Going out of the church after Mass, I had to repeat the words of Simeon, “Nunc dimmitis servum tuum, Domine.” I am ready and hope He does it soon.

  33. Clinton R. says:

    My prayers and empathy are with you, gatormom. I know our faith can often feel like it is diminishing when we have priests who care not in the least for the good of our souls. But please do not despair! While we are in a time of great strife in the Holy Church, good men are becoming priests and slowly, tradition is being restored. It calls to my mind the prophet Elijah who was so despondent of the apostasy of his people, he asked God to take his life. Then God reminded Elijah that there were many who had not apostasized. This is in 1 Kings 19. It is a great reminder that God does not abandon us when we are down and there are many who adhere to the Faith when it appears to us that many have strayed. God be with you, gatormom. +JMJ+

  34. Blaine says:

    Father related Martin Luther King’s speaking out against injustices to his own experiences working with illegal immigrants caught up in human trafficking. Pretty interesting stuff. Related it to fortitude and other gifts of the Holy Spirit.

    He didn’t speak of King as faultless, however. That was refreshing. Definitely one of his better homilies.

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