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It speaking about the Gospel, both the command to love one’s neighbor and the story of the Good Samaritan, the deacon who gave our homily today, spoke of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy as a good way to assess if we are, in fact, loving our neighbor as we ought. He then went through all of the works of mercy. This is definitely a step up from something simply saying what we hear all the time to simply “love one another”, as that can sometimes come across as simply meaning “be nice”. It was good to see love equated with all the works of mercy, not simply being “nice”. After all, if I am a sinner being admonished or an ignorant one being instructed, it may not feel particularly “nice” at the time.
In reference to the Gospel, both the command to love one’s neighbor and the story of the Good Samaritan, the deacon who gave our homily today, spoke of reviewing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy as a good way to assess if we are, in fact, loving our neighbor as we ought. He then went through all of the works of mercy. This is definitely a step up from simply saying what we hear all the time, to “love one another”, as that can sometimes be construed as merely meaning “be nice”. It was good to hear love equated with all the works of mercy, not simply being “nice”. After all, if I am a sinner being admonished or an ignorant one being instructed, it may not feel particularly “nice” at the time.
Here in central Minnesota, the Sunday sermon was delivered by an excellent and fairly traditionally-minded Priest on the Gospel reading for the day. The Parable of the Good Samaritan was exposited richly primarily from commentary given by Sts. Augustine and John Chrysostom, and Father laid out clearly and succinctly how the anonymous ‘man’ mentioned in the Gospel is actually the old Adam, and all who have inherited original sin in him. Old Adam leaves Jerusalem, which typifies Paradise, for the corrupt world which he inherited due to his sin, which is the road he is walking on. Along the way, he is beaten and left near dead by a robber, who is the devil, and is eventually anointed by the Good Samaritan, who typifies Christ Himself, come to deliver each soul who by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit turns to the Son of God for deliverance and salvation. In the Good Samaritan anointing and healing the wounds of the nearly dead man with wine and oil is typified the Divine Physician, the Incarnate Word, who turns to the man broken and bound up in sin and heals the wounds of that sin and brokenness by pouring out His Blood and His Spirit upon the man, raising Him up into His mystical Body, which is shown in the animal who carries his weight to the Inn. The Inn represents the Church and ultimately Heaven and the resurrection from the dead, and the two coins given by the Samaritan to the Inn represent the two Testaments of Scripture, the Old and the New, by which the Church nourishes catechumens in the word of God and helps them to grow in Christ. Finally, the Good Samaritan says what upon his return, he will pay back the Inn whatever has been spent in care of the man growing and healing therein that goes beyond the two coins. In this is signified the Last Day and the coming of Christ to raise the dead and judge them according to their works, giving to them their reward for good deeds and acts of charity. In addition to this excellent spiritual reading, Father applied the text to false religions of the day, which he openly denounced, including particularly New Age spirituality and atheism, and reiterated that only Christ the Lord can give forgiveness and restoration as the Good Samaritan; and this Divine Physician imparts His healing only in the womb of the Church, to which all are called in the New Evangelization.
In the TLM, the first reading was from Roman 8:12-17. The priest concentrated on the fact that we are of the flesh and the spirit and that the flesh is not ‘bad’ but influenced by concupiscience. He said, however, that if one gives in to the flesh over and over, one ends up in a state far from spiritual. The priest noted that this is what has happened to Ireland. Ireland has been following the flesh, and now has fallen into death, because the nation is living according to the flesh and not the spirit. We are to pray and cling to the Holy Spirit for life.
concupiscence is misspelled, I still need new glasses.
Pastor contrasted the lawyer’s self-regarding question “…who is my neighbor” with Jesus’ rephrasing the question to focus on the wounded man, “which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robber’s victim?” It took a few more minutes, but Father’s conclusion was that Christ had explained to the self-obsessed “scholar of the law” that the physical needs of the suffering man must trump all other responsibilities and obligations e.g. of the priest and Levite. In other words, we need to get our priorities straight.
Our priest, just recently ordained, spoke of the good Samaritan in a way not heard before at my church. Think of the Samaritan and the Jew who hated each other. Not just a general dislike, but the Samaritans and Jews had no need for each other and wanted nothing to do with each other.
