Our pastor preached a VERY good strong solid sermon on the evil and wrongs of artificial contraception and the positivness of Natural Family Planning. It was a sermon that needed to be heard by everybody.
Working from the parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price (the OF Gospel), our priest spoke on how neither of those people earned that wealth, just as we don’t earn our the grace God gives us, but to use it, they had to be willing to sacrifice. So it is both a free gift of God that costs us nothing, but also something that requires everything from us.
A visiting priest from Africa gave a meaty homily that I could remember after I left Mass, as is not always the case. He spoke of the parable of the treasure, asking us to decide what is the most valuable treasure in our lives, as we examine all the treasures we have. He fleshed it out beautifully, challenging us.
Our sermon was delivered by a deacon from the FSSP. I don’t remember everything he talked about as I had a three-year old to contend with, but a few things he mentioned is that to “love Christ is to love the Church, and to love the Church is to love Christ.” He also reminded us that outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation. It was a very beautiful sermon and one with a lot of excellent points.
My two year old gave the sermon this week…Chucking a tantrum in the car park. Still, it was better than any heretical sermon I’ve heard. Apparently the real sermon was on eternity and our time we have to prepare for it.
OF: To many Catholics only live on the surface. We need to dig and dive into the depths of our souls to meet the living Lord Jesus Christ. It takes courage to go beyond being Sunday Mass only.
EF: Based homily on Introit. Talked about the temple and how it was all pointing to new temple the Church. The sacrifice pointed to the new perfect sacrifice. All to worship in spirit and truth. And, how our churches must raise our minds, hearts, and souls to heaven.
My homily was on the treasure/pearl. The treasure, of course, is Christ. But we must go all in; we don’t just get handed the treasure.
I tied it in with a special event this coming Friday and Saturday, when we’ll welcome a Fatima statue with special devotions, a renewal of parish consecration to our Lady, an all night vigil before the Blessed Sacrament, all following the Traditional Latin Mass. I made the point that if the TLM is challenging, well — what did we just hear in the Gospel? I moved onto saying that Mary’s heart is the field where the treasure of Jesus’ heart is “hidden” — but not really: she offers us Jesus constantly.
Anyway, I tried to make the devotions around the statue visit appealing. Let’s see what happens.
17th Sunday Ordinary Time-
Father C decided to focus just on the parable of the pearl merchant. The merchant owned many fine jewels, but decided to sell all of them in order to get the finest pearl. Fr said the point was that our choices are often not black or white—a clear good, instead of a clear evil. Often, it is sacrificing something good, perhaps everything, so that one can have something far better.
He cited a story of a parish family he knew: the non-Catholic father was becoming irreversibly blind, and the Catholic mother was dejected over this. But the son piped up “Don’t worry, God will not take something good away without offering another good in its place.” Later that year, the father was baptized into the Catholic Faith, the pearl of great price.
Over the course of our lives, we are often –somewhat reluctantly– giving up our good things (health, family and friends, material wealth) while preparing for our meeting with Jesus Christ, the only treasure that matters.
The great price is a great sacrifice. Those on the parable gave up everything they had for the treasure. The treasure is the Church, and the Eucharist. The Lord calls us to give up many things, maybe everything. He does not promise a reward on Earth or comforts. He does not promise we will have friends or a job on this path. We may be asked to give up knowing what the future holds for us.
Those who are willing to give up everything to obtain the Eucharist Desiree I. We too must desire the Lord. Our other desires, if good, all point to the Lord. If bad, lead us away. We cannot obtain what we do not desire. It is desire that moved us to make the sacrifice.
Ours was an NO Mass at the parish near our vacation place. Very good sermon based on the parable of the pearl merchant. At sermon’s end he invited a young woman to join him and say a few words. A CUA graduate, she has finished one year’s work in a school in the South Bronx, and was preparing to leave on a two-year mission to Honduras to teach, build housing, clothe, feed, etc. Quite moving, and she has given up a lot of what would be a normal life for a 25-year-old in order to find her pearl. It was a good end to a good sermon.
On a side note, it appears that the recently appointed 29-year-old pastor is slooooowly making the service less Protestant-wannabe and more actual Catholic. The five-piece jazz combo that previously gigged near the altar is gone, replaced with a pianist and seven-voice choir. No more guitarist, sax player, drummer, keyboardist, or tambourine shaker. And he chants some prayers. He mentioned (gasp!) that it’s not a requirement to dash across the aisle in crack-the-whip style holding hands while beginning the Pater Noster. Progress.
