Was there a good point in the sermon you heard for your Sunday Mass of precept?
Let us know what it was.
(Yes, I am indeed trying to get you to listen carefully and remember longer. I am also aware that in some places the preaching is really bad. Help people who don’t hear good sermons by sharing good points.)
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Thanks Father Z, cosmology lesson as only you can impart.”
on ROME 24/4– Day 35 (-6): adventures in symmetry: “Hmmm. Those kind of tassels have always reminded me of fancy curtain tiebacks so I have avoided making them but…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Fr.Z sez: …The Voyagers are destined—perhaps eternally—to wander the Milky Way and then become characters in Star Trek…. V’ger!! https://youtu.be/gxAaVqdz_Vk?t=96”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Being from Florida, I remember when both Voyagers launched – you could see them from our house. At that time,…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Too bad the Curia has drifted too far from its power source…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Voyager 2 launched on 20 August 1977, from Cape Canaveral. Voyager 1 launched from Cape Canaveral on 5 September 1977.…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “I guess Voyager I gives new meaning to the poem High Flight. Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Now this is very interesting. Not just looking up at some small dots of light overhead!”
on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “The final resting place of Plato puts me in mind of a memorable excerpt I once read about Aristotle in…”
on ROME 24/4– Day 34 (-7): The burial place of… PLATO?!?: “Someone pointed out the St. George’s Day Google Doodle with its background account to me – with one of the…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: ““George Farmer, aka Candace Owen’s husband. He is a revert” If I’m reading the interview correctly, first a convert, then…”
on Three items of interest: a conversion, a connection, and a con job: “Not to detract from anything Imrahill said, but well, the papally-attested infallible ordinary magisterium about a catholic truth, not the…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Understatement of the year: they don’t make them like that anymore!” on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “What happened to Voyager 2? And what sort of “science” data will Voyager 1 soon be able to resume transmitting?…”
on So very cool that it needs its own post! VOYAGER 1 is TALKING AGAIN!: “Not too shabby for a 77’ model.”
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A Daily Prayer for Priests
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
I’m in a Bible Sharing Group where Sunday’s readings are discussed. The readings re: the Thirtieth Sunday, confused me. I was concentrating on the opening “O Lord,” in the Pharisee’s prayer, in the Gospel. And I couldn’t understand why he was so wrong. It seemed to me that the Pharisee’s prayer was simply one of thanksgiving, whereas the taxpayer’s was a prayer of supplication (asking for forgiveness). I thought that the comparison was unfair.
However, the way Father Li read the Gospel, with so many “I”, made me hear and consequently realize, how selfish the Pharisee’s prayer was. It really was all about himself, the Pharisee, wasn’t it?
My homily was based on the Gospel. Exterior Liturgical poster, leads to internal active participation.
Faith, that’s a very thoughtful interpretation, and could be true of a person making that same prayer. However, I think Jesus represents him as thanking himself that he is not like other men. The parable wouldn’t make sense if Jesus intended it to be taken as a prayer of pure thanksgiving.
We have a new Nigerian priest. His accent is strong, but that actually made it easier for me to keep focus on him. Trying to be sure I understood him kept me from drifting off. He told two parables, one about the fact that death could find you at any time and you need to prepare, and one about judging other people. It pains me to say that one of his last sentences had to do with not judging people because they are black. Due to his accent, I’m not completely sure that’s what he said. I hope he hasn’t received any messages like that from the parish, but mine is a stubborn, proud, and hard-hearted parish. He made an impression on me.
straying a little from the topic (but it won’t be a long comment),
I think (dear @Faith and @Cathy C) the Gospel is to interpreted along the lines given by its introduction, viz., “in that time, Jesus told a group of those who held themselves just and despised others…” (quoting from memory)
And then there’s here always Eugen Roth’s poem to share:
A man was pondring thoroughly
the fable of the Pharisee,
who, hypocrite, gave thanks to God,
that he a publican was not.
“Thank God”, he let his voice run free,
“that I am not a Pharisee!”
Our priest pointed out that Jesus often taught by contrasting two persons who were very different from one another. He suggested it was a useful exercise to look at ourselves and see both the Pharisee and the Publican, in different aspects of our personalities. He also said clearly that some people may ask what was wrong with the pharisee’s statement. He said that this man’s words showed no love. It was a good sermon from a good preacher.
God allows nations to rise and fall according to their own acts.
A fine and robust sermon at Leicester (UK) OP rite for the feast of Christ the King. How Christ is supreme in all things and how the world resists this more than ever and conspires against it. We too are complicit in this work if we sin and give up the struggle daily to bring Christ’s kingdom.
Father touched upon the seven sacraments and the way in which these converge by grace in the work of salvation. But how especially important the priesthood is, how we should constantly pray for vocations and priests; how the norm in times past was not to criticise the priest, but to pray for him to be a better priest: this is a far more useful thing than loose talk, impatience and lack of charity. Likewise, the new Pope was no different and had been subject to comment and even disapproval, but we owed him obedience above all, as his due, as the Vicar of Christ. Christ is the head of the Church and “… upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
(You can’t beat an OP sermon.)
Our priest explained Quas Primas of Pius XI today, and how Christ is King not just over those in our parish, nor just over Catholics, but over the whole world . And this is due to His Nature as God and Creator, and due to His being the Perfect Man, and because of the Redemption. He explained it much better than I am saying it!
We celebrated the feast of Christ the King today. Our excellent sermon started with an observation about the old-fashioned nature of kingship, and the relative newness of this feast in post-Catholic Europe.
The meat of the Sermon was to remind us the eternal kingdom outlived the Empire that existed when christianity began, and will outlive this empire even as it pushes Catholics and other christians further to the margins. He inspired this listener to keep my focus on what really matters, and not to get too bogged down in the world around us.