He said that this isn’t just the story of helping a stranger… but of helping our worst enemy, loving our enemy. We should think of those who are our enemies… and he went on to name numerous anti-Catholic or simply anti-Christian groups… and among all those you normally hear, he actually included Masons! Not something you often hear.
This priest, just ordained in his 50’s, is a former religious ed teacher from a Catholic school in the diocese.
Our priest focused on “and who is your neighbor?” He started with a personal anecdote of a friend of his being stranded in SE Washington, DC – being helped by an African American gentleman who refused payment saying, “I’m sure you would have done the same for me.” His friend was unsure that he would have…
Anyway, he noted that we are the ones in the ditch. And for the most part, we put ourselves in the ditch by our own selfishness, stupidity, and sinfulness. We are the ones who need to be rescued. And we have been, by Jesus who pours out himself (not oil and ointment) for us.
Our neighbor, he noted, is Jesus. Because whatever we do for the least among us, we do for Jesus.
I attended the TLM 30 miles from my home ( the 2nd time, but think I should make it a somewhat regular occurence). The priest was encouraging everyone to say the Rosary ( preferably together as a family ). He emphasized how our Mother Mary embraces families in her motherly love and protection when they ask her into their homes , hearts and lives.
pax et bonum
TLM: The unfaithful steward in the Extraordinary Form Gospel defrauded his master when the master was going to fire him and he went to all the creditors and slashed the amount that they owed to his master in order that they would take him into their homes after his firing. We have defrauded God. We should not defraud God!! Failing to invite people to Mass defrauds God of what He has a right to expect of us; we are obliged to evangelize.
Novus Ordo: In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest was in a hurry to get back to the important parish liturgy committee meeting, the Levite was in a hurry to get back to change the color of the veil of the Holy of Holies, and only the Good Samaritan was free enough from the more superficial requirements of religion to act in accord with his most basic duty to the Natural Law. The Natural Law obliges us to help those in need, and the natural law is often denied in our day (he made this point without getting into matters of sexual morality and life… that is not the sum of the Natural Law). At Lampedusa Pope Francis thundered, “Where is your brother?!” The bishop installed a permanent-deacon-to-be as a lector and acolyte at this Mass and spoke of charity service as so important to us that we have an ordained ministry to do it, in the person of Jesus Christ the servant, and the deacon also serves at the altar to remind everyone that this charity service flows from Jesus and the Mass.
Our good TLM priest rarely has a sermon on the readings. But, his homilies are so good and he knows what his flock needs to hear. So, this week, his sermon was over obedience. He discussed who is subject to whom in the hierarchy of the church and in the family. He also touched on the Holy Father and some picture of him where in the painting, the Pope was very small and was kissing the feet of Jesus who was really large in the picture. He talked about how the Pope is the servant’s servant. I particularly liked when he said, “Most people say that when teenagers are sassy and talk back, or they are sullen and sulky that they are going through a phase. People call that a phase. I call it SIN!”
Yesterday was the Sunday of the Fathers of the 6 Ecumenical councils…before 1054 when the Church East and West were officially one. Each of the councils considered a problem of the nature of Christ…Father summarized each of the councils, and mentioned how each heresy was contrary to the Faith of the Church.
The Gospel this week was the parable of the unjust steward. I must admit that I’ve never had any idea what that particular parable means so when Father described it as “… interesting” and announced that there had been many commentaries on it I actually got pretty excited thinking I might finally get some insight into what Our Lord was saying.
Unfortunately, despite reading a brief excerpt on the parable from St. John Chrysostom, and beginning to comment on it, Father seemed to get drawn off into other subjects before coming up with a plain explanation of it’s meaning and I ended leaving Mass still completely confused by it.
Not sermon notes, but a reply by a 15 yr old boy to the question “what is glorious in the life of teen Catholics today?” at a family camp last week. He said “it is glorious to know that God is with me at all times and even if they came to shoot me for being a Catholic” – and at this point a great smile of wonder and joy on his face – “I would be with God and nothing is better than that!”
We have a very dynamic, energetic young priest who celebrates TLM at our parish. He’s on fire for Our Lord.
His homily yesterday was about the first chapter of Lumen Fidei.
