Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Did you hear a good point or two in the sermon you heard for your Sunday Mass?

Let us now.

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in SESSIUNCULA. Bookmark the permalink.

48 Comments

  1. Faith says:

    Ha! I wish I could remember what Father said. He read the wrong Gospel, but gave the right homily. And I had to concentrate very hard to keep a straight face.

  2. Joseph-Mary says:

    Well we had the right Gospel but the message….
    Now we do hear that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ and that is good; I have been inparishes where we did not even get that. But it is NEVER mentioned that we should be in a state of grace to receive this Blessed Sacrament. And our people are not invited to adoration so that in our big parish our one day of adoration has a skeletal coverage.

    Father is entertaining and brings in stories from his childhood. But it is very very rare that he challenges or teaches. I long for more! Today he told us how we do not need to be perfect. Yet Our Lord Himself challenged us to be perfect. So on we go doing what we do we do and have fulfilled the one hour a week we give to the Lord.

  3. Sad to say I am not sure what was the central point of today’s homily. Neither the Letter to the Ephesians nor the Gospel were mentioned. Not a syllable on the Eucharist. On top of that, the amended politically version of Ephesians was read. I left today’s Mass spiritually famished.

    [Sorry, but… how is that a GOOD point from a sermon? I am at a loss.]

  4. iowapapist says:

    A very fine retired priest offered the Mass we attended today. He did a nice job of tying together today’s Gospel with those of the last several weeks. However, I had a hard time concentrating as the Epistle dealing with Christ’s relationship to the Church being analagous with marriage was cut short. The bracketed portion, dealing with wive’s duties of obedience to husbands, was conveniently omitted. Why do we cater so to gender feminists? Even though this was quite distracting, father’s homily, and the grace of God, allowed me to concentrate on my reason for being there.

  5. akp1 says:

    Good homily about how we need to think about if we truly believe Jesus is the ‘Holy One of God’ and He is the the only One to whom we should go; we need to start trusting the Church on Her teachings. As soon as we start to follow our own ideas on divorce, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, homosexual lifestyles, (yes, brave priest he listed even more) etc, we show we do not really believe. It wasn’t too hard hitting, but certainly more than we have heard for a long time. Food for thought for many of us.

  6. Charivari Rob says:

    Mission appeal from a visiting priest – an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales.

    Tied-in nicely with the Gospel – the disciples & apostles and how Jesus’ words being hard things to hea, tying in with how the Oblates answer a hard calling. Also how the Word has taken root in so many places where they have mission efforts – in several of these places two-thirds of their ranks of priests, brothers and sisters now come from the native populations.

    Indirectly, a useful reminder of how easy we have it here in the Church in the USA compared to so many other places.

  7. pberginjr says:

    Tied in Jesus challenge to the crowd, and the followers leaving and returning to former ways b/c of hard teachings. We need to examine the Church’s teachings, difficult though they may seem, and submit to them (abortion is never good, even after the violent sexual assaults of rape/incestuous rape). When we don’t submit, we turn away as the crowd did, leaving the Lord. We must be as Peter was. Joshua gives a model “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Paul’s letter (we got the long form, thankfully) challenges husband and wife both to submission to each other, wives to subordination, husbands to submit their lives to love as Jesus loved the Church (and Jesus and the Church are joined).
    Really solid, as always, challenging us to follow the Holy Father and the Magisterium. Very sad to see our pastor transferred this week…

  8. servus humilis says:

    Wow. Father was on a tear this morning about Catholics voting for pro-abortion presidential candidates. He mentioned the statistic that 64 percent of “Mexican Catholics” voted for a pro-abortion candidate (Obama) last time around. This in an overwhelmingly Hispanic/Democrat parish! God bless him, he’s trying to “move the culture” in the right direction. He tied this to the reading from Joshua: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” His larger point was: don’t be a follower, and worship the god of Amonnites just because you’re in their country!
    God bless him, but he did confess from the pulpit that he is tempted to despair.

  9. mamajen says:

    Our priest is on vacation, so we had a visiting priest who was very good. He reminded us that no sin is unforgivable. He also told parents to have faith if their grown children fall away from the church–always have hope that they will remember their roots and come back to God. He gave us several real-life examples.

  10. thomas tucker says:

    Very nice homily in Newberg,Oregon about how God asks us, as he did the ancient Israelies and the disciples of Jesus, to make a decision for or against Him, to believe or not to believe, to trust or not to trust. He even used the “T word”- transubstantiation ,in his homily.

