Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Was there a good point in the sermon you heard for your Sunday Mass?

Let us know.

Meanwhile, here are two shots from this morning’s Mass at St. Mary’s in Pine Bluff.

With the new vestments I recently bought in Rome.  I blessed them before the Asperges.  

What beautiful blessing prayers!

Sample:

Almighty everlasting God, who decreed through Moses, your servant, that the vesture of high-priest, priest, and levite, used in fulfilling their ministry in your sight, should be worn to dignify and beautify the worship rendered to your holy name; mercifully heed our prayers, and be pleased, through our lowly ministry, to bless ~ these priestly vestments (this priestly vestment), bedewing them with your grace, so that they become hallowed and suitable for divine worship and the sacred mysteries. Let every bishop, priest, or deacon clothed in these sacred vestments be strengthened and defended from all assault or temptation of wicked spirits; let them perform and celebrate your mysteries reverently and well; and let them always carry out their ministry in a devout and pleasing manner; through Christ our Lord.

This looks like the moment before the Gospel.

15_11_08_Mass_01

15_11_08_Mass_02

Worthy of Norman Rockwell.

I spoke of how God’s omnipotence is manifested in mercy and addressed the perennial question of why God allows the wicked to keep at it.  God is patient.  He allows wickedness before he chastises.  Remembering the words of Augustine, perhaps one day the weeds will become the wheat!  We have role in people’s lives.

Some of you might recognize this as the church where the the Diocese of Madison’s Extraordinary Ordinary, Bp. Robert Morlino, had a Pontifical Mass at the Faldstool a while back (yes… at the faldstool, even though he is the bishop).  Your’s truly is MC standing slight behind and to the Epistle side of the sacred ministers.

I, vigilant, watch to make sure they are observing the rubrics.

In January we will have Pontifical NUPTIAL Mass at the same Church.

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17 Comments

  1. Mike says:

    As we examine our lives we need to take into account not only our sins but also the virtues we need to cultivate, such as patience, humility, and charity. Growth in virtue and holiness needs to take place in community, “the bond of perfection.” This is the expression on earth of the Communion of Saints that we celebrated last week in a special way. As the Saints in Heaven did, we on earth need to be mindful of who in our lives can help us to grow in holiness (and to spend less time with people that distract us from holiness).

  2. Mary of Carmel says:

    Today our pastor spoke of the meaning of the word “heretic” and it relationship with the term “Cafeteria Catholic”. The word “heretic” means “to pick” and that “Cafeteria Catholic” is the same as the word “heretic” because Catholics like this pick and choose what they will believe in.

    Altogether, a Cafeteria Catholic is a heretic.

    Our pastor also explained that the meaning of the wheat being allowed to grow with the chaff, from today’s reading, meant the presence of heresy in the midst of the truth of the Catholic Church. St. John Chrysostom and other earlier bible scholars knew that there would come a time when heresy would increase and choke the truth, but that God allows it to exist with the wheat.

    He said that this scripture verse doesn’t usually mean what modern scholars put to it, for example, tolerance for sinfulness and sinful people.

    I hope I have this correct. It was an eye-opener for me.

  3. aquinas138 says:

    Our Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into ALL truth, and that truth is found in the same place it has always been found – in the Faith passed on from the apostles, through early luminaries such as St. Polycarp who personally knew the apostles, down to our own day through the college of bishops. Bishops, and even popes, may attempt to change the application of doctrine in pastoral practice, for good or for ill, but the doctrine will never change and indeed CANNOT change. We can prooftext the Bible and find justification for anything if we want, but the Bible is not an end in itself – it is not, strictly speaking the word of God, but a revelation of the Word of God. The Bible must be interpreted according to the mind of the Church, which is the mind of Christ, who cannot contradict himself.

  4. MikeM says:

    Novus Ordo Mass. The priest talked about how the “common sense” worldly wisdom often revolves around categorizing things or people and then allocating resources among them. Our political system (two parties fighting for a fixed number of congressional seats), and other worldly institutions tend to, perhaps necessarily, be structured that way. But, when we serve God, he endlessly provides what we need if we trust him enough to open that opportunity. Like the women in the OT and Gospel readings, we should be prepared to be generous in our service, trusting that we will be provided with whatever we really need.

  5. Now, THAT’S what Father talks about. No parsing of words to describe those images: that’s full-bore In-Your-Face Catholic. As it should be.

    No half-hearted incrementalism there. Thank you for posting; our homily this morning: remember the Widow’s mite when you get your reminder letter from the bishop for the annual appeal.

  6. Gail F says:

    Father often talks about several topics. One today was the widow giving all she had. He talked about how our parish was working-class and didn’t have a lot of money, but that our old church is in a very poor area where the need is great. He also talked about how there is spiritual poverty as well as monetary, and that our small modest church has several priestly vocations so we were rich in faith though not in money. He talked about praying only one hour a week — what kind of spiritual giving is that? And he said if a spouse said, “I love you 95% of the time” would that be enough? Lots to think about regarding who is rich, who is poor, what is enough, what is more than enough, and what is all.

