Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard for the Mass you heard to fulfill your Sunday obligation? Let us know.
For my part, I spoke about an odd phrase in a standard English translation of the Epistle of James heard in the Extraordinary Form:
Wherefore casting away all uncleanness, and abundance of naughtiness, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
That “abundance of naughtiness” sounds a little precious. Think about the root: naught… zero… nothingness, hence, “an abundance of zeroness”. Goodness is abundance while evil is the opposite of abundance. Evil is the absence of being. The precious sounding phrase translates “abundantia malitiae“. The Greek is perisseia kakia, again “abundance/superfluity of malice/desire to do evil”. Just before, James wrote: “And let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger.” Swift to hear. One of the applications of perisseia indicates an abundance of earwax, which makes it hard to hear. Is it by coincidence that James immediately continues:
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was.
Get your ears cleaned out. Listen. Get to work.
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He was talking about how the seasons of the Church year interconnect with each other. How each season is a preparation for the next. That the two big seasons of preparation are Advent and Lent. But he was saying how Eastertide is a preparation for both the Ascension and Pentecost. And how each time we receive Holy Communion we are preparing for heaven.
This is a paraphrase. But I thought it was beautiful.
OF Mass – our Pastor was on point today. In short he referenced the Pew poll, and he had tough words for both those who believe in the God of the Bible and those who don’t. To focus broadly, he spoke of Baptism being the sacrament that grafts us to the vine and that we must continually use the sacraments of Confession and Eucharist (in the state of grace – he emphasized) to stay connected to the vine. He spoke emphatically of how we only flourish if we are connected to the vine. He then focused on viewing life’s trails, big and small, are God’s pruning of our life and that we must trust that good graces will flow from them if we trust in God. Lastly, we must become disciples and produce fruit through our relationship with God. We need to be attentive to the word of God, to sit at his feet and learn from him. That we shouldn’t be looking for entertainment at Mass, that we shouldn’t seek to be the first one out of Mass. He asked us not to be mediocre not to give the minimum, because God gives to us in abundance.
Hell.
It exists.
Told us what the Fatima seers reported seeing on July 13,1917.
Sunday of the Samaritan Woman for those of us worshipping in the Byzantine Rite. Father said, once someone asked him, why have a sermon, Father? Why don’t we just come to the church, say “Gospodi pomiluj” and go home? We need to have some guidance, taking the form of a sermon — it’s like when a child comes home from college, the mom makes us something we have to eat together and then little by little we talk about different things, and parents have the chance then to point out the way, to guide . All of us have different relationships, with spouses, children, friends, co-workers, each is different. In the story of the Samaritan woman a conversation first starts out as a misunderstanding, and then even a series of misunderstandings. Jesus wants to be in relationship, one that is living water, that always shows the way. The Samaritan woman misunderstands several times until he reveals to her everything she ever did and she understands him to be greater than even a prophet. This leads to the salvation of her and her whole village, from outside the Jewish tradition.
We had First Communion today. My homily was a story about a conversation between an angel and God, before the Incarnation, in which God explains to the angel about his plan to send the Son to earth, and to create the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. God also explains how the angel will help, one day, with this plan, as a guardian angel for one of the children who would live in my community (perhaps who was there today?).
Both last week’s sermon and this week’s have been about what makes Christianity different from other world religions. Last week: Brief explanation of several other major religions. Contrast this to Christianity. It is not a philosophy we follow, nor a prophet who died, but the very Son of God, whom we can have a relationship with. This week: We follow the resurrected Son of God, we can have a relationship with Him, and His life can flow through us. He is the vine and we are the branches, with His life in us. Jesus called Saul and turned him into Paul, grafting him onto the vine. So too Jesus can change us and draw us to deeper life in Him, if we follow Him and allow Him to work in us.
Byzantine Rite, Sunday of the Samaritan woman. Jesus isn’t there for us when out lives are perfect. He spoke with St Photina and she believed because he knew her imperfect life, that she had five husbands and the one she was with wasn’t her husband.
She reported to the villagers what had transpired and that He knew everything about her. Later others let her know that they, too, believed, not because of her experience, but that He had come to them in their brokenness and knew them.
This is the message for us, that He is here with us in our brokenness, knowing our issues, not coming to us when our lives are perfect.
Our fill-in priest, a good man from our local seminary, offered Mass today. He was talking about the image of the vine, and how Jesus identified himself with the concept of the promised land that the Jews were clinging to. He also gave some advice for making ourselves receptive as Mary was when receiving communion, so that we could experience little glimpses of heaven here.
Sorry to say the homily this past weekend wasn’t anything to brag about, despite the effort.
Although, the nature of a vine is to climb, to flower and to bear fruit:
The climb is to reach the light; for us, it is the truth of the Word of God that we seek.
The flower is the inherent dignity and goodness of each person; an the implications.
The fruit is the genuine/honest peace and joy emanating from each true disciple of the Lord.
And it is all contingent on our remaining attached to the vine.
Father, our priest read our Bishop’s pastoral letter regarding the forthcoming referendum on abortion here in Ireland. Please pray for us. We go to the polls in under a month.
https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2018/04/15/pastoral-letter-on-the-right-to-life-by-bishop-john-buckley/
We were visiting in the Worcester MA area and attended the Byzantine Rite at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the nearby Roman Rite Church being … well we are only supposed to say Good things in these comments.
For the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, Father said he could speak for hours about this particular Gospel passage, but one thing in particular stood out: the actions of the townspeople that first heard about Jesus from the woman but then went and saw for themselves. It may seem a back handed compliment to say in effect we first heard it from her but have now believed because we saw it for ourselves. But how often in life we hear about something and say “oh that’s interesting” and then just go on our way. The towns people could have just said “oh another prophet” and moved on, but instead they stopped and listened and were converted. We need to stop and listen to what God is saying to us.