  11. jeffreyquick says:

    We still have too many church buildings for the number of Christians we have… except for Christmas Eve. Last time, I give 7 first Communions… and 2 or 3 2nd Communions …and one 3rd communion. And why do the servers only show up when they have to serve? Jesus didn’t say that Heaven was that easy to get into.

  12. Fr. Selvester says:

    I heard a few good points in both the homily for the Ordinary Form and the one for the Extraordinary Form. But, being that I was the homilist in both cases it would be immodest of me to mention them! :D

  13. Sissy says:

    Our visiting priest from Nigeria urged us all to follow Joshua’s example and choose to serve God. He talked about “choice” and how the idea of choice is presented by the world as inherently good, but only the right choice is good.

  14. Ana says:

    This was an unusual week for me as I actually took notes at the Vigil Mass. We are blessed to always have excellent homilies, but something about the homily last night really struck me.

    One’s state in life is a daily choice just as the Israelites had to choose God.

    Four important point to take away from the Gospel reading (John 6:60-69)
    1) Those that walked away from Christ were his disciples who had been following him for several years, at this point, and although knew Christ’s teachings they said, “Thank you, but no thanks.”
    2) Christ did not chase after them to explain that what he said was not meant literally.
    3) He did not attempt to negotiate with them – well, which commandments can you keep?
    4) He did not attempt to guilt them into staying although it probably hurt

    Then he turned to the twelve apostles and asked them, “Do you also want to leave?”
    St. Peter was given the grace to say, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced you are the “Holy One of God.” although it would be a year before they would begin to understand this teaching.

    Again, our faith is a daily choice we must make beyond the choice made for us at our baptism or we made at our confirmation or that we made five years ago.

    As Pope Benedict has said, “When you experience true love, the only appropriate response is love.”

  15. vox borealis says:

    Our young associate pastor, newly ordained last year, gave a very strong homily tackling the “long versions” of the reading from St. Paul (the controversial “wives be subject to your husbands” passage). He didn’t deal with the Gospel, which was a bit of a surprise, but he had already spoken about the reality of transubstantiation last week. One thing I’ll say about this young priest, he is unafraid to take on tough topics and readings for his homilies.

  16. jlmorrell says:

    On this thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, our priest based his sermon on that of St. John Vianney for this same Sunday. The saint’s sermon was so good that our priest even read much of it to us. It began by teaching what is necessary for a good confession and that sometimes a priest must not absolve the penitent in some circumstances. One of these is if the penitent does not understand the basic and essential tenants of the holy Catholic religion. He then went on to give a wonderfully concise, yet thorough, account of what all Catholics must know, understand, and do in order to be good Catholics.

    After the sermon I thought to myself that the Bishop of our diocese should mandate this sermon of St. John Vianney be read in every parish. The vast majority of Catholics urgently need to hear it.

  17. HeatherPA says:

    Excellent homily on the holy sacrament of marriage and St. Paul’s epistle- our priest explained thoroughly the meaning of St. Paul’s message to wives and husbands.

  18. chantgirl says:

    The homily for the EF gospel today was about gratitude. I’m smiling because I took my toddler into the cofessional today before Mass (hope that’s okay; didn’t really have a choice). I was telling the priest about some feelings of envy and feeling called to be more obedient to my husband even though he’s not the kind of husband who expects it or asks for it. Then I was pleasantly surprised that the gospel was about the ten lepers and the one who came back to thank Jesus. The priest explained that the root of many sins like envy and distrust in God can be traced to a lack of gratitude. Now I hear that some of you heard a homily about marriage and obedience. I guess I should have heard two homilies today!

  19. whitej30 says:

    Our priest started off with a story about Bishop Fulton Sheen, when asked by Milton Berle how he had beaten Berle in TV ratings, attributing it to his “better writers; four excellent Jewish boys.”

    Then he spoke about our church’s current restoration, which symbolically showcases the four Gospels in lattices around our new alter. He spoke about how and why the different animals from Revelation – the Lion, the Calf (or Ox), the Man, and the Eagle – are attributed to each Gospel. The reason, he said, is that one Gospel started with Jesus’ lineage (the Man), one discussed the priestly sacrifice (the Calf or Ox), one was conceptually high minded (the Eagle), and the other, I think, discussed Christ’s royalty (symbolized by the Lion).

    He then tied it into the need for each of us to use our individual gifts to serve the Church and each other (referencing Christ’s call to serve each other in the Gospel), and how important it was for us each to embrace our own identity (as each of the Gospel writers did) in order to make a more complete whole (as they made beautiful unique, if incomplete, pieces – referencing both the Gospels and the new restored artwork).

