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Father’s homily alluded to the Preface’s texts of the “altar of the Cross” and the “kingdom of justice, love, and peace.” He expanded using an anecdote of the Holy Father talking with first communicants in 2005 and addressing their questions about the invisibility of God and his kingdom: As we believe in reason and love exist although we don’t see them, so we can believe in God Whom we don’t see. Conclusion: by submitting to the truths of faith, like that the Good Thief, we offer ourselves with Jesus on the altar of the Cross.
Meat-and-potatoes homilies like this have pretty well cured me of the Post-Gospel Twitch. That this is happening in a parish in arch-liberal Maryland on the D.C. line is a special blessing for which I am thankful.
Please God, May the meat and potatoes creep closer to my neck of the woods. MD also.
I like things that are helpful and easy to remember. The deacon cited the four Teresas (Avila, Lisieux, Benedicta, Calcutta) as a way to remember “You shall love the Lord your God with your heart, with all your mind and with all your spirit, and your neighbor as yourself.” He gave examples of how each one personified a part of this great commandment.
Father gave an excellent overview of the Four Last Things, the last days of time, the Second Coming, and the Final Judgment. Nothing was sugar-coated or watered-down because this was at an SSPX chapel.
A literary angle today, as Father mentioned Oscar Wilde and De Profundis while making several points about the Gospel.
“…he who is in a state of rebellion cannot receive grace…”
Father made an interesting point about St. Dismas from Luke’s Gospel: he said that the ‘good thief’ went to Confession while hanging on the Cross and that this is a necessary and obligatory way of acknowledging the Kingship of Christ. He also went on to say that he doesn’t understand how Catholics can go to a psychologist and spend lots of time and money confessing their sins to an atheist, or go on television and confess their sins to the whole world, but that people will not come and confess their sins to a priest and through him to God who is the only one who can provide a solution.
On another note the priest at the end of the Mass announced that starting next week the parish would cease distributing Holy Communion under both species because the reception of the Precious Blood was subject to so much abuse. Deo gratias!
I wrestled all week with what to say. I chose to pose, and then answer, this question: Why is the King on the Cross?
The points I made:
> Because he was rejected.
> Lots of people don’t like Jesus Christ. This notion that what keeps people from liking Jesus is this or that teaching, or bad bishops or priests, is belied by the fact that Jesus is on the cross. “If they hate me, they will hate you,” Our Lord told us.
> When the Lord says “the world” hates him, he means the sinful world system and it’s values: greed, lust, wrath, pride and ambition.
> One illustration of gross injustice I gave was slavery, citing the recent film, “Twelve Years a Slave” and talking about the haunting fact that so many people participated, or shrugged. Nearly all of them Christians! I quoted Dr. King’s quote about how the worst thing from his time wasn’t the actions of the bad people, but “the appalling silence of the good people.”
> I pointed out that injustice continues, citing the spreading baby-killing stem-cell industry, now cloning embryos precisely to destroy them and feed the supply.
> If we want the King on the throne, start with the throne of our hearts; then our families, our parish. Someday, the world.
Get to confession. You don’t know when you may meet your end and will need it. The rest of the time lead a prayerful life; avoid what we know is sinful in song and entertainment, etc.; but Catholics can love beauty and the treasures of this world in good drink, song (and bacon!); don’t wait too late to call for a priest when you are in immanent danger of death. This will have prepared you for a plenary indulgence and if everything has been done right, maybe avoid Purgatory.
Father made the point that Christ is not a King of this world, but of the Divine. he was the King on the Cross, a Kingship foreign to this world but true none the less. He was not a King who walked the earth in splendour but in humility and service.
From that he linked back to a story of Saint Martin, who is said to have seen Christ in a dream. The first time he saw Him clothed with half of his coat that he had given to the poor man on the street, and Saint Martin asked for His wounds. The Lord presented them to him and Martin believed.
