On this wonderful Feast of All Saints was there a good point in the sermon that you heard at your Holy Mass of obligation?
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In discussing today’s Gospel reading (N.O.), Father said the Beatitudes can be understood as a self-portrait of Christ, which on reflection seems fairly obvious but had never occurred or been suggested to me before. I’m sure it’s old news to many here.
And from that, he reminded us we are all called to be holy, i.e. saints, and of course the way to do that is to imitate Christ–by trying to “be the Beatitudes.”
Excellent sermon on Purgatory. Not often do we have doctrine!
Preached at both OF & EF.
– There is a saint (canonized or not) who we can relate to. They walked in our shoes.
– Married, single, religious, priests, prostitutes who repented, same-sex attracted who lived a chaste life – someone with every difficulty, sin, and temptation as you have, but overcame and became who God wanted them to be.
– The Church is saying today: “They did it, so can you!”
Homily on how we are called to reject the easy way of the world and instead do harder things, so that we enter the narrow gate.
Father invited the children to attend in costume and used the imagry of a smiling jack-o-lantern with a candle in it to illustrate an internal quest for holiness having the capacity to radiate outward. Not sold on the theatrics but it was a good homily.
Father spoke on how anyone can become a saint. He gave the example of Pope Francis recently canonizing Junipero Serra, Louis and Azelie Martin, as well as Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. All of them came from different backgrounds and lived different lives, but all of them committed to living lives of holiness and dedication to God’s Will. Father also mentioned how the Beatitudes are often viewed as impractical, but they are necessary if one wants to grow in love for God and neighbor.
Don’t ask others to pray for you and neglect to ask the Saints for their prayers. We often ask the Priest after Mass to pray for us. Father said that he is simply a man and he may end up in hell because of his failings. If we have so much confidence in the prayers of a man who may end up in hell to pray for us, shouldn’t we have so much more confidence in the Saints who are already in heaven? If we ask our brothers and sisters on Earth to pray for us but we neglect the saints then we are doing a grave disservice to the Kingdom of God.
Saturday Mass, it was the transitional Deacon’s first homily. he spoke about the saints and that they were all once people like us, some great sinners before conversion . He gave some recommended reading and told us there is a saint there to help everyone and for every activity.
Sunday Mass, the homily’s point was that we are all called to Holiness.
Fr. M. said that sins distort our personality, who we really are. We need to get free from attachment to sin because we can’t get to heaven with it: there is no sin in heaven, so with attachment to sin we would not like heaven.
Father’s main point on this feast day was the call from Vatican II for all to be saints. He described it a foundational message of the council. The named saints frequently, but not always, lived unusual lives. This day celebrates all the named and unnamed saints in heaven. Sainthood is attainable by all. Many named saints started out as great sinners. In order to attain sainthood we need a complete detachment from sin, live the beatitudes and follow the example of Christ in love of God and neighbor. This doable by accepting the grace for this from God. God wants to give us this grace; he begs to give us this grace; he hounds us to accept this grace. It is a difficult challenge. Perhaps a bit scary (different from Halloween scary). It requires dedication and constancy. It is a universal vocation.
Father began with the life of St. Margaret the hunchback & how she became a saint by trusting God rather than her family or herself, and trusting God is how all of us become saints – and doing his will. Fr. went on to talk about vocations & the importance of encouraging someone who is considering a religious vocation or would make a good priest or nun. I was happy to hear him say he had never regretted becoming a priest, not for one minute.
In the bulletin message, he reminded everyone of the importance of praying for the souls in Purgatory, with a little refresher on Church teaching about that.
I forgot on vivid image. Believing you can live the way you want and hope for a good confession during last rights is like rollerblading on the cliff of oblivion.
We found a Latin Mass near our house (!) so the best thing we heard was Dominus Vobiscum. I hope I spelled that correctly. It was wonderful.
Father said there are many saints in heaven that nobody will ever care about or know about, but they are saints nonetheless. He gave a few examples of people he had known who loved God deeply and were so devout, including one lady in her 90’s who did not want to break the fast before Holy Communion because she wanted to prepare properly to receive Jesus. She would faint at home rather than eat first. (She fasted from midnight.)
Kathleen10,
That is spelled correctly.
I don’t have much to add – my pastor and 2 other priests who say Mass are good and give decent enough homilies. But I just wanted to say Thanks to all who comment because I get a lot out of Father Z’s weekly post for good homilies.
We’re all called to be saints, maybe not a canonized saint. We can begin by making a good confession and we’ll be on the way to becoming Saints.
The good news: the gospel was the same reading from Matthew in both the OF and EF calendars! iPadre could use the same homily for both Masses.
On this day of all saints, we need to remember saints were real people, who suffered and offered that suffering up with Christ’s suffering in the cross. They aren’t just happy holy cards. One saint who is often caricatured, and we need to remember his great suffering, is St Francis. He isn’t really the patron saint of anyone who likes tie-dye or talks to squirrels. He was a man of suffering and he learned to unite his sufferings to Christ.
I didn’t.
In fact, I didn’t hear a word father said during the homily. Or most of the Mass for that matter. There was no working PA.
But I consider it a god thing because, you see, the church was packed, it was standing room only. And I (and most people there) did not need to hear father to actively participate in the Mass. We knew what was going on, we could pray, we participated.
This was in Singapore.
