Was there a good point in the sermon you heard for this 1st Passion Sunday? The 5th Sunday of Lent?
Let us know.
About this blog…
“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
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
This REALLY helps! And it’s great coffee (and tea)
Polls
Loading ...Donate using VENMO
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Do you have a faithful Catholic website that needs competent and reliable tech support?
Fr. Z’s VOICEMAIL
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
on “Blessed are the PACE makers.” Make A Plan for Family Communications:: “I came across this little anxiety-reducer listening to an old AudioSancto sermon: “Lord, let me die as it pleases You.…”
on 2 August: St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor “Zelantissimus” … who bilocated: “I write this after reading a letter from the desk of our pastor delivering the sting of a holy devotion…”
on “Blessed are the PACE makers.” Make A Plan for Family Communications:: “I watched the video and it’s a bit overwhelming. How much can we really prepare and how do we know…”
on Fr. Angel Sotelo – RIP: “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and perpetual light shine upon him.”
on “Blessed are the PACE makers.” Make A Plan for Family Communications:: “Stay charged up and confessed.”
on “Blessed are the PACE makers.” Make A Plan for Family Communications:: “All good advice which I endorse. BUT . . . If the electric grid is down, you will need an…”
on Your Sunday Sermon Notes: 10th Sunday after Pentecost (18th Ordinary – N.O.): “Overflow attendance yesterday at the weekly TLM which is held at the parish church administered by the Norbertines in the…”
on Daily Rome Shot 235: “Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Our Lady of Miracles, twin Church to Santa Maria in Monte Santo, at Piazza del Popolo.…”
on 2 August: St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor “Zelantissimus” … who bilocated: “I was deeply moved when I first read his letters to young people discerning a vocation. This is the most…”
on Fr. Angel Sotelo – RIP: “Saddened at the loss of Fr. Sotelo. I met him in these very comment boxes. He didn’t hesitate to take…”
on Fr. Angel Sotelo – RIP: “My friendship with Fr. Angel goes back to the COL days of the mid 1990’s. I met him a few…”
on Fr. Angel Sotelo – RIP: “I’m so sorry to hear this. I remember Fr. Sotelo from wayyy back. He always had a good way of…”
on ACTION ITEM! Be a “Custos Traditionis”! Join an association of prayer for the reversal of “Traditionis custodes”.: “What does this mean for Mystic Monk? https://twitter.com/RorateCaeli/status/1422221686708084737?s=19 “I’m writing to let you know that Bishop Steven Biegler of the…”
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful.
That way I have steady income I can plan on, and you wind up regularly on my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I periodically say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
Yes, Fr. Z is taking ads…
Be a “Zed-Head”!
CHALLENGE COINS!
My "challenge coin" for my 25th anniversary of ordination in 2016.
Want one? I do exchanges with military and LEOs, etc.
PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
Loading ...This is really useful when travelling… and also when you aren’t and you need backup internet NOW! I use this for my DMR “Zednet” hotspot when I’m mobile. It’s a ham radio thing.
If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
WDTPRS POLL
Loading ...Fr. Z’s stuff is everywhere
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
GREAT causes to support
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
For some reason, the sermon for the Saturday Vigil, was all about, and for Parents. The priest spoke at length about how Parents are the first teachers of their children and that children will ask “Show me Jesus”, not literally, he thinks but in how parents live. He exhorted them to be good exaamples of Christ, so their children have a living example.
Our priest pointed out that although God has infinite patience when it comes to our sins, we still have to repent and go to confession. He mentioned the grace one gets from it, and that we all have to go at least once a year. He even spoke about his own experience with confession. We have an active, growing parish, for which I am very thankful, and it’s nice to see the less-fluffy stuff come out. In fact, Father has mentioned the need for confession several times this past few weeks.
Not part of the sermon, but I was happy to see that our associate pastor, who recently suffered a TIA, is recovering well. He had a late vocation and is very orthodox; I hope he can continue his ministry for a long time.
Psalm 42, today the Introit, provided the structure of how Christ reacted to the growing darkness of His time, and provides an example for us to deal with the growing darkness around us today.
Announcement was made that the Latin Mass will be celebrated this Wednesday night, 3/23 at 5:30 pm at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Memphis. Please pray for a good turn out, pray for Father Clark. Brick by brick!!
The importance to embrace silence (Father has us “giving up” things for Lent Communally – http://adoroergosum.blogspot.com/2015/02/join-me-this-lent-in-sacrificing.html?m=1 – this week is entertainment). We also heard about the importance for the Mass to not devolve into a horizontal celebration of community, repleat with a quote from Romano Guardini wherein the theologian wonders if modern man is yet capable of performing a truly liturgical act.
At our TLM, Father chanted the Gospel in Latin, took off his maniple, climbed up into the pulpit, read the announcements, and then began his sermon. “From the dawn of time… men have made mistakes, and I just made one. I forgot to read the translation of the Scriptures.” He proceeded to read the Epistle and Gospel in English, and then began again: “As I said, from the dawn of time, mankind have made sacrifices….”
Okay, it wasn’t a profound point, but it was a nice mid-sentence save. :)
In an exhortation for the faithful to attend the Triduum, Canon encouraged us to immerse ourselves in the slowness of the liturgy, saying it was akin to having a touchpoint with eternity. Let the world and all its cares fade into the background. The liturgy is timeless and allows us a brief glimpse of timelessness. Not his exact words, but what I took away from it.
