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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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The Homily was from Fr Thomas Onada SSPX. He preached(in broken English)about making time for Family Prayer and How without the State of Grace in Our Immortal souls,Our Good Works are Empty of Value.
I had a hard time concentrating. Father’s bright blue chasuble was very loud. He did say, however, that our worrying is often a sign of a lack of trust in God. How true.
“I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” (1 Cor 4: 4).
In our days, we tend to think of consciousness as of an absolute authority. In the German constitution we read in Art. 38: “[Members of the German Bundestag] shall be representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders or instructions, and responsible only to their conscience.” But albeit a Christian cannot avoid listening to his conscience, he has to be aware of its limitations and of its fallibility. There is an authority higher than individual conscience.
Father reminded us of the tendency to depict the medieval times as “Dark Ages”, especially compared with the “Zeitalter der Aufklärung” – he explicitly mentioned the English term “age of the Enlightenment”. Aren’t medieval cathedrals a perfect example for this? When you enter Notre Dame in Paris, you stand in the dark? Couldn’t they have made bigger windows?
But wait. There is a surprise. When you get the right moment, you will witness the dramatic effect of light from the outside entering the dark interior, becoming all the more visible.
This is a metaphor of the human heart.
So, we arrived at the center of the reading from the epistle of the apostle Paul: He does not claim absolute cognition, he does not anticipate God’s judgement, he does not trust in his own light.
At the time of Jesus, people, too, yearned for certainty. Remember John the Baptist from prison sending his disciples to Jesus. Remember Thomas the Apostle wanting to touch the wounds of Christ. Today, we rely on numbers, scientific studies, measurements of neural acticity, the body mass index, population statistics… numbers which suggest certainty.
But we have to remember: The pure light of reason, reflected back on itself, doesn’t show anything. With our reason by itself we only reach partial truths. (This is medieval philosophy!) Stare into a 100W lightbulb. You won’t recognise anything.
St. Paul advises us to dim down our headlamps. Remember when you last met a jogger with one of those superbright headlamps? Or a biker? Just dim down your own headlamps. We cannot achieve truth with our own lights.
Christians are called to be faithful administrators of God’s secrets.
Father told us of a friend of his who claimed confession is a false reassurance, and that you should instead go to the person you harmed directly and say you are sorry.
Set aside everything else, and conceding the respectable thought and the importance of acting like that, father stated this is naive, because on one hand, there are evil deeds which simply cannot be amended, and on the other hand, you never have complete knowledge of a situation. And sometimes, even if you thought you acted especially well, some ten years afterwards it dawns on you that you were quite wrong… To some extent, our world is opaque for us.
Father cited Michael Crighton: “I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.”
This does not dispense us from judging. But our human judgements always are preliminary, not absolute.
He quoted Abraham Lincoln:
The apostle Paul is not aware of anything against himself. But he leaves the judgement to God.
We have to discern not in our own light, we cannot enlighten ourselves but we have to pray for the light of God to enter from outside like the light is entering into the dark spaces of a medieval cathedral.
(Fr. D. F., SJ, Munich, St. Sylvester)
@Imrahil Again you will easily identify him if you are familiar with the Faculty of Philosophy of the Society of Jesus, Munich, or with the “Think and Pray program” at St. Sylvester. That would do no harm because I think there are many good points in this sermon, don’t you agree? But I think it’s good practice here to abbreviate the names.
Ordinary Form, celebrated very worthily and reverently. Concelebrated by Fr. M. B.
During Recessional, we heard Sortie in E Flat by Lefébure-Wély, which can be considered appropriate for the end of the carnival season…
Confitemini Domino: wonderful.
Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Father commented on 1 Cor. 13. Also, the blind man in the Gospel reading (Luke 18:31-43) asked Our Lord that he may see – we can also ask Our Lord to open our eyes, so that we may see, truly see.
We had the good fortune of Archbishop Thomas Wenski performing the Holy Sacrifice in the Maronite Rite. The Maronite calendar has John 2 and the Wedding at Cana read. AB Wenski’s homily addressed the wedding and then segwayed into a discussion on marriage, the sanctity of marriage, sacramental marriage, one man/one woman marriage, the disorders of abortion, contraception, homosexual unions, adultery, etc. It was just rock solid Catholic teaching with a focus on virtue in human relationships. He ended with an earnest thought that the truth regarding natural law is of primary importance. I think I’ve summarized it. My apologies to The Most Reverend Archbishop if I missed anything. I wish I had recorded it. I didn’t expect this from our Bishop. I am humbled. Thank you Lord.