Then, in another vision, Martin saw Christ robed in splendour and not in the rags anymore. Again he asked for the wounds, but his encounter replied: “I am a King in glory now, I don’t have the wounds anymore”. To those words Martin replied “Depart from me!” and Satan dropped his mask of light. Father’s point was, again, that splendour can deceive, and that Christ’s Sacred Wounds would never disappear, as a token of His Passion and Kingship of Love.
That was the homily given yesterday, on the eve of the Feast of Christ the King, the Mass I came into full communion with Holy Church at. :)
Once again Roger Karban was on base for Celebration leaving me somewhat handicapped.
Related the leadership style of Pope Francis to the shepherd/king style evidenced by David and Jesus in the scriptures; Luke’s penchant for pointing out the compassion of Jesus toward others when he himself was under extreme persecution (healing the ear of the servant in the garden, his care for the women on the road to calvary, his concern for the “good thief”).
Thanksgiving for the ultimate reconciliation as found in the epistle hymn includes our embracing the share we take in the compassion of Christ when we live up to our baptismal commitment.
Jesus showed the greatest compassion toward other when he was at the point of condemnation, persecution and crucifixion; when we find ourselves grumbling or wallowing in self pity mb our best recourse it to find someone who is having a far worse day than ourselves – which under most conditions should not be difficult – and assist that person with our action/words/listening or simple presence.
A visiting priest at my Denver parish questioned why Christ’s reign is important since so many in the world reject His kingship and even reject his name in the public square.
His answer? The feast day was proclaimed at a time of immense persecution for Christians–the Cristeros in Mexico, Marxist oppression of monks and nuns in Bolshevik Russia, and the Spanish Civil War. Obviously, he noted, it is indeed when so few know Christ as king that this feast really hits home. He commented that the observance should encourage us in the struggle against Godlessness. He told how Spanish rebels, during the civil war, actually shot bullets at the giant statue of Christ outside of Madrid. Christ the king? Yes! And years later the rebels helped build the enormous church in the Valley of the Fallen, something they were allowed or forced to do in reparation for their wrongs. And just years earlier they were shooting bullets at Christ. CHRIST ALWAYS WINS. That Spanish church is actually larger than St. Peter’s in Rome, but since that isn’t allowed they put a door in the middle to, I guess, break it up.
Also, Christ’s reign is one of peace, love, and truth, and his love compels us to be His followers rather than power or authority.
This is a great diocese.
And justice–Christ’s reign is also of justice.
From the Word Among Us……….This would have been a good lead in to a sermon on this feast day. “Pope Pius XI initiated the feast of Christ the King because he wanted every person to know that Jesus is superior to all the other would-be kings of his day: Mussolini’s Fascism, Hitler’s Nazism, Stalin’s Communism, Freud’s psychological determinism, and American materialism. The Holy Father wanted to tell the Church then, and us today, that only Jesus can fill our deepest desires for love, peace, and happiness.”
Fr Z’s 7am Mass: The bishop asked all priests to preach on the Creed for the end of the Year of Faith. There is the faith that (qua) we believe in, and also the faith by which (quae) we believe in it. Advent, which we are about to begin, is both about the first coming of Christ and about His second coming, and perhaps moreso about the second coming. We will experience a coming of Christ of a sort at our death, but it is also possible we may experience His final (second) coming in our own lifetimes, we do not know the day nor the hour. Sometimes I like to think (said Fr Z) about what the first 15 seconds of hell will be like for those who end up there, the awful realization and that it is for eternity. Then I like to think also about the first 15 seconds of the Beatific Vision.
Bishop Morlino’s 11am Mass: The year of Faith is ending and the bishop wanted to do so in a low key way, reviewing the basics: the Nicene Creed. There is the faith that (qua) we believe in, and also the faith by which (quae) we believe in it. Many try to avoid the Creed, substituting a simpler creed or something else at Mass. They complain no one really understands it. That’s so. We don’t understand it in this life. The angels and Saints in heaven understand the creed. But it is a mystery; we on earth do not fully understand it. It is by faith that we are able to profess this “symbol” of the Faith which we do not understand, it is mystical. In the Eastern rite liturgy, during the Creed the priest holds up a chalice veil (which is much larger than ours) in front of his face signifying that the full understanding of the mystery of the faith is hidden from us in this life, and he waves it slightly signifying the breathing of the Holy Spirit, this seems very significant. Sometimes I wish to do that (the bishop said) but I am not allowed in our rite. At the Eastern rite funeral of a priest, there is something profound. The face of the priest is covered with the chalice veil facing the opposite way, signifying that now he is on the other side of the veil, he can see now.