Father mentioned Ronald Knox’s observation that the gospel write John was not a good story teller. He begins today’s story talking about how some Greeks have come to see Jesus but Jesus responds with what seems completely off topic. Up to this point Jesus had mentioned multiple times that his time had not come. One well known example was at the wedding at Canaan. But now, he has changed this message. He is now entering into his passion. This is a transitional week as we approach Palm Sunday. Are we ready?
I had the honor of preaching this morning. I spoke about passion and it’s philological root meaning. My central point was this:
“Passionate love made Him stretch out His arms on the Cross and offer His life up for you and me, even though He was entirely innocent. Christ’s Passion binds suffering and love together in one act – and in offering Himself up, He purifies both love and suffering and gives them meaning.
Never again, because of His passion, can we who suffer say, “God does not understand.” Never again when our hearts ache with the loneliness and pain of love that is unreturned can we say, “I am so alone.” Christ is there with us. Christ has felt that pain. Christ has redeemed through His suffering.
I concluded with an exhortation to enter into Christ’s Passion with the Church over the next two weeks – to pray before a Crucifix (and to consider getting a Crucifix for the home if you don’t have one – or at least putting one on your phone or computer for the next two weeks as a reminder)
FSSP parish so the Gospel was Jesus in the Temple with Jews who ended turning against Him and He had to hide from them. This betrayal and hatred from those people He loved was just before the beginning of His Passion and hurt more than the physical pain He endured. We all betray and turn from Jesus through sin and need to understand the pain that this causes Him .
Also tied in Christ hiding from the Jews with covering the statues.
I don’t know if it was a “good” point, but it was “different”.
Speaking on martyrdom, our priest said that to show solidarity with the martyred Christians/Catholics we should wear orange and/or an orange jumpsuit would make the point even better.
I don’t know how that will go over in the “fashion world” but I did happen to be wearing an orange shrug at the time and a couple of people commented on it.
The main theme of today’s homily was obedience and how it brings about great grace.
We attended a Maronite liturgy for the 5th Sunday of great lent, the healing of the blind man. Much of this story of course relates to spiritual blindness. We do not always realize another person’s confusing behavior may be a sign they are looking for God’s love and attention and instead we just tell them to be quiet as the people did to Bartimaeus. As Bartimaeus threw aside his cloak we may need to throw aside things that keep us from God and open ourselves up to the Lord.
As an aside, I had never attended the Maronite liturgy before (one of my sons who is discerning the religious life wants to visit a Maronite monastery and wanted to experience their liturgy so he wouldn’t be clueless at the monastery) and found it an interesting mix with parts like our Roman Rite ordinary form and other parts very ancient, much chanting in Syriac, including the consecration part of the Anaphora. The people there were very friendly and helpful to us clueless Latins. This was St. Joseph’s Waterville ME.
9:00 AM Mass was for the Third Scrutiny for the RCIA members being received into the Church at the Easter Vigil. Father once again reminded the congregation (raised my eyebrows) that the Devil is real, he wants to separate us from God, that sin is real and we need to make use of the Sacrament of Confession.
And he also mentioned that ALL the miracles of Jesus that Jesus performed, including the raising Lazarus, were manifestations of his Divine power. In Lazarus’ case, he was “stone cold dead, not in a coma, not in a trance, completely, unmistakably dead, and Jesus brought him back to life.” I know what he was doing – he was dismissing the modern idea that somehow Jesus’ miracles can somehow be explained away. Father was most definitely quashing that idea – no, the miracles were all real and Jesus was totally responsible for them.
It was so good to hear.
To give the conclusion to what Rachel said:
Father’s point in the TLM was that all cultures have offered sacrifice,”since the dawn of time.”
Our sacrifice is the final sacrifice, the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Eternal Sacrifice made present for us now.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am.” Father focused on God’s “I am” – ness, being outside of time as we know it and specifically why that those who tried to stone him were aware that Jesus was identifying himself as God with this statement (as it was spoken to Moses). Also talked about the significance of Jesus saying “I am” so frequently in the gospels.
Our priest talked about suffering and how it is redemptive when we unite our sufferings with the sufferings of Christ. Good to hear!
Wife and I were out of town and went to a mass in Virginia Beach (Diocese of Richmond, VA, which has gotten some bad press lately).
The Priest lead off the homily by talking about martyrs (starting with some early ones, going on to the recent 21 Copts) and then went into confession. His church is having 16 (sixteen!) priests available for confession at a Thursday night service. He said he was bribing them with a seafood dinner. Then went about making Confession less “scary” for those who hadn’t gone. Stuff like, “Can’t remember the Act of Contrition? We’ll say it with you.” and the like, really inviting to people go and making this service seem really special.
Best part? The Hosanna, Mystery of Faith, “Through him and with him…”, Lamb of God.., and the Concluding Rite were all done in Latin. After mass, when I thanked him for it and said it was great, Priest said he didn’t want to lose those traditions and was doing it for Lent and Advent. Maybe breaking the people into it? Mass was packed too.
A Franciscan from a nearby college celebrated this week at our parish. He made a nice point on exhorting the faithful, in these last days of Lent, to contemplative prayer. Specifically, he suggested they spend 5 to 10 minutes a day looking at the Crucifix and meditating on the Passion.
Great suggestion.
Tim Ferguson,
Was there a “talking points” union meeting near Albany last week?