Pretty cool because: (1) § 19 of that chapter cites Rom 8,15 which is part of the Epistle reading for yesterday (8th Sunday After Pentecost, Rom 8,12-17); (2) he emphasized the continuity between B16 and Francis in terms that suggested careful reading of a certain blog.
TLM – Preached on how what we have, we are given by God to be stewards. As a steward, we are obligated to use what we have as God wants it, not as we want it. Therefore we have an obligation to be charitable. It is better to die, haven given all we have to God’s service, than to die with bags of money and toys.
A ‘good point’. Hm. I wish there had been.
I was out of town, so experienced a) a massive liturgical culture shock – what seemed like the entire population moving and speaking haphazardly around the altar in stochastic chaos; the Canon seemed to last only milliseconds; the collection and the handshaking after the Our Father seemed to last an eternity. For the first time, I think I glimpsed what Einstein meant.
b) In the sermon, I learnt that what Christ was ‘saying’ in the Parable of the Good Samaritan was ‘very much along the lines of Confucius, a man who lived in China many many years ago.’ And that was: ‘To do unto others as you would have them do to you.’
There we are, Our Lord was preaching enlightened self-interest. So now we know. (Ironically, this Sunday’s EF Gospel (8th after Pentecost) was the Parable of the Unjust Steward. That seemed a better fit with the ‘moral’ that was preached to the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
At least it forced me to ponder as I was leaving church what the word ‘neighbour’ really means to Christ in this parable. It means everyone we would normally shun and disrespect. So this parish too is my neighbour.
I kept on telling myself, ‘This is a valid Mass, it is a valid Mass. Don’t be such a snob. Go to Communion!’
Communion was distributed with such unseemly haste, and the celebrant clearly found it bizarre that I wanted to communicate by mouth, and nearly dropped the host in his confusion…
Our parochial vicar (He was just ordained last month!) Focused mostly on the first reading, starting by comparing it with the fall of Adam and Eve, and talked about the way things like same sex “marriage,” cohabitation, and pornography degrade our human nature and degrade our bodies.
He focused especially on “…already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” explaining how we naturally have morals engraved in our souls.
It was an excellent homily!
Attended the EF High Mass at St. Therese in Alhambra. Mass was preceded by Confirmation in the EF by Father Bishop. Archbishop Gomez appointed father to do the confirmations. Don’t think that would have ever occurred under Mahony. There were about 2 dozen confirmandi. Very cool to see the rite performed this way and so many being confirmed. The homily, of course, was centered on the Holy Spirit, and Father admonished them about being soldiers for Christ in the church militant, and discussed the 7 gifts. Great Mass, as usual, with choir.
Joe in Canada says:…
Wow! How wonderful.
As to the sermon… While it is good for us to be good Samaritans, which may be the practical moral of the story, we are really more likely to fit the role of the poor man in the ditch, beaten down by our sinful natures. Christ is the Good Samaritan, who tends our wounds with water (baptism) and wine (the precious Blood) and He takes us into the inn, which is the Church where we are cared for and our wounds healed by the sacraments (particularly penance) that He gave the Church (the two pence) and He will return, though He already paid up in full.
It was really good, but making it even better, Father is providing us with a Latin (NO) Mass for the summer (I think a trial run; our retired pastor always had it 1st and 3rd Sundays) and he did it ad orientem! Wow. What a difference that simple adjustment makes. I really think all Masses should be done ad orientem. It makes such a difference in the perception of sacrifice vs meal. /preaching to the choir. It was beautiful! And we have a seminarian assigned for summer break who chanted. Oh…no words. I felt like I was in a monastery in Italy a thousand years ago. It helps that our church is on the historic register so it didn’t get gutted and we have the most beautiful altar, and crucifix in the whole world, not to mention the communion rail, which Father always uses and requests people to receive kneeling at it every Mass.
I am so blessed! Deo gratias!
Fr A discussed hospitality but went on to say it included protecting the Blessed Sacrament if protesters should invade one day. He said the plan was for all ushers except 1 along with all Knights of Columbus to surround the protesters peacefully, the first few pews are to evacuate & the ladies are to protect the children by placing them near the church walls. The usher not surrounding the protesters will call the police. He mentioned your article & said we need to be prepared.