Thank you for “Son of God”, Dr. Hahn’s treatise on the meaning of the Eucharist as relates to the traditional Jewish passover celebration, “Mary of Nazareth”, exposure to the Menonite use of Aramaic during the consecration of the Holy Species, and the opportunity to kiss AB Wenski’s crucafix all in a week or so.
Today was a letter from the bishop ordinary. A suprisingly good one! One of its points was that Catholic doctrine cannot be bent to please the world.
Our very V2 ordinary, who once comprehensively dissed Confession in the media, recorded a homily for the diocese for today. He urged people to go to Confession, especially during Lent. He not only said it once, but underscored its necessity several times, and emphasised that we shouldn’t expect it to be a kind of therapy but a searching for God’s absolution and grace. Gulp.
Two points: First, the Aramaic word for “worry” literally means “torn apart,” which is exactly what happens to those who worry, and Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic.
Second, the priest read the entire Serenity prayer, not just the first part that almost everyone knows, and gave it a sort of endorsement.
Money. The Cardinal’s appeal is this weekend; what it does, etc.
We heard, in our relatively-conservative OF parish,our Deacon Vince Mescall explain how “one cannot serve (both?) God and Mammon” (in more detail, of course).
And then, sounding very much like he did last week, he adds, “All these things the pagans seek.” Who are these pagans? They’re the ones who serve Money, Popularity, Vengeance, the Thing of This World – all passing away as fast as an empty heart can grab them and give them a crown. This is not who we were made to be – temples to house the temporary gods of a failing world. . .
http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2014/03/pour-out-your-hearts-before-him-and.html
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
Father spoke about how “giving up” something at Lent should be giving up something that impacts what causes you to sin. If you have trouble getting close to God, then giving up chocolate isn’t going to help you. I like this, because I have never been a fan of the “giving something up for Lent” business. Father continued to give examples. If your sin is gluttony, then giving up some of your favorite foods would be appropriate. If you have issues with sexual sin, eliminate the media that helps you to stay in that sin.
Our pastor, at the noon EF Mass, spoke at length of the necessity to emulate the saints and go east. He did a wonderful job integrating both EF readings into the sermon. Our church building, as he mentioned, is filled with many wonderful images of saints. A bust facing a large crucifix in the south transept depicts Edith Stein. Much of the sermon was devoted to her life and martyrdom. She repeatedly told her fellow prisoners that “we are going east.” Of course, she could have escaped to America with her family but she chose not to go west. Father noted that due to the architecture of our 100+ year old church building we all face east at Mass. Our Lord faced east as he went to his death in Jerusalem. We were exhorted to do the same.
I keyed in on how God loves Creation, but loves humanity in a most special and unique way. Simply thinking of ourselves as “part of Creation” and nothing else leads to all sorts of problems. I described the “pantheism” so prevalent in popular culture, and what a Catholic perspective looks like (using Ross Douthat and Chesterton).
The homily was replaced by a (video) appeal from the bishops. I had no idea what about, because it was all in Maltese. Later, I found out it had something to do with opposing corruption in society, and making Lent special. I can only guess there’s a context, in Maltese society, of which I as a visitor, am unaware.
Lovely country. I won’t comment on the way the priest offered Holy Mass.
Saturday NO: Father made a good point in his 4-minute homily, I know he did, but it’s unlikely I’ll ever remember it. He was followed by a layman who made a 10-minute pitch (complete with passing out and collecting of envelopes and pencils) for the diocesan fundraiser. Evidently a third of those who gave to the diocesan appeal two years ago didn’t repeat last year; not surprising to me given the political ads (non-partisan, but leftist and controversial) for which some of the money was used even as Catholic schools continued to close.
Sunday Divine Liturgy (Ukrainian): The bulletin cover was an icon of Christ as Bridegroom in scarlet robes. Father noted that Christ wed His Church at the altar of the Cross.
Father spoke of Charity and good works. First he reiterated St Paul’s point and then used that to compare and contrast Catholic belief in the value of good works and the sola fide (justification by faith alone) and sola scriptura (Scripture alone). Always red meat for a ‘good’ Catholic. Increase your charity in Lent and go to Confession frequently were our marching orders.
Quinquagessima Sun. Best sermon ever. Continuing from last week on the four last things: Hell. Not a medieval accretion: Jesus talked more about Hell than anyone else in the Bible. Lots of people (lots of Catholics) don’t believe in it, think we’ve outgrown it. Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in it; it’s real and you can still go there. I haven’t heard anything like this since I was a small child. I remember THAT Sunday vividly today.