Our pastor talked about the earliest images of Jesus as a shepherd or Christ crucified and only in later centuries was He dressed as a Byzantine or Roman emperor in royal robes with crown, scepter etc. These later images invoked themes of power and final judgement. He then recalled what Jesus had to say about the measuring rod He’d use at the last judgement–“Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” and “Whatever you did not do for these least ones, you did not do for me.” and finally “These will go off to eternal punishment but the righteous to eternal life.” The pastor suggested that last month’s photo of the Pope cradling the head of a disfigured man in St. Peter’s Square might be an apt contemporary image of Christ the King with the disfigured man seen as King and Judge and the Pope seen as the one to be judged.
Discussed briefly how Israel wanted a king and what that meant and how it ended up. Then we were instructed that God is a monarch, he rules our lives and even if we don’t understand we must be obedient then later we may understand but we are not free to change things. Then, just before the liturgy of the eucharist we were admonished to not break off the host and give it to young children. Christ established a church with a magesterium we are not free to make them up to fit what we think is right. We are not to give our kids their first communion like that. I was visiting a new parish.
Not my usual parish so I had no idea. Very interesting!
The church I go to is associated with the local parochial school, so Father focused his homily on the liturgical new year, and how with the new year approaching, we should examine our level of spiritual maturity. Using school as an analogy, he said we should examine ourselves and see which spiritual grade we are in, and which one we should be in. He specifically made the point that, while simply loving Christ is a good starting point, there is more to Christianity than the simple fact of loving Christ. Authentic love of Christ will lead the Christian to a deeper understanding of the Christian faith and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Authentic love of Christ will cause the Christian to embrace his trials and tribulations as opportunities from God to grow and mature in our faith. At the close of the liturgical year, we should all examine the trials and tribulations, ie the opportunities for growth, we confronted, and we should think about how we handled those opportunities, and whether the way we handled them is the way God would have had us handle them.
This homily had special meaning for me, because I have only recently been able to take time to examine my level of spiritual maturity, and really think about my faith and what the Church teaches. Had I heard this homily even 3 months ago, it would have been entirely lost on me. Today, it makes me realize how fortunate I really am that I was able to finally take the time to reconnect with my faith after a rather tumultuous last year in graduate school.
I don’t know about the sermon (my Tagalog isn’t that good) but after Mass we had a Eucharistic procession, complete with Knights of Columbus, the Holy Name society and a million kids.
Christ’s throne is the Cross.
Dominican Rite Missa Cantata at the Carmel of the Holy Family in Canyon CA. As this was the 1st class patronal feast of St. John of the Cross, it overrode the Last Sunday after Pentecost.
Shuddering to preach about John of the Cross to Carmelite contemplatives, made a topic shift to how the ideas of the Dominicans Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange and John Arintero, who argued amid great controversy that all are called to contemplative prayer, has now become mainline. But their argument that it all true contemplation is infused by God and not our work is clearly out. Every bookstore has technique and method books on “now to meditate” (even if you don’t believe in God).
John’s life confirms his two Dominican interpreters: his great works were all written or conceived when he was in prison and his life was reduced to “nothing, even nothing on the mountain.” When he could do nothing, God did everything and the result was his poetry. So too for us, the hidden grace of contemplation, a foretaste of the Beatific Vision, is like that Vision found only through the Cross. What John experienced in prison is offered to us when we find our health, duties, relationships, spiritual failures, and burdensome responsibilities reducing us to “nada.” So, when our experience is “nada,” even on Mt. Carmel, we can sing a Spiritual Canticle in our hearts.
