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We were at a different parish this week as we were traveling. It was a pretty nice place, overall, and I thought the sermon was very good. The priest talked about how a very small percentage of Catholics (I think he said 7%) run the majority of the Church’s charitable initiatives. The focus of his sermon was that we should strive to change that percentage. It was kind of neat, because it made me think of the 1 percenters vs. the 99 percenters thing that has been popular recently, but he flipped it around: what can we do to be more like the smaller group? He talked about things that “7 percenters” do differently — not only do they pray daily, but often it’s the very first thing they do when they wake up. The gist was that we can all do more (in our own ways) if we try, it’s not that certain people are holier or that it’s easier for them.
There were lots of other good parts, but as usual I was wrangling a baby at the end of his attention span, so the pieces I remember are all over the place.
hmm…reading through what I just wrote, I made it sound like he’s saying all the people who are running the Church’s charitable initiatives are praying first thing in the morning, and generally being examples that we should all follow. Which, well, isn’t always the case. He explained it all a lot better than my scatterbrained self can. Basically: Try harder and do more.
Our reading and sermon today were delivered by a laywoman [It is therefore not a sermon. I’ll remove the rest of this.]
Not only did the priest actually preach about sin and judgement and all that (underscoring that the Church still teaches those things), but he also stressed the need to recover reverence for the Blessed Sacrament within the Tabernacle, and how a genuflection (or profound bow if the person is physically unable to genuflect) is made when the person passes before the Tabernacle, and enters and exits the church. Also, although this isn’t related to sermons, we’ll be using Latin settings for the Sanctus, Mysterium Fidei, and Agnus Dei during Lent.
All of these things were entirely unexpected and made for a pleasant surprise.
At the Syro Malabar Catholic church, the sermon focused on keeping our lives founded on solid ground Christ. The Church is built on solid ground, and will not fail. Not bad, although a choppy delivery, but good sermon.
We again made the trek to the monthly EF mass. Father spoke of the temptations of Jesus, and made the correlation of the potential for evil in modern man.
In three points, he related the satanic (yes, his exact word) efforts to disregard the grace of God in deference to the reliance on a man-made system, to avoid “star” status (giant ego stuff), and to not be swept away by unholy promises by those who would fulfill all your earthly desires.
Being a “bitter clinger”, I immediately thought of politicians.
The Mrs. and I exchanged glances, as we were having the same thought; she mouthed something to me that looked like “no llama”, but I don’t know what she meant by that…
We had a guest preacher, who discussed the temptations of Jesus and noted that Satan started quoting scripture, concluding “you see scripture can be used for great evil”.
Unfortunately this great sermon was followed by a baptism with lots of ad libs.[Waht part of “good” points was unclear?
Father commented on how the weakest character in the first reading and the Gospel was Satan. Satan has the power to tempt and no more. the actual choice for evil is always left for man.
He also mentioned how God is not a dictator that imposes decrees such as no to abortion, contraception and sex outside marriage. Thy are mortal sins because they are bad for us and God is a loving father that wants what is best for us.
Priest quoted Trent…. WOW!! And get this he mentioned Confession as an ordinary necessity for Salvation. … WOW!!
1. Never negotiate with the devil. Know what God wants of you, know His word, and stick with that as your response to temptation.
2. Giving in to a temptation means substituting a lesser good for a greater good.
There were other good points, but these are the ones that stuck.
EF Mass, Jesus goes into the desert. The desert can be a challenging place where we find out who we are and how we need to change. The first step is to know that we have a problem i.e. sin, just as in AA the first step is to acknowledge we have a drinking problem. There are 3 ways we can begin that change in Lent – prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Fasting can involve more than just food, we can fast from the junk we watch on TV for example.
Third week in a row – same message. Sin and GO TO CONFESSION!
Father had a great homily and spoke about Satan. Today’s Gospel is built for that discussion. The funny thing is that I had the same discussion with one my daughters a day or so ago. She asked me what I thought Stan really looked like, and I told her that I thought Satan would probably be one of the most beautiful people you would ever come across. After all, he was a light-bearing Seraph Angle. What would prove to you that he is Satan, however, is he would plant seeds of doubt about everything you hold to be truthful. That is the way he led Adam and Eve to their destruction in the Garden. It is the way he leads people to destruction today.
That the devil is out there searching for us to tempt us away from God, just as he did Eve, and he is getting more brazen by the day. When a culture is rooted in the Gospel, the devil has to go underground and work in the shadows, because the people know he is there and always have their guard up, but when a culture falls far from God, as ours has, the devil gets confident and all sorts of evil and weird things start happening. Diabolical things like abortion… The people become completely self centered and it is all about what we want and what feels good. We don’t think we need God, or like Eve, we want the power for ourselves. Jesus knows the temptations we face, and in His mercy, He gave us the sacraments in the Church to help us, especially the great gift of Confession for when we fall. Go to Confession.
In the Byzantine tradition, the first Sunday in Lent is known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy because it commemorates the restoration of the holy icons and defeat of the iconoclasts in the 9th century. This year, it coincides with the commemoration of the 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste, who were put to death by Constatine’s rival, Licinius, in 320 a.d.
