Were there any good points in the sermon that you heard for your Christmas Mass of obligation?
Let us know.
I spoke on the propositional causes or elements of circumstance of the Incarnation, the quod quia quoniams. And I took a while doing it! I thought it was going to be a Low Mass this morning, but there was a small schola and we had a Missa Cantata.
We also used our new houseling cloths!
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on 9 May: Feast of St. Isaiah, Old Testament Prophet: “The Munda Cor Meum is one of my two favorite prayers in the Mass. My other favorite is the Hanc…”
on Christ’s Ascension and His Lordly Feet: “Salvador Dali’s version, with the ”sunflower” atom and the weeping Gala, is a favorite of mine. https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/ascension”
on Daily Rome Shot 1017: “News of the Church item: on secular radio program, Bishop of Buffalo makes imbecilic remarks about Catholics who prefer TLM…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1017: revived: “The original painting of the Madonna and Child is beautiful. I appreciate the prayer cards available for taking. I have…”
on Christ’s Ascension and His Lordly Feet: “Many thanks! “The Lord is movement toward above, and only in moving ourselves, in looking up and ascending, do we…”
on 9 May: Feast of St. Isaiah, Old Testament Prophet: “This is good, thank you Father. We don’t pay enough attention to the Old Testament saints! There is so much…” on An innovative reform in the Novus Ordo: Vigil of Ascension (2002MR): “Observing the Ascension is so complicated. Ascension Thursday Sunday is indeed ridiculous. What’s with the 40 days being ignored? Put…” on Christ’s Ascension and His Lordly Feet: “ooooooh. Thanks for the images. I’ll download them to my religious pictures collections. I do think about the Apostles standing…”
on Omnium gatherum: “Dear Woody, That is an interesting theory. Fr. Anderson was my chaplain at Wyoming Catholic College and served “in choir”…”
on Christ’s Ascension and His Lordly Feet: “The Church’s patrimony is amazing!! I never knew I needed floating feet paintings. THE BEST! I literally LOL’d. I actually…”
on 9 May: Feast of St. Isaiah, Old Testament Prophet: “The commemoration of Saint Isaiah, the prophet who, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah,…”
on Daily Rome Shot 10112 – Brooklyn 24/4– Day 3 – A visit to the seminary: “Our priest used to take our catholic school’s confirmation students on a field trip to visit the seminary at Huntington.…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1014 – My View For Awhile – The last leg: “1. Qg8+ Kxg8 2. Be6+ Kh8 3. Rg8# 1. Qg8+ forces Kxg8 2. Be6 is double check which forces Kh8…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1014 – My View For Awhile – The last leg: “I was thinking the way DCLex was in trying to solve the puzzle, I don’t have the solution, but Rg6…”
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A Daily Prayer for Priests
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Our pastor mentioned that we can make Christ present by practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. (He also made several other good points as he always does.)
At our beautiful 10:00 PM Christmas Eve Mass, at which my son served at altar, our pastor connected the practice of Christmas gift giving to the ultimate gift given by God in becoming Incarnate and giving Himself for our Salvation.
To all of our broken relationships, we may apply the vision that may be a commonplace but never gets old, of the beauty of any tiny newly born baby, that complete innocence which is irresistable to our eyes and hearts, which was the chosen way in which God to be with us and live with us as one of us.
Christmas season is the season of light. Light coming into this world of darkness in the form of a small baby. Having that realization, we too are called to bring that light onto others: using the specific examples of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Our pastor then beautifully brought it all together with a brief talk on Mother Theresa as an example of someone who brought the light of Christ to others, and how her second miracle was just approved for her canonization. His ending remarks touched so many of us:
“There are more people in this world who are dying for love, rather than for food. These are people within our own families………… find them………. love them”.
We got the matter of Jesus being the inheritor of David’s kingdom. When Joseph took Mary home as the angel had told him, he then became the husband of Mary and he legally adopted Jesus as his son. So Joseph was the legal father of Jesus and in the matter of inheriting things, Jesus inherited Joseph’s Tribe and lineage quite legally. Indeed, when Joseph and Mary sought Jesus and found him in the Temple, Mary told Jesus that his father and she had sought him sorrowfully. So she referred to the legal status between Jesus and Joseph. Adoptive children are even now, legally part of that adoptive family and its inheritence.
Hence, Jesus was legally of the tribe of David and inherited his kingdom, which, under Jesus, will have no end.