Yes, this was sermon written especially for cloistered nuns, but the two lay people present seemed appreciative.
27th Su after Pentecost in the Byzantine Rite for my edification. Father mentioned that our sinful ways can lead us to be spiritually un-erect like the lady in the Gospel reading, that we need to strive for Spiritual Perfection. Also mentioned was the Theotokos as the new Ark of the Covenant (Post-festive day for the Presentation of Theotokos in the Temple)
In the old calendar we were in the last Sunday after Pentecost. The readings were very powerful, and Fr. Perrone’s homily addressed both the Gospel and the Epistle well. I have an iPhone recording of the homily here, along with the readings. His homily included discussion on the Four Last Things, as well as a reflection on the Dies Irae.
http://te-deum.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-homily-fr-perrone-on-last-four.html
I thought he did a very good job of balancing the holy fear we should have with the mercy we should seek.
Fr Augustine, St John of the Cross is my favorite Saint and having heard so many well meaning and poorly informed homilies on his and the other beloved Carmelite Saints’ feast days: even though I would guess yours would be well above average, I think you made a good call! I would be VERY appreciative to hear a homily about Garrigou Lagrange and Arintero by a Dominican!! I have the volumes of Arintero’s The Mystical Evolution here but have hardly cracked it open, I am a huge fan of Garrigou Lagrange though. I like to remind people that the Three Ages of the Interior Life was translated into English by a Sinsinawa Dominican.
Superb sermon at the TLM, Low Mass. On the Second Coming and the Particular Judgement, which is another coming of Christ in our lives, at our death. The priest stressed us being ready for both. He also noted that Christians of all times have looked forward to the Coming of Christ, but that we should concentrate on the present moment, and not get involved with prophecies and warnings, which are most likely spurious.
The point is to become holy now and live in the present moment with God, Who is Ever Present.
Fr. Augustine Thompson O.P., ps, I have about 400 posts over the years on Garrigou-Lagrange and the way to personal holiness. I think it is a very timely subject and fits into today’s TLM sermon as well-be perfect….even as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
At Christ the King Church in northeastern Philadelphia, the priest noted that he officiated at a wedding at which a local major-league baseball player was present as well as a local major-league player from another sport (sorry, I don’t follow Philadelphia sports, so the details fled my head). He found it very moving that these important highly-paid athletes still bowed their head to the King of Kings when they came forward to receive Holy Communion.
I am so pleased to be able to report that the NO Mass I attended today was superb. It was a reverent and wonderful Mass start to finish. I have been to the Mass by this particular priest before, and always impressed. He outdid himself today. His homily focused naturally on Christ the King, and among his points were that when people forget that Jesus is King, truth is lost, and the natural outcome of confusion over who is king is that people begin to think they can decide what is right and what is wrong, and that is WHY we have the murder of innocents and confusion over marriage and people deciding who and what can be married. He said pretty soon it will be “what” and not just “whom”. This may be standard fare for some on Sunday but in our New England neck of the woods, it is not. So when a priest says something like this, I’m sure everybody’s ears perked up. Anyway his homily was rich and beautiful, prayers in Greek and Latin, he INCENSED the altar twice, and here is the killer, BENEDICTION. We said the “Divine praises”.
Mass was one hour and a half. This is in a church previously known for “speed Masses”.
I went back to the Sacristy for the Mass schedule. I don’t want to miss Mass with this priest. We are alternating between this Mass and a TLM about 45 minutes away.
I thanked Father and the excellent little boy altar server after Mass. I asked Father if he had Thanksgiving plans. He did. The little boy’s mother was congratulated, and she shared with me her son wants to be a priest. His name is David, if anyone would be so kind as to say a prayer for him. He was a perfectly wonderful little boy of about eleven years old. Father had told him it usually takes four alter servers for this Mass and he did it alone. Well done. His grandmother and mother were deservedly proud.
I attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form so today’s Gospel for me was Matthew 24, 13:25 where Our Lord fortells the destruction of the world, hearkening back to the Book of Daniel. In his homily, my priest pointed to Dante’s Divine Comedy which was inspired by traditional Catholic teachings on sin and faith; the consequences of sin; and the Catholic dogmas of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. He started off my mentioning that the United Nations (which I wish would get the hell out of our country and move to communist China) had condemned this classic literature because it was in their narrow-minded views “intolerant”. I don’t think I need to comment further because if the UN has issues with Dante’s Divine Comedy then you know good and well, they have issues with the Catholic Church. My friends, we are living in the Valley of Tears that has been referenced in the Rosary since the Salve Regina was composed. Our ONLY hope in this sick and evil world is the Church which Jesus founded for us. Persecutions are all around us and we must be prepared for the inevitable – persecutions will come to the United States by way of legislation (executive order from our Ceaser in chief, a 2014 victory for Democrats in the House and Senate, a supremacist Supreme Court), international treaties, or the influence of Satan via his demons in the news media the the popular culture. I urge all of you reading this to seek a parish offering the Traditional Latin Mass – even if you have to drive an hour or so to attend. Make this your Mass and support that parish. In the TLM, the emphasis is totally on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The prayers during the TLM are all about mercy which we are so in need of. Saint Michael is referred to again and again. Why was the devotion to Saint Michael de-emphasized after Vatican II? Pray the Rosary. Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Pray the Saint Michael Chaplet. We are living in dangerous times but if we focus on what is above, we will be in good hands. God Bless all of you.
Father spoke about obedience. He talked about the practical application of it as a religious (priest and monk) and how it applies to our every day lives. Obedience as a virtue is often overlooked, even looked down upon, by our society but it is very important.
The priest made a few interesting points in the homily, but the part that I expect will be stickiest for me came at the end when he started talking about how when we receive communion, our hands or our tongues should be thrones for our King… and that we can look at what we do with the King’s throne throughout the week to evaluate how we’re progressing in treating him like a king.
Thank you Elisbeth D. and Fr. Augustine Thompson and others for interesting posts.
I learned that the Feast of Christ the King was instituted in 1925 in response to the Communist revolution, Fascism and Nazism. I think that Hitler was an unimportant person back in 1925, but never mind.
I noted several small but positive changes in our Novus Ordo mass (we alternate with TLM) that made it more reverent. There was a red candle in the altar area, all people kneeled after the Sanctus, Father genuflected after consecration (he was only bowing since Francis was elected) and only the two priests present handed out communion. May the trend continue, hopefully word has come down from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
At our homily for the last Sunday in Pentecost, Father preached on how often people try to predict when the second coming will occur, but this is only known to the Father. As in many things we want to know because we need to feel we are in control; instead we should be relinquishing that control and having faith in God. He then went on to tie that into the Epistle reading.
It was also the celebration of St. Cecilia Day here at the St. Ulrichskirche, and the splendid music at Mass was provided by both the St. Cecilia Women’s Choir and the Pinswang Musikkapelle. Pfarrer Bader (the wonderful Priest from nearby Vils) made certain to note during his homily that the beauty of the holy liturgy is further communicated by having truly sacred music at The Mass. We are blessed here with having Priests, musicians and especially Townsvolk who recognize and appreciate the importance of having sacred music, art and architecture that reflect the moving dignity and timeless transcendent beauty of the liturgy.
After three Masses by two priests at Holy Rosary in Indy, I THINK there were actually three different homilies. I would probably remember the first one (Anglican Use) but was atypically pre-occupied with music due to the choirmaster being under the weather. That was Fr. Kappes’ (the same Fr. Kappes who went MIA in Greece) first Mass. (N.B. Fr. K has a deep baso voice that makes every Mass sound like an Eastern Rite Liturgy, and he spent time in Athens studying Orthodox Theology for the Vatican)).