Excellent homily, as always, in our NO mass (in Latin, ad Orientem, Roman Canon aloud, all parts sung in Gregorian, ends with Salve… truly an excellent sight of what the “reform of the reform” should be). Father, reminded us that the Kingdom of Heaven is God Himself, and we are called, as the second reading reminded us, to know God in order to participate in His glory in heaven; knowledge of God which starts here and which we should ask God to grant us -as Salomon did- by asking Him to inhabit in us, as the seed of said future glory.
I attended the bilingual Mass at our parish yesterday (I try to attend at least once a month, since it helps me practice my Spanish and it has also helped me learn bits and pieces of Latin) and the deacon preached on the parable that God is king (Reino de Dios) and that God comes first. It’s a way of thinking before taking action. The deacon also reminded the congregation that the Eucharist unites us Catholics together.
My wife and I attended Our Lady of Grace in Pasadena, a new and small Anglican Ordinariate outreach, for the first time. Father preached on understanding the Kingdom of Heaven not just as where you hopefully go after you die, but as both already with the faithful on earth, and as the eternal, physical heaven that will occur after the Final Judgment and the general Resurrection. My wife is Presbyterian and strongly considering converting, and Father, who also was once Presbyterian, offered during fellowship after to meet with us for RCIA-like discussions weekly in the coming months. A very wonderful Sunday altogether.
We have to bring forth the Kingdom on Earth and how we can do that, using examples from the parish and community.
Comments are closed.
SHOPPING ONLINE? Please, come here first!
Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.
“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
An Old Historian on WDTPRS – Spy Wednesday: The final prayers: “Father: Every Paragraph, Sentence, and Word is Majestic, Meaningful, Uplifting, Promising, Humbling, and it all provides a full measure of…”
Sportsfan on ROME 24/3– Day 7: Oooops!: “From the video it looked like Rapport smelled blood in the water but deliberately slowed down to either twist the…”
Sid Cundiff in NC on ROME 24/3– Day 7: Oooops!: ““Last night ossobuco at humble but reliably good place which hasn’t ever disappointed” Where? Name?”
grateful on ROME 24/3– Day 6: Quiet Day: “It looks like that is loaded with healthy food… hope there are no potholes in Rome.”
teomatteo on ROME 24/3– Day 7: Oooops!: ““…Full moon over Campo De’Fiori” and in a half of moon cycle it will be the New moon over Richmond,…”
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
Federated Computer… your safe and private alternative to big biz corporations that hate us while taking our money and mining our data. Have an online presence large or small? Catholic DIOCESE? Cottage industry? See what Federated has to offer. Save money and gain peace of mind.
“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com
Daily Quiz
Use FATHERZ10 at checkout for 10% off
Donate using VENMO
GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
NEW OPPORTUNITY – 10% off with code: FATHERZ10
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
651-447-6265
Books which you must have.
This REALLY helps! And it’s great coffee (and tea)
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.
“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.”
“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often 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...
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com
As for Latin…
"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.
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.
Please use my links when shopping! I depend on your help.
Our pastor preached a VERY good strong solid sermon on the evil and wrongs of artificial contraception and the positivness of Natural Family Planning. It was a sermon that needed to be heard by everybody.
Working from the parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price (the OF Gospel), our priest spoke on how neither of those people earned that wealth, just as we don’t earn our the grace God gives us, but to use it, they had to be willing to sacrifice. So it is both a free gift of God that costs us nothing, but also something that requires everything from us.
A visiting priest from Africa gave a meaty homily that I could remember after I left Mass, as is not always the case. He spoke of the parable of the treasure, asking us to decide what is the most valuable treasure in our lives, as we examine all the treasures we have. He fleshed it out beautifully, challenging us.
Our sermon was delivered by a deacon from the FSSP. I don’t remember everything he talked about as I had a three-year old to contend with, but a few things he mentioned is that to “love Christ is to love the Church, and to love the Church is to love Christ.” He also reminded us that outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation. It was a very beautiful sermon and one with a lot of excellent points.
My two year old gave the sermon this week…Chucking a tantrum in the car park. Still, it was better than any heretical sermon I’ve heard. Apparently the real sermon was on eternity and our time we have to prepare for it.
OF: To many Catholics only live on the surface. We need to dig and dive into the depths of our souls to meet the living Lord Jesus Christ. It takes courage to go beyond being Sunday Mass only.
EF: Based homily on Introit. Talked about the temple and how it was all pointing to new temple the Church. The sacrifice pointed to the new perfect sacrifice. All to worship in spirit and truth. And, how our churches must raise our minds, hearts, and souls to heaven.