Fr. Aidan Logan had the Midnight Mass at Assumption Grotto. He reflected on a brief writing by St. Pope Leo the Great. He provided some history, then talked about the proper attitudes to have on Christmas. The homily was recorded and audio is available. Also recorded and embedded in the same blog post is that of Fr. Perrone from the 9:30. I have not yet listened to it.
http://grottocast.com/2015/12/25/2015-christmas-homilies-fr-logan-fr-perrone/
Either or both of those can be embedded in blogs by hitting the share button on the respective SoundCloud window. For those using Word Press, there is a box to toggle on for the right code. Re-sizing of the box may take playing with the numbers in the code, but I’m able to leave it as is at GrottoCast.
Father tied the Christmas season very nicely to the entire liturgical year, particularly pointing out how Christmas points towards the promise of the Resurrection. Thus, true Christians ought to have the Christmas spirit every day of the year.
A comparison was made between Our Lord and gift cards. When one receives a gift card for Christmas, it is a sign of better things to come, just as Christmas is a sign of the better things to come through Christ.
As a side note, the thurible ought to be inspected before Mass; during the incensing of the altar, one of the chains broke and incense coals went a-flying! Brought a whole new meaning to the term, Holy Smokes!
Towards the beginning of the sermon – A long time ago, the Lord realized we did not love Him enough, and He wanted us to love our Lord, because only that can make us happy, so He descended to Earth, and became a baby, in hopes that this would make it easier for us to love him. The reason I remember that part of the sermon is that I have usually – or always – heard the verb “descend”only used for another time in the life of Jesus, when he descended, after his death on the cross, to meet and redeem those who had died before him. The Christmas lights – all clear white – on the trees at the sides of the altar then reminded me of all the happy souls on that other most sacred night when Christ, having been born and having died, descended to where they (that is, those who were born and died before, or not very long after, the first Christmas) were, to bring them the good news Himself.
The priest last night at St. Josaphat in Detroit compared the “no vacancy/no room in the inn” at the Nativity of our Lord with our hearts. That because of hatred, greed, jealousy and other vices, we have “no room in our hearts” for Jesus. By ridding ourselves of these things (hatred, greed, jealousy and other vices), we open our hearts to Jesus. “Only when there is peace in our Hearts, from Jesus” will there be peace in our relationships and the world.
Year of Jubilee
Mercy and the Compassion of God via-a-vis Incaarnation
Celebrating the year of mercy practicing the corporal,and spiritual works of mercy
I came home to Monterey, and Fr. Tom Hall (whom I love dearly and respect immensely – he challenges my assumptions) preached at the family Mass on the marriage practices of ancient Judaism and the heroic love of St Joseph, who accepted a pregnant Mary on the word of an angel, despite the Old Testament penalties for pregnancy out of wedlock. There has been a subtext in homilies during Advent on the fact that biblical marriage practices, even in the New Testament times, did treat women as property. Saint Nicholas’s great charity was providing dowries for daughter who might otherwise have been sold into slavery. Something to think about.
Man is made in the image of God and is above all other creatures on earth, ranking higher than the angels, none of whom God has ever called his son (as stated in the Epistle for the day).
I attended two Masses. In one the priest spoke about the humanity of the baby Jesus. In the other, Father spoke about mercy and how it more than just coming to confession, while is vitally important of course, but mercy and reconciliation on our personal relationships, beginning with family. Many families seem to dread the holiday get-togethers because of grudges and so forth. And there are grudges against others we may know….mercy must extend in these ways too.
1) Nowadays, people see the claim that there is only one God as (his word) arrogant.
2) Nowadays, people see disbelief in one God as the antidote to intolerance, hatred….. etc
Before I go on, I need to note that our priest is a native of Japan. I heard all of these observations within that context.
3) It can’t be denied that religion is sometimes used to justify evil, but also that this is a corruption of true religion, not the practice of it.
4) That corruption involves making God our private property (again, his expression).
5) While sometimes belief in God has led to violence, refusal to believe in God never brings peace.
Does, It was short and generally stuck to the texts, count?
[So… what was the request “good point” made? Unless you are arguing that its brevity was the good point. ]
Midnight Mass at Old St. Mary’s in DC. Fr. Harris, our pastor, asked why are we here? We are celebrating the great love of God that flows to His creation, even to the extent of becoming one of us. There was more, but that was the main point.
