Was there a good point or two in the sermon that you heard for your Mass of obligation this Sunday?
Let us know.
Was there a good point or two in the sermon that you heard for your Mass of obligation this Sunday?
Let us know.
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Coat of Arms by D Burkart
St. John Eudes
- Prosper of Aquitaine (+c.455), De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem 22.61
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“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”
- Fulton Sheen
Therefore, ACTIVATE YOUR CONFIRMATION and get to work!
- C.S. Lewis
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"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
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Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thine image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of Thine Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
I went to St Henry Cathedral in Helsinki, Finland due to being here on business. Surprisingly the Mass was in the old rite, which is offered the first Sunday of every month. Being from Chicago, the homily was in Finnish so I didnt understand it. But I was able to follow along during Mass!
How the real miracle in the multiplication of the loaves was the simple act of sharing. Then the liturgical dancers performed an interpretative version of “One Bread, One Body” while a video played showing the heightened need for more social justice in our fractured world. (Just playin)
At EF Mass, Father emphasized the need to be receptive to grace and co-operate with it before God provides us with a miracle.
Father Jackson FSSP spoke of Isaac playing with Ishmael, and the anger this prompted in Sarah. He noted cited Origen’s note that Sara in Scripture can represent virtue, and that, in this case, Ishmael was representing Satan’s seduction to the slavery of Hagar, the slavery of the flesh. Father said, “Isaac thought he was playing with a childhood friend, Ishmael; Sarah knew that her son was playing with fire.” He noted that Satan approaches us, not wanting to drive us into the throes of evil; but rather, that he comes to play. He comes to eat: “Did God really say you couldn’t eat of the tree?” And he comes to play. He comes to promise the consolations we fear we’ll never have. And Isaac, young as he was, was susceptible to this enticement.
Hagar, through Ishmael, wanted Isaac to believe that this world is for play, when Sarah knew — as the Blessed Virgin Mary, the quae sursum est Jerusalem, knows — that this world is all war. This war begins in the morning, as soon as we wake. And this war encompasses whatever tools are necessary to win. Saint Josemaria Escriva called the alarm clock “a summons to heroic battle”, which we will immediately win or lose; we will immediately roll from bed to land on our knees in prayer, or we will hit the snooze and let slip past our chance to sanctify the day. From that moment on, we are locked in the struggle between Sarah and Hagar. Within us will dwell this seduction to capitulate to the testament of the flesh; and, in order to successfully defeat these continuous seductions with continuous defeat, we must employ penance, spiritual reading, recourse to the Saints — and, when necessary (and if necessary), rest and, as Father so delicately put it, “secular distractions.” He said, “Thomas Aquinas once noted that a hot bath, a hot glass of wine, and an early bedtime were sometimes requisite to winning the day against a stabbing temptation, and that this would help us to ‘reset’, to forget about what was previously so persistent, and to wake up the next morning fresh and new, able to start from the beginning.” Finally, he noted, all is in vain if we are not daily consecrated to, and truly devoted to, the Jerusalem who is above, our Mother: the Blessed Virgin Mary.
My Priest gave a wonderful homily that tied the year of mercy to the actions of the Father in the Prodigal Son. He challenged us to think about the times when we were the younger son, the elder, and the father — when we have had the chance to receive mercy, dispense mercy and welcome someone who has benefited from the mercy of others. Up until this point, I’m embarrassed to say, I believe I have always looked at the parable as a means of recognizing the need for forgiveness for the things I have done, and not from the standpoint of being happy for others who have received grace, or worse, not recognizing that I have opportunities to demonstrate forgiveness the way I need to be forgiven. This is very meaningful to me.
I went to a SSPX chapel (1st time), and got a wonderful sermon along the lines that when the mind is illumined by Truth, the will is moved toward the good. Pure Aquinas, pure salt. After Mass, there was Benediction with clouds and clouds of incense. Laetare Sunday!
Today’s sermon was in Polish, so I couldn’t understand a single word. But it was still grand: it was Sunday, and our little chapel here in the Norwegian mountains was chock full of Poles, Filipinos, a Dutch nun, an English couple, and two or three Norwegians, me included. The fact that we had Mass celebrated here at all is worth celebrating, and I thanked God for it as the Polish priest gave his sermon.
Father spent about 3-4 minutes on the importance, necessity, and availability of Confession. It’s been a long time…
At a tiny church downtown, Father’s homily was an explanation of the Prodigal Son, that the Father is God, who rushes to meet us and to forgive us the minute he sees us. He mentioned that they’ve added an extra hour on Wed. afternoon (parish is downtown) during Lent. That’s in addition to the 14 times they have confession regularly. I’m told that many priests go to confession there as the priests are from a religious order.
I walked everything through an examination of conscience, explaining what mortal and venial sin are, that mortal sins must be confessed, and highlighted some of the mortal sins with each commandment. I tied this to both the first reading — we don’t want to be the stiffnecked ones who don’t make it to the Promised Land — and the Gospel about the generous father and the wayward son.