On the Feast of Christ the King. Our Lord shares with us the experience of undergoing judgement. Christ however submitted to the judgement of a sinful mortal, Pilate. Our actions will be judged by Truth itself. The story of Fr. Scheier and the experience of undergoing eternal judgement in a near death experience convicted his heart, even though he was a priest who outwardly did many the correct things. We must be grateful for, and exercise, the daily opportunities for conversion of heart and preparation for our final judgement.
Our priest really concentrated on St. Paul and the line “I am already being poured out like a libation.” He explained that most of us think of a libation as an alcoholic drink. St. Paul and the people of the time they would have understood that he was talking of an offering they made of their first sip to God by pouring it on the ground. That St. Paul knew his end was coming and he was writing to St. Timothy to encourage him. As opposed to the pharisee who was bragging about what he was doing for himself St. Paul was recalling to encourage us that God’s grace will get us through our lives and the hard times that come. He also spoke about how St. Pauls life was an offering to God as opposed to the pharisee who did everything for himself. We should be more like St. Paul and the tax collector who asks for God’s Mercy. I hope I did his homily justice.
Our priest discussed marriage, inspired by Archbishop Muller’s recent article, which he was very happy about. He said that since marriage is a sacrament, we receive graces from God to help us in our vocation. Indeed, couples in a sacramental marriage can demand these graces. The world teaches us to look out for ourselves and do what makes us happy as individuals, but marriage is about sacrifice, and we are rewarded for being selfless. Love is not an emotion or a feeling, but an action.
My takeaway was to remember to ask God for His help when the going gets tough, as it inevitably will at times.
Kingship of Christ
Christ before Pilate: “Are you then a king?”
If king of the Jews why did Jews hand over Christ?
“My kingdom is not of this world”
“You would not have authority over Me were it not given from above.”
Nations/kings/rulers/prelates who have authority will be answerable for their decisions before God , Himself and it’s not so much about “authority” but what it is they are rulers etc. for not “authority” but SERVICE to those under their “authority”.
also Pilate said “What is Truth?” but walked away before hearing an answer because he was not really seeking truth but trying to mock “Truth”. We too should not walk away but actually pay attention to Truth if we are seekers in Good Will.
Fr. Larry told us that the Pharisee left unchanged whereas the tax collector had a pivotal change of heart. He reminded us that we are all sinners and in constant need of change. We never reach a place of coasting. We will indeed have struggles, but we should turn to God and continue to work through them.
We have two excellent preachers and they post their homilies weekly on our Facebook page. I am happy to post the link here if you wish, Fr Z. I am new here and don’t quite know the limitations.
God Bless!
Homily today was a fairly well articulated message against self-exultation, vs. humility and the infinite forgiveness of God, but the Mass closed with probably the least appropriate “hymn” for the Gospel message: We Are The Light Of The World.
We listened to Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. preach on Luke 18: 9-14. He was the retreat master for a men’s retreat/conference over the weekend. His main point was a reiteration of a theme he had woven into many of his talks and homilies over the three days, basically exhorting us to avoid placing our faith in “faith” rather than in Jesus Christ. We should know our Catholic faith, but ultimately we must know and love and follow Jesus. The Pharisee thought by following the Law to the nth degree he had it made and that he had done it himself, but the Publican knew he had to rely on God’s Mercy and Jesus agreed.
The retreat theme was “Following God’s Word in today’s rapidly changing world”. Fr. Pacwa emphasized reading and reading and reading scripture. He characterized today’s world, as it is being realized here in the U.S., as the “rise of the barbarians”, and contrasted how the barbarians overran Europe as the roman empire was collapsing, so too the barbarians are overrunning the U.S., but not from without, but from within. He encouraged us to study the Saints lives and writings who converted the barbarians as models for us to confront today’s barbarians. They were St. Augustine, Gregory the Great, Benedict and Patrick. He exhorted us to have no fear in confronting barbarians, for if we truly follow Jesus, know our faith, be alert and ready we will be able to do what needs to be done.
I came away from the retreat with a renewed sense of that “there is nothing new under the sun”. I sometimes get caught in the trap of chronological snobbery, thinking that the spiritual and cultural battles we face are somehow unique to us and our time on this earth. But just as the first Apostles and disciples discovered, we are all called to rely on Jesus Christ and keep running the race, fighting the good fight to the end.
Peace and God bless.
I was pleasantly surprised. Our pastor, after clarifying that he was not breaking the seal of the confessional, began by talking about how boring most confessions are, in the sense that everybody basically struggles with their particular items off a larger, very standard list of items (impatience, rash judgement, selfishness, lust, etc.) And while he reminded us that while we need to avoid the Pharisee’s obvious pride of thinking he had no sins worth worrying about, we also need to avoid the subtler pride of thinking that we’re such extraordinary sinners that we cannot be forgiven.
Ended up attending both the 8 AM EF and the 10 AM OF Mass with the family at our parish yesterday.
At the EF, Jesus’ kingship is not about political power but is something different. Who or what is our King? Perhaps we need “regime change” in our lives.
At the OF Father preached on the Gospel story of the Pharisee and the tax-collector. He started with an anecdote about a parishioner hearing this Gospel then saying “Thank God I’m not like that Pharisee” thereby missing the point. Note that in the prayer the Pharisee is talking about himself, rattling off his list of his accomplishments. We always need to remember it is not through our own efforts that we are saved. God redeemed us through Jesus’ death on the cross.
Our priest emphasized the point that from a religious practice perspective, it would be hard to be a better Jew than a Pharisee. But, internal conversion was just as important.