Fr. McCarthy’s OF Mass sermon was titled “Hitler and Stalin” and Fr. attempted (and I’d argue succeeded) to answer the question “Why is Hitler treated as more evil than Stalin?” (given the fact that Stalin and his policy was directly or indirectly responsible for UP TO an order of magnitude greater deaths than Hitler). His answer was actually quite simple, and he tied in Natural Law and the Nuremberg Trials. Stalin, unlike Hitler, did not hide behind the cover of law to make his mark as a member of the “All-Time Most Evil” people in world history. Essentially, we treat Hitler as worse than Stalin BECAUSE he used the law to justify evil. (Sounds familiar, does it not?) Father explained that Stalin was the leader of an illegitimate government (Bolshevik) that had usurped another illegitimate government (Russian Provisional Gov’t), that was the result of an insurrection against a legitimate government (Romanov). Stalin ruled by force of arms and terror, paying no attention to Russian Law. Hitler, on the other hand, did almost everything under the cover of German (and International Law). His treatise ended with the explanation of the Nuremberg Trials as an application of Natural Law, which he stated that at the time, all the Allies believed to be THE higher law, in effect rendering null and void any national law to the contrary.
Fr. Kappes second sermon was the EF Mass. He discussed reform in the Church. He covered how the legalization of Christianity by Constantine changed the makeup of the Church, with many people joining for the wrong reasons. He explained how that trend created conditions that started the monastic movement as a counter to that. Monasteries were places where people could truly live in the world yet not be “of the world.” He brought up a fact of which I was unaware, that there were “family monasteries” where families lived a monastic life in common community. He also talked about how the Popes took a pastoral (the dreaded “P” word) approach and were careful not to let disagreements become schisms by not forcing an order that may have become less obedient to it’s original rules (i.e. Benedictines, Franciscans) to fall under the same practices of the offshoots of their order (i.e. Cistercian/Trappist, Capuchins). He mentioned that one might have seen a “Monastery on one side of town that was ‘doing whatever they wanted to do.’ and a monastery on the other side of town that wasn’t ‘doing whatever they wanted to do.'”
I heard a homily on how we share in Christ’s royalty through our Baptism and we should act as he acted, in humility throughout His life and in sacrifice and submission to God’s will in His death. Also, some practical advice in how to excise things in our life that keep us from doing so.
Wonderful! Last things. One of the first sermons I’ve heard since my childhood containing even a hint of the suggestion the lineup on the last day won’t necessarily be X billion sheep and zero goats and furthermore that we may find ourselves in the latter group. I hope Fr. doesn’t get into trouble with our (frankly universalist) bishop.
Homily title: “The cross is his throne. . .”
Question: how does Christ rule as king from the cross?
Answer: used Paul’s letter to the Colossians
http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-cross-is-his-throne.html
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
It was refreshing to read the posts about the homily in other places. Unfortunately, I only heard ramblings about the supposed greatness of John F. Kennedy…not only for the Sunday Mass, but for Friday morning’s homily as well. If a non-liturgical subject was preached, I would have rather it been about the merits and contributions of C. S. Lewis.
@Cricketchirps, if they were paying attention, the fact that the sheep and goats will be separated implies that both species will be present.
Thanks to your favorable mention of it on this blog, I ended up at a very reverent NO Mass at Saint Patrick’s, Soho Square, London. The pastor contrasted the Kingdom of Light (indicating the Tabernacle) to the kingdom of darkness (indicating Soho) and said the former we must come to “on our knees, in Confession.”
This homily ended up being a mini-pilgrimage for me as His Reverence, Fr Sherbrooke, also revealed to us the actual confessional** in his parish that is so well known from Ven. Abp Fulton J. Sheen’s sermon about the showgirl whom he had found slumped against the church door one morning, whom he later “shoved” into a Confessional (after promising he would not “ask” her to go to confession as a condition of her coming back to see him)… and after which the woman eventually received her veil as a Benedictine Nun at Tyburn.
**it’s the first confessional on the left as one is entering St Patrick’s, the one marked “visiting priest”
@New Sister, shoving is *totally* different than asking.
@acricketchirps: I first heard Fr. Kappes give a sermon where he stated that while it was POSSIBLE that a non-Catholic could gain heaven, that it was going to be quite difficult, especially when you factor in that there are going to be those of us Catholics who miss the mark and find ourselves in the abyss.