My homily was on the treasure/pearl. The treasure, of course, is Christ. But we must go all in; we don’t just get handed the treasure.
I tied it in with a special event this coming Friday and Saturday, when we’ll welcome a Fatima statue with special devotions, a renewal of parish consecration to our Lady, an all night vigil before the Blessed Sacrament, all following the Traditional Latin Mass. I made the point that if the TLM is challenging, well — what did we just hear in the Gospel? I moved onto saying that Mary’s heart is the field where the treasure of Jesus’ heart is “hidden” — but not really: she offers us Jesus constantly.
Anyway, I tried to make the devotions around the statue visit appealing. Let’s see what happens.
17th Sunday Ordinary Time-
Father C decided to focus just on the parable of the pearl merchant. The merchant owned many fine jewels, but decided to sell all of them in order to get the finest pearl. Fr said the point was that our choices are often not black or white—a clear good, instead of a clear evil. Often, it is sacrificing something good, perhaps everything, so that one can have something far better.
He cited a story of a parish family he knew: the non-Catholic father was becoming irreversibly blind, and the Catholic mother was dejected over this. But the son piped up “Don’t worry, God will not take something good away without offering another good in its place.” Later that year, the father was baptized into the Catholic Faith, the pearl of great price.
Over the course of our lives, we are often –somewhat reluctantly– giving up our good things (health, family and friends, material wealth) while preparing for our meeting with Jesus Christ, the only treasure that matters.
The great price is a great sacrifice. Those on the parable gave up everything they had for the treasure. The treasure is the Church, and the Eucharist. The Lord calls us to give up many things, maybe everything. He does not promise a reward on Earth or comforts. He does not promise we will have friends or a job on this path. We may be asked to give up knowing what the future holds for us.
Those who are willing to give up everything to obtain the Eucharist Desiree I. We too must desire the Lord. Our other desires, if good, all point to the Lord. If bad, lead us away. We cannot obtain what we do not desire. It is desire that moved us to make the sacrifice.
Ours was an FSSP Mass. The priest talked about the parable of the “Unjust Steward”.
Ours was an NO Mass at the parish near our vacation place. Very good sermon based on the parable of the pearl merchant. At sermon’s end he invited a young woman to join him and say a few words. A CUA graduate, she has finished one year’s work in a school in the South Bronx, and was preparing to leave on a two-year mission to Honduras to teach, build housing, clothe, feed, etc. Quite moving, and she has given up a lot of what would be a normal life for a 25-year-old in order to find her pearl. It was a good end to a good sermon.
On a side note, it appears that the recently appointed 29-year-old pastor is slooooowly making the service less Protestant-wannabe and more actual Catholic. The five-piece jazz combo that previously gigged near the altar is gone, replaced with a pianist and seven-voice choir. No more guitarist, sax player, drummer, keyboardist, or tambourine shaker. And he chants some prayers. He mentioned (gasp!) that it’s not a requirement to dash across the aisle in crack-the-whip style holding hands while beginning the Pater Noster. Progress.
Excellent homily, as always, in our NO mass (in Latin, ad Orientem, Roman Canon aloud, all parts sung in Gregorian, ends with Salve… truly an excellent sight of what the “reform of the reform” should be). Father, reminded us that the Kingdom of Heaven is God Himself, and we are called, as the second reading reminded us, to know God in order to participate in His glory in heaven; knowledge of God which starts here and which we should ask God to grant us -as Salomon did- by asking Him to inhabit in us, as the seed of said future glory.
I attended the bilingual Mass at our parish yesterday (I try to attend at least once a month, since it helps me practice my Spanish and it has also helped me learn bits and pieces of Latin) and the deacon preached on the parable that God is king (Reino de Dios) and that God comes first. It’s a way of thinking before taking action. The deacon also reminded the congregation that the Eucharist unites us Catholics together.
My wife and I attended Our Lady of Grace in Pasadena, a new and small Anglican Ordinariate outreach, for the first time. Father preached on understanding the Kingdom of Heaven not just as where you hopefully go after you die, but as both already with the faithful on earth, and as the eternal, physical heaven that will occur after the Final Judgment and the general Resurrection. My wife is Presbyterian and strongly considering converting, and Father, who also was once Presbyterian, offered during fellowship after to meet with us for RCIA-like discussions weekly in the coming months. A very wonderful Sunday altogether.
We have to bring forth the Kingdom on Earth and how we can do that, using examples from the parish and community.