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I removed a couple offerings of bad news about the sermon they heard.
C’mon, friends. GOOD. Right?
I attended my first traditional Latin Mass today. I was amazed that the sermon was on same-sex “marriage”! A very clear articulation of the Church’s position, why it will not change despite populist sentiment, how to pray for those who struggle…
I will probably be returning next week.
I remember Fr Z’s homily (at solemn high Mass) having to do with being doers of the word and not hearers only. It is not enough to go to Mass and go to a Catholic talk now and then. He also discussed vocation some. That Mass is early in the morning and though maybe someone else will describe that homily and I will remember it more, i am sorry my memory of it seems tangled up with the other Mass I went to, below, the themes overlapped. Hard to get upset about having too many good homilists at the same parish.
Bishop Morlino’s homily as usual had three points. From the Gospel, we hear that if we love Jesus we will keep His commandments, we must be obedient. And He will send the Holy Spirit. From the Second Reading, be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you… Too many Catholics never seek to explain the Faith to anyone. Seek to educate yourself in the Faith… there is EWTN or the internet. From the First Reading, we have the story from Acts 8 in which the people in Samaria who had accepted the word of God and been baptized, and the Apostles laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit, and the bishop wants us to remember our Confirmation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, knowledge, fortitude etc) we have received which can make us able to be obedient and to give a reason for the hope that is in us.
I don’t think either celebrant directly discussed Pope Francis’ journey to the Holy Land, which is fascinating me. I really liked his homily in Bethlehem about the Christ child, and children in general including the unborn http://www.news.va/en/news/popes-homily-at-bethlehems-church-of-the-nativity
We had a great homily! Our actions must follow our words and we must be careful with our words (lying and gossip are bad). Our actions must be obedient to the Church – Father mentioned the importance of this in regard to family planning. Then he went on to talk about frequent confession is a good thing.
At Old St. Mary’s in Washington, the EF, with a lovely visiting choir from Bishop Carroll High School in Wichita, KS, Fr. James Bradley spoke of the ever-present threat of gnosticism, the separation of the spiritual and the material. He said that many errors involve the separation of what should be harmoniously united: spiritual and material, faith and reason, divine and human. In the Epistle, St. James is reminding us that faith is not a replacement for good works, they must go together. In the Gospel, Jesus is saying that we must not neglect the spiritual and we must cultivate an intimate relationship with God our Father who loves us because we have received and loved His Son and kept His word.
My own offering was to talk about how commandments — as in, “keep my commandments” from the assigned Gospel for OF Mass — relate to love, also mentioned in this Gospel.
I took the opportunity to remind everyone that there are six precepts of the Church, and what they are.
My seminary prof taught us in the seminary that “rules exist to protect values.” So I used the
example of how the law about attending Sunday Mass protects values that are central to our Faith.
And I closed with what seems to be the choice our Savior gives us: we can be “free” — like the orphan; or if we don’t want to be orphaned, we can be part of God’s Family; but that means rules, accountability; but it also means love.
Folks said they liked it, but they oo’ed and ah’ed over the seminarian who was introduced at all Masses, who will be with us during the summer. They gave him a round of applause at 10:30 Mass!
While the sermon today wasn’t terribly memorable, we did have the benefit of one of our retired priests filling in for our pastor. This priest has been a priest for over 55 years and still going strong.
The fidelity of those many priests and religious who have served so faithfully is in itself edifying.
Oratorians the day before St. Philip Neri’s feast, having got permission to celebrate it today (they’re returning the their original Oratory tomorrow) – the topic was, unsurprisingly, St. Philip!
It was very good, both as an example for ourselves – especially his focus on intention and piety over complex and harsh fasts and penances; but also a very interesting historical and religious explanation of himself and the Congregation. Instructive to mind and soul, who could ask for more?
We had lovely Fr Pascale from Africa preaching today. He spoke about the Holy Spirit and the ways in which He helps us. Sometimes He works like a sports coach, assisting us in co-operating with others. I like Father’s idea that the Holy Spirit is also like a lawyer (attorney) who stands with us and he,ps us to put our case in the right words. Fr said, sometimes people lose their court case even when they are in the right because they don’t present themselves with the correct words, they implicate themselves by mistake. I am going to think over this one more, it has depth.
Father gave the story of Servant of God, Fr. Emil Kapaun who’s heroic virtue was displayed in WWII and on the Korea battlefield and ended as prisoner of war. He was awarded the medal of Honor last year.
My dad is a Purple Heart Vietnam infantry vet (retired reserve lt. colonel) and I sent him the video documentary on Fr Kapaun (that Ignatius Press distributes) for Christmas a couple years ago. Most religious gifts I have sent were not of great interest to my parents but that one in particular was really appreciated. My Dad was surprised he never had heard of Fr Kapaun, whose story amazed him. He subsequently told some of his friends at the army base about him. I don’t think I have ever heard a priest mention Fr Kapaun in a homily, but where I live is not a big military area.