  20. Bea says:

    He pointed out that last week was about the good Samaritan
    and this week it was about the only one of the ten that returned to give thanks for the healing from leprosy was a Samaritan.
    Our Catholicism is not in the fact that we are “Catholics” for many call ourselves Catholics out of habit but our Catholicism lies in our FAITH and how we live out that Faith.

  21. Bea says:

    Fr. Selvester:
    It would NOT be immodest of you to share your homily with us. Au contraire, mon, frere.: it would be false modesty to withhold it from us. We are in great need to learn and glean all we can for our salvation. Hope you will share it with us.

  22. pberginjr says:

    I looked up that St. John Vianney homily, jlmorrell. Really good stuff!

  23. Faith says:

    / At my second Mass, I was blown away by the homily. The first Mass was my parish Mass with my family. The second Mass was at my Lay Dominican Chapter. Fr. Nic related the story of a Protestant Senior girl who asked him a question (Fr. Nic teaches at Providence College). She said, “I follow Christ and Catholics do, too. Don’t they?” Fr. Nic responded in the affirmative. Then she said, “Then why should I become Catholic when we both follow Christ?”
    Fr. Nic said that he referred her to today’s gospel, John 6: 60-69. Jesus had just finished speaking about Himself being the bread of life. Many were incredulous and questioned how Jesus could give them his flesh to eat and blood to drink. The entire concept was too “hard” for many of them. But this is what Catholics believe. Exactly what Catholics believe. The Eucharist is Jesus. Catholics have the fullness of Christ.

  24. [Sorry, but… how is that a GOOD point from a sermon? I am at a loss.]

    Your’re absolutely right Father. None of the points in the sermon I heard were GOOD. Forgive me. In my haste to share my anguish I ignored your question. I’ll not do that again.

  25. majuscule says:

    As always, a good homily by our African priest. He’s been speaking (teaching) weekly about the Eucharist.

    But nothing was said specifically about the second reading. At least we didn’t have the short politically correct version.

  26. SuzyQ says:

    The sermon today focused not on the readings but on the collect. Father said we don’t deserve heaven, but we can merit it. One way is through loving the things God commanded, including the Commandments and receiving the Sacraments, especially Confession and Eucharist, frequently.

  27. Another one of Father’s serious, hard-hitting homilies (the usual kind). He tied together Joshua’s challenge to the Israelites, “Choose you this day whom you will serve” after hearing the Law with the followers who could not stand the ‘hard teachings’ and left Our Lord’s company to return to their former lives. We must choose this day Whom or what we will serve and be honest about it. In particular, we have a responsibility this year to choose the best possible leadership for our country, and to choose to follow the Church’s teaching in their entirety even though in our sinfulness and self-will we may want to turn away from them to more worldly/sinful/easy lives. There were echoes of the discussion earlier this week on this blog about whether voting for an imperfect candidate/for ‘the lesser of two evils’ is actual cooperation with evil, his answer being no, that we can discern which party and candidate is more likely to continue to move away from the Church’s teachings and which is more likely to move less quickly in that direction or even move toward the Church’s teachings, and we have a responsibility to vote to move toward the good even if it can only be done incrementally, not just to throw up our hands and not vote; he has often said “Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good” although he did not say that this week. Our Lord did not run after the quitters and say “But what I really meant was…” or “I wasn’t talking about REALLY eating My Body and drinking My Blood” or water down what He was teaching in order to keep them; He let them exercise their free will to choose to serve something/one other than Him; He let them go their own way. He highlighted St. Peter’s answer, “To whom would we go?” in contrast to those who left; we often want to choose for ourselves what we want to believe, or water down the faith when confronted by those whose idea of the Church is love equals being nice or who are actively opposed to the Church. He tied this to the Ephesians lesson on the relationship of Christ and the Church, His Bride; we must love Christ and also love His Bride, both of which require a conscious choice and acts of the will; just as living the sacrament of marriage requires conscious choices and acts of the will, not just warm and fuzzy feelings. He finished with our responsibility to make the leap of faith to hold as true that which the Church holds as true (specifically, in terms of the Real Presence and vis-a-vis our moral responsibilities), even if we would rather not, and to act in accordance with that faith.

    I am not describing it half as well as he preached it, so my apologies to Father if he reads this (I believe he often reads WDTPRS).

