Your Sunday Sermon Notes

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

Let us know.

I was deacon for a TLM Solemn today, so I didn’t preach at that Mass, but I took the next Mass, too, NO.   Jumping off from the Gospel, I spoke about the magnificent bodies we will have in the resurrection.  Christ showed us something of what they will be like, with their characteristics of brightness, agility, subtlety, and impassibility.

Considering what awaits us in the joy of heaven, where Christ will share something of His transforming glory with us, why would we sin and lose what He has won?

And yet we do.

What a merciful Savior we have, who saved us once, and saves us again and again for all time.

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18 Comments

  1. Sliwka says:

    Uk Gr Cath: Thomas Sunday–Difficulties vs doubts. Difficulties are normal to have as long as we persist in faith/trust. Doubts are losing hope in God’s faithfulness, goodness, truth, etc.

    He gave the example of St Theresa of Kolkata and her years of experience of God’s silence but living without doubt.

  2. andia says:

    Fr Talked about today being the “birthday of Confession”, the importance of confession and the need to go to confession. He also spoke about Divine Mercy and out need for it. He ended with urging everyone to go to confession.

  3. iamlucky13 says:

    Father first referenced the fruitful communal life described in the first reading from Acts.

    Then he suggested that perhaps the reason Thomas was not with the rest of the Apostles during the first appearance of Jesus in today’s Gospel, and the reason he couldn’t believe they had actually seen Him, was because he had separated himself from the community of the early church.

    Father went on to discuss how regular participation with the Church is vital to culturing our faith, especially attending Mass every Sunday.

  4. CaliCatholicGuy says:

    It was Divine Mercy Sunday here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Father told a story of a parish pastor who used to give the exact same sermon every week. The parishioners grew sick of hearing the same sermon and formed a committee to petition the bishop to send a new pastor. The bishop called the committee and the pastor together and asked the pastor “did you really preach the same sermon week after week?” The pastor answered in the affirmative. Then the bishop turned to the parishioners and asked “so what was the sermon about?”

    Father then asked how many of us remember the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, especially following the Year of Mercy. He challenged us to remember that as merciful our Lord is to us, we too need to be merciful to others.

  5. Rich says:

    Fr. Z.,

    Will our resurrected bodies in heaven still retain that attribute which made Christ hungry, leading to ask for something to eat? (cf. Luke 24:41)

    Thanks,
    Rich

  6. John Grammaticus says:

    Novus Ordo Vigil Mass

    Father talked about difficulties vs doubts, how 10,000 difficulties do not make one doubt, and how we are called to evangelise.

    TLM on Sunday

    Father preached on the life of St George and how today we can look to him as an example of remaining faithful to the faith, even in times of persecution / potential persecution.

  7. PhilipNeri says:

    I decided to go full Dominican-catechetical for Divine Mercy Sunday. . .

    https://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2017/04/truly-awe-some-mercy.html

    Fr. Philip Neri, OP

  8. Adaquano says:

    Our pastor focused on why Thomas may have been absent and then reflected on what is preventing or distracting is from fully encountering Jesus.

  9. JonPatrick says:

    What is mercy? Love’s response to suffering. God the father of all mercies gave to the apostles and his successors the ability to forgive sins which is the greatest mercy of all, because sin the the true cause of all suffering. Sin is like a wound that festers and takes over. The Devil uses sins in the same way to take us over. Christ sends the apostles on this mission to forgive sins. In confession the priest takes the place of Christ even though he himself is a sinner. Not just to forgive but to heal and transform. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he said “unbind him and let him go free”. Confession unbinds us and lets us go free.

  10. Michaelus says:

    The youngest of the three priests at our little parish gave a reflection of St. Thomas via Caravaggio’s painting – particularly how the painter had Christ guide Thomas’s hand to his wounded side. Utterly splendid.

  11. YellowRoses says:

    Our Pastor preached about Divine Mercy. He began with describing J.R.R. Tolkien’s coining of the phrase “eu-catastrophe” (a catastrophe that turns everything upside down, but ends positively). He then explained how the end of the Lord of the Rings was a eucatastrophe (Gollum bites the ring of Frodo’s finger and falls into Mt. Doom, saving the day). Tolkien himself said that this type of story had wide appeal because it is our own story, the Resurrection being the eucatastrophe to the Crucifixion.