Father devoted his homily to the Holy Spirit today. He began by reminding us how the endings of the Collects used to say “and the Holy Spirit” and how we often don’t consider the Holy Spirit. He then talked about different ways the Spirit works in us and all of Creation and how we can listen to and worship the Holy Spirit in our lives.
@Fr Martin Fox, of course they ooohed and ahhed over the summernarian! The only thing better than knowing there’s a seminary full of men studying for the priesthood is to have one assigned to your parish for the summer.
Music for The Mass this week was the wonderful (and sadly, rarely heard) Pastoral Mass for choir and orchestra in C by the 18th century Tirolean composer, Alois Bauer. Father Wagner’s sermon stressed the great beauty and necessity of having of such music and the use of Latin during Holy Mass (it was in the Novus Ordo form) and he thanked those of us in the choir and orchestra for bringing this little known treasure to life as part of the The Liturgy. He made a very strong point in this regard when, at the close, he turned to our Choir Director and urged him to continue to do so.
EF Mass, Father preached on the Gospel message that if we ask God for things He will gove them to us, if they are in harmony with God. When we ask God for things during prayer, we are not “changing God’s mind” – he already knows what we are asking for before we ask, instead it conforms our will to God’s will in the matter in question.
OF Mass at the local Parish and the Priest gave a Homily on Christ’s Commandment to love and how they relate to the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament. He also spoke of how we should ask for aid of the Holy Spirit more often in our lives.
I learned that it was Philip the Deacon (aka Philip the Evangelist) rather than Philip the Apostle in the reading. Then I felt like an idiot for never having known that before despite having a Master’s in Theology. Suddenly, it made a lot more sense why the people of Samaria had not yet received the Holy Spirit (been Confirmed). The priest talked about the roles of the Apostles and of deacons, then talked about the New Evangelization.
This weekend was First Communion at our parish. The priest spoke mostly on how all the First Communicants had also had their first confession the day before, and how confession was always available. He mentioned something about Jesus referring to us as His sheep. Father then said on his trip to the Holy Land he had thought sheep smelled and were not that bright, and quipped that sometimes we do things that are kind of stinky or kind of stupid, and that’s what Confession is for.
The OF homily centered on the first reading. The historic enmity between the Samaritans and Jews was explained again, making both the effort to evangelize them and their receptiveness clearly miraculous. To whom should we be reconciling in Christ?
Off topic, but I am reading this in a Best Buy where I am checking out the tablets. I will just leave the screen on Fr. Z as a small act of evangelization! Happy Feast of St. Philip Neri.
For Memorial Day Mass, afterwards, we regrouped at the Catholic cemetery to attend Monsignor as he ( in his superhero cape as my 7 yr old dubs it) and two acolytes in cassock and surplice blessed the graves with Holy Water. Many of my relatives lie in Veterans’ graves.
This dear priest spoke his mind to our former, more liberal bishop, once too often and found himself stripped of his beautiful traditional parish and banished to the backwaters of a country parish circuit, but with a new Monsignor title. He has been embraced by the new parishes though and they are eager for the brick by brick changes he is making. The new bishop is very encouraging.
Mass today (Memorial Day) was a Mass for the homeschool graduates. Auxiliary bishop celebrating and preaching. OF.
1) Notice that Christ doesn’t say “you will become the salt”, but “you ARE the salt of the earth”.
2) [In connection with the “lamp” image]: Some people deny the light, others diminish it, still others extinguish it. You must nurture it and let it shine before men.
3) This auxiliary bishop likes to use the expression “pastoral charity”, but we never get the impression that it means “deny or water down the teachings of the Church”.
I had the honor and privilege to attend Mass at St. Mary’s in Pine Bluff where the great Fr. Heilman is. His homily talked about how soldiers are saints because of how they go to battle for us. He also mentioned how complaining is an unchristian act and that we need to seek out our crosses as well as to make sacrifices. We can not be comfortable. We must seek what makes us uncomfortable. His Mass was excellent. Truly some great blogging material.
Hell is real.
Father was on vacation and the priest who said Mass for us started by saying that he was going to depart from the topics in the readings because a local dissident priest who had just retired was making the rounds in the media last week, spreading heresy. Among the things reported on news broadcasts and in the news paper was that the dissident priest said there was no actual Hell, that a loving God would never create people and then send any of them there.
The faithful priest told us that is a terrible and dangerous heresy and then gave evidence of Hell from Sacred Scripture, quoting the times Jesus warned of it’s existence and the types of people He said would end up there. Father then gave evidence from reason. If we believe in Jesus, we must believe in Hell. He pointed out what a grave insult it is to Our Lord to claim there is no Hell. If there is no Hell, what is it we are being saved from? Why do we have a need for a Savior at all? With no Hell, Jesus would have suffered and died for nothing. We would not need Him.
(What an awful Heresy!)
Father also explained that God does not send His creatures to Hell, but that people use their free will to place themselves there. That over the course of their lives, they freely choose to separate themselves from God and He does not force anyone to choose Him, and in turn choose Heaven.