  28. FaithfulCatechist says:

    Celebrant did a good job connecting the Old Testament and Gospel. He did gloss over the Epistle but in fairness I’m still working to understand the connection between St. Paul’s discourse on headship and the conclusion of the Bread of Life Discourse, and St. Paul’s concept of headship really needs a homily of its own. Monsignor Pope did a good job of it today on his blog.

    @Faith – Our celebrant read the correct Gospel, but got three or so lines into the wrong Preface before correcting himself. humanum est errare …

  29. KAS says:

    Young Fr. Kurtis Wiedenfeld at St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in College Station gave best homily (or sermon! I’m a convert) I have ever heard on that passage in Ephesians. He made pro-life points and other points of essential morality and my favorite illustration was one of the woman holds a crown, and she should not give that crown away to a man cheaply but make sure he is able and willing to be the man described in Paul’s letter. A really GOOD homily.

  30. marthawrites says:

    Our deacon explained that wives being submissive to their husbands meant that wives were under (sub) the mission of their husbands and that the husbands’ mission is to love, just as Christ gave His life for His church. The deacon recalled the elderly man who covered his wife’s body with his own and took the bullet in the parking lot in Tucson the day that Gabrielle Gifford was shot. The husband, in other words, should be willing to die for his wife. The deacon works for the tribunal in Baltimore and told us that the average life span of marriages of couples coming in for annulments is three years! He spoke of the need in our society to make commitments. The deacon said that when he agrees to marry a couple he REQUIRES them to choose the full version of St. Paul’s passage that was read in today’s Mass. They groan, but then he uses his wedding homily to explain what he told the congregation this morning.

  31. Von Balthebrand says:

    Our pastor read the pastoral letter from our Bishops’ Conference concerning a proposed amendment to marriage laws to all same-sex ‘marriage:

    http://www.catholic.org.nz/news/fx-view-article.cfm?loadref=50&id=272

    Then followed it up with some words of his own, pointing out that civil laws have traditionally always been based upon the Natural Law, but that is being thrown out the window in our current climate. He talked about the how every child has one father and one mother – no more, no less. In addition to this he also emphasised the point that Satan will be very happy with how much traction this attack on marriage is gaining all around the world.

  32. KAS says:

    vox borealis and I may have heard the same homily. Fr. Kurtis was ordained within the past year or so too! Same passage of scripture and the description sounds similar to me. If not, that is even more exciting because it means there are two such marvelously courageous young priests!

  33. bvb says:

    A rough quote:

    ‘If you sent the [consecrated] bread and wine to the lab, they would say they were bread and wine. If we sent you to the lab they would say you were water and a bit of carbon. But is that really your essence? … If you struggle with the doctrine of the Real Presence, great! Keep struggling. If you’ve given up the struggle, shame on you!’ [‘shame on you!’ is an exact quote]

  34. Jim Dorchak says:

    Fr Gahan had an excellent sermon about fidelity to the real presence of Christ. He quote the Marine Motto of Semper Fidelis, but what I always remember when I go to Fr. Gahan’s Masses is Corpus Dominum Nostrum Jesum…… (Sorry my latin is poor at best) Even though it is a novos ordo Mass and I kneel to recieve and I long for the EF, those words help me make it to next Sunday.

  35. xsosdid says:

    We went to the EF mass today, and father Theo quoted from this testimony:

    http://www.javaemerald.com/religion/gloria_polo_testimony.html

    I have spent the evening reading and rereading this and it is one of the most beautiful and profound things I have ever encountered.
    Wow

  36. rgrutza says:

    OF- Today Father gave an excellent homily on Ephesians 5 and the Eucharist. (Yeah we got the FULL version of E-5!)
    He explained the meaning of the baldacchino. Canopy above an ancient marriage bed and, of course, the baldacchino over the altar because Christ gives Himself to us as the Bridegroom at Holy Mass. He explained we should approach the altar with the same anticipation as a bride approaching her groom on the wedding day.

  37. Michelle F says:

    My priest, a Nigerian, opened with a secular proverb, “The best choice is not always the ‘right’ choice” [‘right’ meaning morally correct], and he went on to prove that this saying is false.

    He said that the best choice ALWAYS is the right choice, even if the right choice doesn’t look like the best one at the moment. He then illustrated this by reminding us that the Lord’s choice to be crucified didn’t look like the best choice at the time – running away and hiding would have looked like the best choice – but being crucified was the right choice. What looked like a disaster on that Friday, especially from the perspective of the disciples, turned out on Sunday to be the best event in human history.