Father’s sermon focused on the 40 martyrs, how they died (by exposure on a frozen lake followed by breaking of their legs), and how true Christians must be willing to follow Christ’s example of sacrifice, even to death. We do not know when we may be called to martyrdom, but we must be spiritually prepared. Remembrance of death, even death by martyrdom, purifies the soul from corrupting passions. This is the stark reality we live in today.
The Devil whispers, “Sign over your eternal inheritance, and I’ll give you everything you desire right now.” You know what you want, right? I mean, you can draw up a list of desires; catalog everything you need, true? If you can’t, no worries. The Devil is here to help. If anyone knows what you desire better than you do, it’s the Fallen Angel. He’s eager to parade all of God’s eternal rewards before you. The catch? Nothing he can show you is his to give away. So, everything he can show you comes with a price.
http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2014/03/crushing-devil-with-truth.html
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
We were out of town this weekend, and went to High Mass (TLM) at Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia. Father Check focused on the “Ecce Homo” in Our Lord’s Passion, linking it to His temptation in the desert by saying that Our Lord showed us that we can follow God’s will in the very difficult things by practicing mortification in little ways.
What a beautiful church (the oldest German parish in the USA, BTW) and a very beautifully done Missa Canata. Everybody in Philly ought to be going there.
BTW, Father Z, we were in Philadelphia to see the National Curling Championships. You will be happy to know that Minnesotans were well represented, winning both the men’s and women’s national titles.
In Christ,
we were driving on our way to St. Agnes yesterday morning when woops, missed the Dail exit… ok, what to do now? Look, there’s the Cathedral! Father gave a great homily as usual, but what I took away most was what he said when he referenced St. Augustine’s confessions. He quoted the Saint and said that just before Augustine’s conversion, his force of habit whispered to him, “Can you live without your vices?” Father asked us that again, “can you live without them?” It struck me especially because in my own personal observance this Lent I’ve added a daily rosary, doing great so far btw, but it really brought home to me the necessity of the rosary in my life. Can I live without it, as I’ve done for so long? No, I don’t think I can and I really enjoyed that aspect of the homily. Plus, just a lovely mass and it was warm and sunny here yesterday. Please keep that going Lord, it really helps my mood.
Our sermon consisted of a lenten pastoral letter from the bishop, devoted entirely to CONFESSION, in which he clearly and gently invited us all to confess soon; quoting well from Pope Francis. Very good stuff.
Fairly sophisticated analysis of the interplay of free will and grace, with the bottom line: be good, thank God.
Coming a little late to the combox, but I thought I needed to share my Sunday Sermon experience. We have a young priest in our parish, who was ordained on December 7th; in his sermon, father N.:
(a) lamented that so many, specially in the West, consider the devil to be a myth;
(b) after asserting the existence of the evil one (while reminding us that the devil is the father of lies), he quoted some of Benedict XVI’s reflections on the temptation of Jesus;
(c) Father also brought up the “Screwtape letters” (C.S. Lewis), and how when he read the book for the first time, could so often see a reflection of himself in the tribulations of “the patient”;
(d) Father finally proposed a 4-point program to deal with our temptations (regular examination of conscience; name your demons; be firm when tempted, as one has to be firm when dealing with a wild dog; and, quoting St. Augustine; compared the devil to a dog tied up in a chain, and that we should stay clear from getting near this dog – avoiding occasions of sin and many behaviours that lead us astray.
I, for once, was impressed!
P.S.: Father even used the words “sin” and “satan”! Unfortunately, he did not urge us to GO TO CONFESSION!. But, to his credit, he will be running, along with our pastor, an Archdiocese-wide reconciliation event for youth and young adults this Friday.
@mary–It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything whilst I was reading these notes–somehow, I saw your “Sin and GO TO CONFESSION!” as a complete imperative: GO SIN and GO TO CONFESSION! (St. Paul notwithstanding…)
Regular Sunday EF. The one thing that stood out for me was Father comparing how Satan tempted Our Lord to prove Himself and how unbelievers (and even Catholics) will say to the Church and to the individual Catholic as well as to God Himself, “If He is Who He says He is, prove it!” “If You are Who You says You are, why is there A or B or C in the world?” (The problem of pain, for instance). Sometimes we even get like that with respect to our prayer-life, if prayers aren’t answered the way we want. Even at the time of St. Peter’s confession (“Who do YOU say I am?”) Peter goes from commended to “prove it to us”–show us that You are the King of Israel, restore the (earthly) kingdom–and Our Lord has to say to him what He said to Satan, Retro, Satana!
All the things that Satan offers us are of far less worth than the things that God wants for us, but we’re still attracted/tempted anyway.
Given that the Temptation of Christ can bring out some truly loony homilies, we were very glad to have heard the one we did (as we expected to hear solid teaching from Fr. M.)
Temptation operates in the mind, which, like a sponge, soaks up what it’s immersed in. Prayer and Scripture reading are like dipping a mucky sponge into clean water and squeezing out the muck, which for best results should be done repeatedly and frequently.