Father gave an excellent homily on the Prodigal Son — focusing our attention on a stained glass rendering in one of our windows. He pointed out a few things I had never realized before, namely:
– That the father was looking for his son for all those years (otherwise he wouldn’t have “seen him coming” and run to him).
– That the father in the parable is really prodigal as well — prodigal with his mercy and love.
– That the banquet the son attends is a metaphor for heaven, and that the older brother in refusing to enter is missing the point of union with the father and is committing a similar sin to the one the younger brother committed. He was mad at his younger brother because his younger brother “got away” with prostitution, etc, as if those were good things that he wished he could experience as well.
St John of the Ladder (John Klimakos) is commemorated on the 4th Sunday of Lent in the Greek Catholic Churches. Our priest preached about the Gift of Tears and how it is indispensable to the spiritual life. Thursday brings the great canon of Andrew of Crete and the life of St Mary of Egypt. We are now past mid-Lent and our spiritual preparation for holy Pascha intensifies.
Fr V spoke about how we have lost a sense of sin. Yesterday’s sermon at the EF Mass (the longest Epistle of the year!) by Fr Y was a masterful talk based on Aquinas’s exposition of how the parable of the woman caught in adultery shows both Jesus’ mercy and His justice, how the two cannot be divided. I noticed that the reading from Daniel is also a tale of justice, but in its Old Testament variant before the fulfillment of the Law when God reveals the full Truth to mankind, the full Truth of how justice and mercy are beholden to one another.
EF….beautiful homily about how if we give a little God makes miracles….so be not afraid …after all we are just His tools.
I am not sure why, but last evening the OF mass was using year A cycle, and the gospel was of the man born blind, healed by Jesus, (John 9) . Fr H spoke about different forms of spiritual blindness that we might have. He had an acronym, that was not memorable, but he spoke of the blindness of selfishness, pride, hypocrisy, prejudice, materialism, and a few others. Basically, being blind meaning blind to the dignity and worth of others. In two local parishes there had been “24 hours of mercy” called for by Pope Francis, including stations of the cross, overnight eucharistic adoration, and increased hours for confession. Even at the cathedral which normally does not have long lines, they finally opened up one of the old confessionals which had been used as a closet/storage, and both priests were in the confessional! There even were some short lines ( for a change). Great to see, and I think maybe the priests were a little surprised?
Went to a parish way out of the way today. It was well worth the drive. An N.O. parish, but Father seems to be slowly inserting more and more Latin. Sanctus was in Latin as was the Agnus Dei. Lovely! Maybe the trend will continue and I will be making the drive more often? We shall see. At any rate, the deacon gave the homily and he said that at different times in our lives we may identify with the father, other times the older son or the younger son. He emphasized the giving and receiving of mercy and how it has a special meaning during this Year of Mercy. He spent a bit of time talking about the older son which I particularly liked.
I took a stab at answering the question: what is it about Jesus that attracts sinners?
http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2016/03/do-you-live-grateful-celebration.html
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
It is wonderful to hear, Father and I pray that all parish priests do this from time to time.
On Laetare Sunday we rejoice as Jesus feeds us on more than just bread. The Church is the new Jerusalem, in heaven and on earth and we are children of the holy city. However we can’t see heavenly things, only earthly things, so God uses earthly things to teach us about heavenly things. The fruit in the Garden of Eden was a small thing but Adam and Eve could have shown their love of God and trust in him but they didn’t. In the Epistle Hagar symbolizes our slavery vs. Sarah who symbolizes the freedom we find by following God.
In the Gospel story we also see lesser earthly things that point to greater things. The people followed Jesus because of signs and miracles which point to something greater, that Jesus came to heal sinners of their sins. Passover being near points to Jesus as the Lamb of God. The miracle of the loaves points to Jesus giving them the true bread – himself – the food that gives us eternal life. Finally, the food was handed out by the apostles – a sign of how the Church will feed the people through the apostolic succession.
OF. The younger son in the parable sinned when he decided that he was self-sufficient and didn’t need to remain with his father and brother. The running away and squandering his father’s fortune may seem more seriously wrong at first glance, but the son was lost in sin before he even asked for the inheritance. We don’t know why the younger son made that decision and might even sympathize with him if we did know.
Byzantine Divine Liturgy, on Mark 9:17-31. Sometimes we view others with rigidity, with an arrogant and superior attitude, and, on certain occasions when we act out of this mindset we sometimes cause very grave, and permanent, real harm, to others, even as we can justify our actions by citing chapter and verse. At the conclusion of our lifetime, we can surely expect that the Lord will call us account for the serious and grave harm we cause to others thereby.
Yesterday, according to the Gregorian UGCC calendar, was the healing of a demoniac where the Lord says that certain demons can only be cast out by prayer and fasting. Father essentially tied that into the Great Fast and how our practices and observances are a prayer and fast of their own. Unfortunately, I didn’t get all of it because the mic wasn’t broadcasting very well :(