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“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
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YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
VForr on Fr Longenecker: “Be Subversive — Get Married!” and Fr Z rants a little.Please in your charity pray for those of us who want to be married, but are having difficulty finding a...
Catholic Tech Geek on ASK FATHER: Hosts and wine for when we have to shelter an underground priest – UPDATEI've also heard that any wine that is considered (or certified?) kosher (for jews) is in good standing for use...
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf on Daily Rome Shot 61Roman dating conventions... interesting question! I've noted that in modern history there were more uses of the C and fewer...
WVC on Fr Longenecker: “Be Subversive — Get Married!” and Fr Z rants a little.@Padre Pio Devotee - more like trying to reinvent the wheel in the shape of a square.
Unwilling on Pecknold on Biden on AugustineThe H[istorian] tells us how Biden intentionally wounded himself and his [offices] in order to demand from the A[merican] people...
beelady on ASK FATHER: Hosts and wine for when we have to shelter an underground priest – UPDATEGreat idea! Count me in on a Mass wine from raisins project!
Padre Pio Devotee on Fr Longenecker: “Be Subversive — Get Married!” and Fr Z rants a little.Sometimes I wonder if the “New Evangelization” is just like trying to reinvent the wheel.
Gab on Daily Rome Shot 61@ThePapalCount, please, do keep adding your commentaries. I look forward to them very much. Thank you.
Charivari Rob on Daily Rome Shot 61Father, was there a particular transition in Roman dating conventions, or is it two conventions in use at the same...
Suburbanbanshee on Pecknold on Biden on AugustineBtw, if you really want something long, Audible has Aquinas' Summa Theologica, read by Martyn Swain, so far in three...
mo7 on Fr Longenecker: “Be Subversive — Get Married!” and Fr Z rants a little.When will they figure out that the answer to the culture of death is for Catholics to lead by example...
Suburbanbanshee on Pecknold on Biden on AugustineThe City of God is a really challenging, sad, happy, educational, dark, light, and fun book. It's more like a...
Suburbanbanshee on If you don’t know your catechism… don’t know your Homer… your Dante… well….I've mentioned it before, but there's a really good lecture series available by Fr. Gregory I. Carlson (under the name...
teachermom24 on Daily Rome Shot 60Thank you so much ThePapalCount for these photo explanations. You should make a book of all this. As it is,...
Semper Gumby on “Here is a link to a Newsreel from 1949 that seems as if it is from another planet.”Another indicator 1949 was long ago, the 1930s not so much. The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a...
Semper Gumby on “Here is a link to a Newsreel from 1949 that seems as if it is from another planet.”WVC: Here is another example of Weigel's double standard, from Jan. 18: "...the January 6 attack on the United States...
VForr on If you don’t know your catechism… don’t know your Homer… your Dante… well….I have that same brown covered Catechism pictured in Seng's article. I bought it for 25 cents at a book...
Semper Gumby on “Here is a link to a Newsreel from 1949 that seems as if it is from another planet.”More "reality and commonsense" by Stella Morabito, written shortly before the Installation of the Biden-Harris regime. "Ignoring And Ridiculing [And...
millennialmom on Fr Longenecker: “Be Subversive — Get Married!” and Fr Z rants a little.This post couldn’t be more spot on. I grew up with the Novus Ordo but I don’t want my kids,...
ThePapalCount on Daily Rome Shot 61One of Rome's ancient bridges crossing the Tiber. This bridge was opened for use just a few years before Columbus...
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- Daily Rome Shot 61
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- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 3rd Sunday after Epiphany (NO – 3rd Ordinary) 2021
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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.Yes, Fr. Z is taking ads…
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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.