  7. Kathleen10 says:

    At the EF Holy Mass today, Father spoke about the wheat and the chaff and how it makes no sense to us that all would not be just pulled out by God, because we wonder why God allows evil to continue, but that He does not want to uproot the wheat.

    Those photos are really gorgeous. They look as if they are hand colored. I wonder what kind of camera that is.

  8. Rocha90 says:

    Attended my first Solemn High Mass today at St. Margaret Mary’s Catholic Church in Oakland, CA. A wonderful Franciscan priest was celebrating his 25th year of priestly ministry. He spoke of the call to follow Jesus, and in following that call, we recognize what is true and what is false. In regards to falsity, he tied that into those heretical bishops at the synod.

    We must remain true, carry our crosses, and follow Our Lord.

  9. NoraLee9 says:

    Wow, Pater, those photos brought tears to my eyes. The Altars are reminiscent of the those at the (don’t yell) SSPX Church in Syracuse, NY. I am fairly sure they came from a Church which was being dismantled circa 1983. I am wondering if they were built by the same artesian.
    Homily notes from Pequannock, NJ. Father spoke about the need for penance and reparation, given the times were are living in. He presented the children at Fatima as an example. Then he spoke about the Confraternity of the Cord(s). Most prominent of the Confraternities is the Cord of St. Thomas, which helps folks struggling with purity issues…. Fascinating stuff.

  10. JonPatrick says:

    Wow, beautiful shot of people receiving at the altar rail as it should be.

    At our EF Mass Father spoke about the Gospel in which Matthew was addressing a persecuted minority. God will sort things out in the end and reward those that were faithful. The line between good and evil passes through every human heart (Alexander Solzhenitsyn) i.e. there is some good and some evil in everyone. Man judges actions but God judges the heart. Like wheat and cockle we can’t tell them apart until fully grown, the same is true for humans, we don’t know the outcome until our lives are over.

  11. DianeKor says:

    Fr. Perrone spoke on the transformative process of uniting ourselves in Christ. I uploaded audio of that homily yesterday, along with a backlog of 4 others.

    http://grottocast.com/2015/11/09/five-homilies-october-11th-through-november-8th/

  12. PhilipNeri says:

    What if instead of teaching us about how to give alms, the story of the Widow’s Mite teaches us something about prayer? [. . .] what if we think of the two coins she gives to the temple as prayers given to God? And what if we think of the thousands and millions of coins given by the wealthy as their prayers to God? The moral of the story doesn’t change.

    http://www.hancaquam.blogspot.com/2015/11/pray-like-widow-gives.html

    Fr. Philip Neri, OP

  13. PhilipNeri says:

    What if instead of teaching us about how to give alms, the story of the Widow’s Mite teaches us something about prayer? [. . .] what if we think of the two coins she gives to the temple as prayers given to God? And what if we think of the thousands and millions of coins given by the wealthy as their prayers to God? The moral of the story doesn’t change.

    http://www.hancaquam.blogspot.com/2015/11/pray-like-widow-gives.html

    Fr. Philip Neri, OP

  14. Peter Stuart says:

    Noralee9, the Cord of St. Thomas may have been a reference to the Dominicans’ Angelic Warfare Confraternity. That’s been a real boon for me as an SSA Catholic striving for chastity and healing.

  15. LarryW2LJ says:

    We had a visiting Monsignor come to pitch for Cross International. Unfortunately, he’s a very “with it” and hip, “Spirit of VII” product. It was all I could do to keep myself in the pew without a seat belt. However, his take on the “Widow’s Mite” gospel was different and interesting. He pointed out that the institutions representing God can do good work in spite of the damage that men cause to them. The Temple did good work for widows and orphans despite the Pharisees bad, bullying behavior. The Catholic Church continues to do good work in spite of the failures of some of its members. Basically, the point he was making was that the Church continues to do good work because of God is bigger than the Church and the good it does is because of Him and not because of us, and that we need to remember that – and that we need to keep cooperating with Him.

    He kind of lost me, though, when he went on to say that Cross International does the work that Pope Francis champions, helping the poor. Really? NONE of the Pope’s were concerned for the poor before Francis? Sorry – that just irritated me to no end.

    The highlight of the day, though, was later on – helping out at a soup kitchen in a neighboring town. Before going in to start setting up and start cooking, my friend took me over to the convent where the Sisters from the Missionaries of Charity (St. Mother Teresa’s order) live. I was introduced to the Sisters, got to visit their chapel and was invited to come back on Wednesday evenings to pray with them. Cool beans!

  16. iepuras says:

    The Gospel reading at Divine Liturgy was Luke 8:41-56, the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage and the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Father talked about the woman was motivated by faith and that faith is trusting in God and having a relationship with Him. Father encouraged us to reach out and touch God rather than “bumping into” Him – even in the Communion line. We also celebrated the Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Michael and All Angelic Powers.

  17. Jack in NH says:

    EF Mass in Nashua, NH- Father spoke of the servants anxious to pull the cockles from the wheat. The admonishment to leave them be until harvest was explained by Father as a caution to all of us to leave the judgement (and subsequent remedy) to God; that part is not our job, it is His.
    Pretty cool- I never looked at that parable that way before.

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