    The next topic he tied to this was taking another person’s organs to preserve our own life when it means killing the other person. He said killing someone for his organs might look like the best choice FOR YOU at the moment, but what have you gained? You might live a few more days or weeks, or even twenty years, but eventually you WILL die, and you will face judgement. Then what? What seemed good in the short term will be a disaster in the long term.

    Then he tied this into the Gospel and the first reading.

    He said that the Lord’s teaching that we must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood is a hard saying, and many of His disciples left Him and went back to their former ways. They faced a choice like the one given to the Israelites in the first reading: to go back to the gods they worshipped in Egypt, or to choose the gods of the land in which they were living, or to choose the God of Abraham. The disciples who left the Lord did not choose the God of Abraham. The disciples who remained did choose the God of Abraham, and they chose Him in spite of the fact they didn’t understand all of the details (exactly how the Lord would give us His Flesh and Blood).

    To sum up my priest’s point: the best choice always is the morally right choice, and the best choice is for God and whatever He says, even if we don’t understand all of the details.

    (Thank You, Lord, for giving us such a good priest!)

  38. PomeroyonthePalouse says:

    Interesting sermon today in the crypt at Holyrood in Seattle surrounded by the bones of bishops. Silence, contemplation, and monks. How much we have to “give up” of ourselves in order to become closer to God and how “un-American” it is in a country where we believe that we can do anything by ourselves as long as we work hard enough at it.

  39. Buffy says:

    One of our Deacons gave the homily at our OF Vigil Mass Saturday evening. Using the Gospel he gave a very good talk regarding our need to question articles of faith that we don’t understand. Only in this way can we improve our understanding of the faith. Of course, questioning must be done to those teaching us.

  40. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Attended Mass at a university chapel. Father spoke about all three readings, but particularly on “We will serve the Lord” and “Will you also go away?” It was the first Sunday after the freshmen moved in, so he told them they had to make a choice to serve the Lord their whole life or not. They had to make that choice in their life goals, and they had to do it in how they behaved on campus. He told the kids about various challenges they’d have to their faith, and he told them about how the campus ministry was set up to help them (including a few supporting details of their programs), and their fellow Catholics around the school would help them not feel like they were all alone; but that they also had to make the choice for themselves. Mom and Dad were not always going to be there to call them and tell them to go to Mass.

  41. Suburbanbanshee says:

    I should mention that he was also pretty straightforward about the way the Catholic kids were going to be bugged by non-Catholic Christians, people of other faiths, and so on, and giving them a few answers for common comments.

    (I thought this was especially important, because a lot of denominations tend to prey upon kids’ uncertainties and loneliness when they first get to college. I can’t remember my university’s priests ever talking about this in a straightforward way, much less on the first weekend we got there. I had some very bad experiences with this kind of stuff, and yet all they would ever say, when I asked for advice, is how I should be more understanding. Thank goodness that these younger priests are more concerned about protecting kids from this junk.)

  42. Bea says:

    xsosdid
    WOW is right.
    If no one’s life is changed with this testimony, I don’t know how not.

  43. Darren says:

    I was at Mater Ecclesiae yesterday for High Mass celebreated by Fr. Pasley. He gave a very good sermon on the virtues of Faith, Hope & Charity. Also, he reminded us of the difference between “Freedom of Worship” and “Freedon of Religion” and challenged us to take our faith outside of the worship within the walls of the church building and practice our freedom of religion in the public square, reminding us of the very serious and strong (even difficult at times) words of our Lord, from Matthew 10 : 32-33
    ” …every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven”

  44. frjim4321 says:

    We saw in the gospel that people were leaving Jesus,
    we see today that people are leaving the church.
    Jesus did not seem to cast aspersions on the first group,
    nor should be be judgmental of the second.
    Probably many reasons, but we know that the sayings of Jesus were hard,
    and the teachings of the church can be challenging.
    We know that if it were counted as a denomination lapsed Catholics would be the second-largest denomination in the U.S.
    Of the people who left Jesus and the people who have left the Catholic Church, it’s not clear that they left entirely, but for many their search for God went on. Notwithstanding the growing attention upon atheism in our culture, to many there appears to be some kind of quest for meaning, for understanding, and for God that for some reason is not being satisfied.
    This quest for God is something that we may often experience, and yet sometimes the hunger for God is satisfied in ways that are less than perfect. There are three ways that we can fail in our quest for God:
    (1) Looking for God in all the wrong places:
    Eastern Religion … (expound)
    Protestant Megachurches … (expound)
    Sunday morning golf course … (exound)
    There is a CORRECTIVE to this for us, which is first and foremost getting closer to the Jesus of the Gospel. Everything about our experiences of Church should ultimately be leading us closer to the Jesus of the Gospel. Listen, read, reflect, respond.
    (2) We live on the surface of things, (review survey of Platonic philosophy from last week) where was Jesus leads us to what is true and real. But we flit from occupation to occupation, from the old toy to the new toy, from diversion to diversion. Approaching life as if it is an amusement park.
    There is a CORRECTIVE for this, which is loving, sacrificial service. Loving, sacfiricial service gets us past the surface to the real thing. Why? Ultimately Jesus was all about loving, sacrificial service, so for us it is in that action that we get closer to the Jesus of the Gospels.
    (3) We can become to familiar with God, particularly because we do things that can cause us to think we have God contained, e.g., elegant buildings, clever theological formulations and the like. (All of which are good, important, and to some degree necessary.) But we can sometimes create the illusion that is we who “have” God, rather than it is God who “has” us.
    There is a CORRECTIVE for our over familiarity with God which is a rekindling within each of us a sense of mystery and awe. The first place to begin is reestablishing a sense of quiet in our lives. How can we hear God speak if there is so much noise around us? Secondly by creating for ourselves some kind of sacred space, an out of the way place. For many of us that can work out to being here in church in the quiet of the middle of the week or on the weekend when few are here. Or sometimes even getting in touch with God through the wonders of nature.

    There are many temptations in our culture that can make it difficult to stay with Jesus, to stay with the church. But we have seen that there are correctives to these tendencies which are (1) getting closer to the Jesus of the Gosples, (2) rededicating ourselves to loving, sacrificial services and (3) maintaining a sense of mystery through quiet and and sacred spaces.

    There were many who left Jesus, but there are also all of us who here who have stayed. Why? Because once we have discovered who Jesus is, we like Peter say, “Master, to whom shall we go?”

    >>>>>>>>>> granted there is more that could have been said and this was far from perfect but not many homilies are. Used the usual three or four sources and cobbled this together.

  45. a catechist says:

    Bishop Walker Nickless, in Sioux City, Iowa:

    The choice is always to serve the Lord or leave him, and the occasions of leaving the Lord include contraception, abortion, fornication, pornagraphy, and choices to follow him include supporting true, permanent marriage, giving witness to Christ in our jobs & homes, and working for the freedom of the Church.

    He also tied the low percentage of Catholics attending Mass to a lack of belief in the True Presence, which he strongly affirmed.

    In your kindness, please offer a prayer for this faithful bishop!

  46. chantgirl says:

    FrJim4321- thank you for emphasizing Peter’s line “Master, to whom shall we go?”. I wish more priests would use this approach when speaking to teeanagers and young adults. I find it to be one of the most haunting lines of the Bible and it was my mantra during my early twenties when I was struggling to make sense of a loving God and a very cruel humanity. Like many others my age, I couldn’t square a loving God with the cruelty of life, and I felt so disappointed with the Church. I ended up coming to the conclusion that life only made sense in Christ and His Church, and that life was only really worth living if Christ was not a fairy-tale. I would encourage more priests to show in very stark terms the choice that young people face. Without Christ we have no hope, only passing pleasures, boredom with life, and death that is ever looming, and ultimately, despair. Only in Christ can we find hope and a reason to lift our eyes to the heavens in the midst of a dark world.

  47. John V says:

    Faithful Cathechist said, “in fairness I’m still working to understand the connection between St. Paul’s discourse on headship and the conclusion of the Bread of Life Discourse”

    During Ordinary Time, it’s not intended that there be any connection between the second reading and the Gospel. Rather, the Gospel and the second reading each continue, more or less, from week to week, while the first reading is selected to relate to the Gospel. See the General Introduction to the Lectionary (Second Edition), especially paragraph 67: “. . . . In contrast [to the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter], the Sundays in Ordinary Time do not have a distinctive character. Thus the text of both the apostolic and Gospel readings are arranged in order of semicontinuous reading, whereas the Old Testament reading is harmonized with the Gospel.”

  48. dnicoll says:

    I am away on holiday, and had the joy of sharing in Mass at Our Lady of Help in Folkestone in Kent. An uplifting sermon reminding us of the truths of the Chirch, backed up with an altar rail and communion in one kind. And a wonderful pastoral approach from the priest to a youngster drinking pop about the importance of the pre-Mass fast. Just a lovely reverential Mass conducted by a priest whose pores just oozed the love of the Church. No better good news than that!

Comments are closed.