This was not exactly a point in a sermon, but it was some really good news that was announced….in our beautiful old New England parish they are moving the gorgeous old marble altar two feet forward so it will rest exactly center under the baldachino. Then they plan to permanently remove the 1970s portable altar table that was put up in front of the old altar after Vatican II and use only the old marble one for both the OF and the EF, which is celebrated weekly. Our new pastor says the new positioning will “allow for Mass to be celebrated facing the same direction as all the people (ad orientem) which is a legitimate part of our tradition and is filled with symbolism which is still fitting today.” Hooray!!
The Greek Catholic Churches do not observe All Saints Day today. It is the 6th Sunday of Luke, and also the synaxis of the unmercenary healers, Cosmas and Damien. The gospel is the Lord’s healing of the Gerasene demoniac. The sermon today was about Charity. Charity is not necessarily about money, alms, but about human love. Peter heals the lame beggar at the Beautiful Gate, saying, “I have no silver and gold.” What he does have is healing. The unmercenary healers (literally, without silver) give healing without expectation of earthly reward. The details of their lives are lost in the mists of history. Only their loving ability to heal is remembered, and is commemorated in both east and west.
A youth-oriented Mass in the Diocese of Albany in the Ordinary Form; that the saints are not to be understood as “perfect people” who had no faults whatsoever. But they were people who knew that they had some specific work that they were called by God to do. And they gave their whole entire lives to that work and to the will of God.
From the TLM I went to today. About halfway through I made sure to jot down some notes since I knew it was going to be a good one. I know at least one other reader goes to the same Mass so if anything is missing or could be relayed more clearly hopefully they’ll be able to help out below:
According to Fr., priests had been asked to preach about vocations. He suspected that many would give the standard exhortation to pray for more vocations to be realized, and to encourage young people to consider religious life (and especially for young men to consider the priesthood). He talked about how that doesn’t get to the root of the problems we are facing today because after all, it’s not as if pews are overflowing and we need more priests in order to have more Masses said on Sunday. Rather, what we have is a shortage of good Catholics, those who take being Catholic seriously. The “universal call to holiness” is not something new in the last 50 years; while Heaven may be full of sinners, it contains not one who was unrepentant upon death.
The two biggest causes of this problem are 1) the prevalence of sins against the 6th and 9th commandments. Impurity, contraception (as well as its connection to and natural promotion of abortion and unnatural vice), divorce, etc. and 2) Irreverent worship which is effeminate, emphasizing the “community” rather than the sacrifice, and focused on man rather than God.
As far as the first point is concerned, he pointed out that focusing the promotion of vocations on just the priesthood is too narrow since most people are called to marriage. If marriages aren’t Christ-focused and couples contracept (thereby keeping potential saints, including priests ,from even being born), or are lukewarm in the faith (and therefore don’t give what children they do have a love for Christ and His Church) then how do we think that will work out for the salvation of the couple and their children? Good Catholic families have tended to produce more priestly vocations.
Now for the second point, men are drawn to challenge and purpose and seek to follow the example of true masculinity. As it is celebrated in most places (98% of the time was his number), the N.O. fails to attract men on these points, and when sacrifice is de-emphasized as far as the priesthood and the liturgy is concerned, so it goes with life in general. Living any vocation well requires great sacrifice, so we cannot downplay its importance.
We attended the Byzantine Rote Mass that has recently started at our parish and is now offered every Saturday evening at 5:30 PM at Holy Cross Church Lisbon St. Lewiston ME, by Fr. Robert Parent who is a Melkite priest but is bi-ritual; and also offers our Extraordinary Form Mass on Sundays.
In the Eastern Rite, All Saints is the Sunday after Pentecost, so our Gospel today was the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man was not condemned for being rich but due to lack of charity. After all many rich men are commended in the Bible such as Joseph of Arimethea. Note that the rich man has no name. Often a person with no name i used to indicate very man – so perhaps the rich man is us.
Father had a wonderful homily on the Saints and what it would be like to be in heaven- the ultimate bliss of being in the presence of the beatific vision, but also knowing everything intimately about all of the Saints. It was a great affirmation of my own thoughts of heaven.
Many in Heaven have led heroically holy lives that we will never know about here on Earth. They set a silent example for us, plying the path to sanctity as they sought God even in the problems and failures of their daily lives. We mustn’t ever suppress the desire to near to God, for we become saints by constantly seeking His accompaniment and help.
Very good OF homily. Father started by quoting a contemporary song “If I told you my story, you would hear . . . ” Then Father (who is not particularly young) reminisced about a book of lives of saints that he received as a young boy and recounted highlights of some tales that clearly influenced him over the years and noted that their stories were full of witness to the Lord. He asked if our stories would bear a similar witness and then noted quite clearly that the current culture is not friendly to such witness, wanting us to leave our faith in the church building, but that we must take it into the world.
Very good OF homily. Father started by quoting a contemporary song “If I told you my story, you would hear . . . ” Then Father (who is not particularly young) reminisced about a book of lives of saints that he received as a young boy and recounted highlights of some tales that clearly influenced him over the years and noted that their stories were full of witness to the Lord. He asked if our stories would bear a similar witness and then noted quite clearly that the current culture is not friendly to such witness, wanting us to leave our faith in the church building, but that we must take it into the world.
When people’s faith is strong they are capable of amazing things. And yet what is most amazing about the saints is not necessarily what they did but the faith that enabled them to do what they did. What would be different about our lives if our faith was truly strong? Could we invite persecution as the Beatitudes call us to? Would we be people of mercy, of peace as the Beatitudes call us to be? The celebration of All Saint invites us to celebrate not only the multitude of saints, the great cloud of witnesses whose names remain unknown to us, but also remind us that not only is each one of us capable of sainthood, it is our calling. It is our prerogative. But only if our faith is real and strong will that be possible.