@ Stephen c: happy feast day! About “he descended:” it is in the Nicean Creed, “propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis.” You miss it in English because it is translated “for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.” The Nicean Creed, unlike the Apostles’ Creed, does not say anything about descending into hell, or to the dead.
Blessed Octave of Christmas!
I have to say, I love living so close to Fr. Loya’s parish, because he is one of the best homiists I have ever heard. At yesterday’s Divine Liturgy, he started talking about how Pope Francis has called the Extraordianry Jubilee Year of Mercy. He mentioned how he personally wouldn’t have done that, although he understand why the Pope did decide to declare so this year. But he said, and I quote, “What Catholics really need this year is a kick in the ass! I’m serious!” And to paraphrase him, people need a good spanking right about now!
He talked about how cultural Catholics have gotten complacent, how very few things are going right with the world mentioning the situation of Christians in the Middle East, the amoral political landscape in the US, the education system, etc. He talked about how we all need a greater conversion to Christ, and that too many seem to hang on to the notion that Mass is “boring” or “too long”. He then pulled out his massive prayer book saying that he reads from this every day, and noting “how long” it looks. But he posed a question: why is it so long? Why are the prayers during the liturgy so long? Because we, as human creatures, are trying to understand why (as well as are trying to figure out how to properly offer praise and thanksgiving) God condescended and insulted Himself to become man and walk among us. I thought that was very enlightening, and would like to use that on people at my work place, one who told me that he couldn’t sit through an hour long Mass without thinking about what football games he was going to bet on or checking out the women in their dresses…
Father then cam full circle when he said God in His great mercy sent His only Son for us on this Christmas Day, and that’s why the Pope did decide to declare the Jubilee, so we could remember to be merciful to each other and our families. It was awesome hearing how people definitely needs the Church’s merciful embrace as well as a slap to wake everyone up.
My homily reflected on this curious fact: virtually the whole world (one way or the other), observes Christmas. Why is this? What does it mean?
Father talked about how there are competing ideas of God in our world today. On the one hand we have the vision exemplified by Star Wars — in that form relatively harmless, a fun fantasy story; but the theology appeals to moderns — where the closest thing there is to God is some universal life-connecting “force”. On the other we have the vision of radical Islam, the sort that inspires terrorists, where God is believed to be so far above us as to be unable to have any relationship beyond treating us as if we were beasts of burden. The thing they have in common is a contrast to the Christian belief in the Incarnation: a God who so loved the world that He became one of us in order to make us close to Him. Two thousand years later and the world still needs to see the newborn king.
Fr Steve focused on how the manger leads to the cross and the resurection, otherwise the manger would mean nothing. ( Midnight Mass)
Fr Bryan focused on the season of Christmas and how we need to celebrate all of the the season and its gifts-not just the presents or stop celebrating the Nativity just because December 25th has passed. ( 11 am Mass)
We basically got Salvation History 101 in 5min. :)
Things that are familiar to me, but that may have been Very Good Points to the once-a-year crowd (in not particular order, it’s been a few days):
Christmas is about Easter.
Christmas is about the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
The manger is the altar – the altar of the Cross, and the altar in our churches.
Oh, and infinite MERCY got woven in too.
There was more detail, but someone knows his Patristics. Father was also sensible – he celebrated five Masses (two ‘vigil’ Masses, and the usual Midnight-Dawn-Day) and pretty much recycled the homily, though I doubt anyone except myself and the deacon would have noticed.
Just to highlight the contrast:
Today, I played as usual for a CofE church (I have permission, and they pay me money). The sermon (from the lady-vicaress) went “waffle waffle waffle stuff about light and darkness waffle waffle annoying dualism and talk about balance waffle waffle.”
Two good ones (one from the vigil and one from the morning Mass):
1. God dispersed the chosen people in the Old Testament to bring the pagans into contact with the idea of Him, preparing them for the incarnation of Christ so many centuries later; we are likewise meant to make God manifest to others as the body of Christ.
2. God sees potential goodness in us, and seeks to bring out this goodness through his presence, through the Church, and through the sacraments.. Unlike Protestants, who think that our nature is utterly corrupt, God knows that we are good, and he encourages us to strip away everything that obscures this goodness.
Attended at a family member’s Catholic parish in the Boston area. The good point to the sermon I heard is that because, mirabile dictu, it seemed to be written rather than extemporaneous it may be put to redemptive reuse as an outhouseling cloth.