    Then, he went on to tell a favorite story of Divine Mercy with St. John Vianney, the great Confessor of Ars. In it Fr. Vianney, by an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells a distraught widow her atheist husband was saved by God’s mercy. He explained that as her husband was hurtling to his suicidal death, God offered him mercy and he took it. The seed of this acceptance was when her husband did not object to her hanging a picture of the Sacred Heart in her room. (Fr. Vianney told her all this without her offering any information.)

    Father proceeded to touch on the Gospel. Our Lord does not hide His wounds, He is not ashamed of them because now that He is resurrected, they are glorified. Father encouraged us to show Our Lord our own wounds (particularly in Confession) and to let Him touch them and heal them. (Fascinating, really.) Then Father reminded us of how madly in love Our Lord is with us, evident in His abundant Mercy––Our Lord will go to any extent to save us!

    After Mass (in lieu of a final blessing), Father exposed the Blessed Sacrament and we prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, then Our Lord gave us Benediction.

  12. Cafea Fruor says:

    I ended up at a parish that’s not my own, but it was nice, because that parish just started having adoration and confession for an hour before that Mass, and so, since I got there really early, I stumbled into an opportunity for confession when I really needed it (Deo gratias!). Anyway, during Mass, Father first spoke on Thomas and belief, but I was distracted and don’t remember what he said about that. But I do remember the second part of his homily, in which he talked about mercy and how fitting it is that Divine Mercy Sunday, being the second Sunday of Easter, always has the Gospel about the apostles being given the authority to forgive sins. And he talked about confession and how it brings us mercy. He said that some people think they don’t need to go to confession, but he made it clear that we all have to. And he said others think their sins are too big, to which he said something to the effect of, “Maybe your sins are big. Maybe you committed adultery and murder like David. Maybe you prostituted yourself like St. Mary Magdalene. Maybe you abandoned your best friend in a time of need and denied him three times like St. Peter. But these sins weren’t too big for God to forgive, and neither are yours.” And he talked about praying the Divine Mercy chaplet and suggested that it would be good for us to meditate on the first words of the closing prayer of the chaplet: “Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion…” Having just been able to get to confession when it was really needed made everything Father said very apropos for me.

  13. Grant M says:

    Sunday in the Octave of Easter, Sunday in Albis, Low Sunday, Thomas Sunday, the Second Sunday in Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, Quasimodo Sunday, (the day when Archdeacon Frollo discovered a hunchbacked foundling in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and named him for the Sunday) ….

    With so many associations for the day jostling in my mind, I quite overlooked the fact that it was also the Sunday after World Earth Day. And so, for a homily we had a video address by the Archbishop with an environmental theme, and were also given a leaflet with the text of the day.

    The quality of Jakarta’s air is notorious, and people often throw rubbish into drains and waterways, where it can aggravate flooding in the rainy season. So I suppose his address was timely, if not what I was expecting for that Sunday.

    In the course of the homily, the Archbishop touched on greed, and quoted, from the second reading for the day (OF), 1 Peter 1: 6-7. That is what stayed with me: “your faith, more precious than gold”, rather than the practical but familiar advice on disposing of one’s trash correctly.

  14. My homily was primarily about the reality of the Resurrection, and that the resurrection we look forward to is the “why” of Divine Mercy.

  15. jjoy says:

    We can choose the path of Thomas or the path of Judas. Choose wisely!

    Divine Mercy is approved by the Church. If you have doubts about St. Faustina, at least trust the Magisterium of the Church.

  16. Prayerful says:

    The Mass was offered by a French priest (I think) and the sermon was given by Fr Gallagher, mostly on the Sacrament of Penance and absolution. A notable point was when it might be necessary for the confessor to use deferred absolution.

  17. JesusFreak84 says:

    The UGCC and the EF of the Roman Rite, at least, have the same Gospel. Since the English liturgy in my parish is on Saturday evenings, the same day as the “science” march, Father addressed that. The Gospel reading pretty much WAS perfect for it, too.

  18. jameeka says:

    Father spoke about the first reading, the Acts of the Apostles, when the first Christians gathered in homes and broke the bread (no churches yet). The new sabbath was the first day of the week, Sunday, rather than the last day of the week previously observed by the Jews.
    He mentioned one of Pope Benedict’s sermons 2005:
    The emperor Diocletian in 304 forbade Christians from gathering on Sundays to celebrate the Eucharist.
    49 Christians defied this decree saying they would not be able to live without the strength they gained by celebrating the Eucharist on Sundays. They were tortured and executed for their faith in the Risen Christ.

    “Sine dominico non possumus”.

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