Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard during your Mass to fulfill your Sunday Obligation?

Let us know.

Today, I was struck by the collect and I put aside what I had prepared, for the most part.

Here is the audio.   I left the re-reading of the Scripture pericopes in English and the Prayer for Vocations, and I cut the announcements.

One wag, after Mass, said that the sermon was good, but that it was “objective ineffective”, because it was more than 8 minutes long.  Apparently Francis said that homilies longer than 8 minutes are not effective.  Indeed.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in ¡Hagan lío!. Bookmark the permalink.

21 Comments

  1. benedetta says:

    Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross in the Byzantine Rite. On Mark 8:34-9:1, when the Lord says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” All of the apostles depicted on the iconostasis accepted the invitation to follow, and in doing so they became lovers of mankind.

  2. TheBackPew says:

    Excellent sermon. Our pastor has preached in a similar way pointing out that these reparations by the innocent, bring greater merit than reparations by the guilty a la Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

  3. Shonkin says:

    Our sermon was given by our deacon, who is generally a good homilist. This week’s sermon went into the readings from the Letter of St. James and the Gospel. The points: Faith without works is empty, and the thoughts of men are not those of God (as Jesus told Peter).
    Our parish also has a saint of the week who is written up in our bulletin and also is generally mentioned in the sermon. This week’s saint was St. Januarius, a martyr.
    On his feast (September 19), a relic of St. Januarius — two vials of his blood — is exhibited for veneration by the Archbishop of Naples. Most years the dried blood visibly liquefies during the procession, and the laity are vastly relieved. However, in some years it does not. Most of those years, something really bad has been known to happen, such as a plague, a war, religious persecution, etc. Our deacon remarked that it would be interesting to see how next Wednesday turns out.

  4. CaliCatholicGuy says:

    24th Sunday in Ordinary time – we were at my son’s Catholic school mass for teachers and catechists. Father spoke on the second reading – Saint James teaching us that faith without works is dead. He drew a parallel with the school teachers puttimg their faith in practice even though they are paid much less than the public school counterparts, and that we all should be open to living our vocation in the church and world – showing by our works our faith in Christ Jesus.

    Father then reminded us to read the bulletin where he had an article about the proper reception of Holy Communion.

  5. Kathleen10 says:

    Apparently the pope took 17 minutes to say homilies should not be longer than 8 minutes.

    Why not 7? 9? Why 8? I wonder what the studies say about this. Are we really so dim-witted we can’t listen for longer than 8 minutes?

  6. majuscule says:

    At our Ordinary Form Mass, Father began by speaking about “quick fixes”. For example, how TV commercials advertise quick fixes for a problem you might be having, like “Drink our product and you will lose weight fast!” (He gave other examples but I have forgotten…). But there is really no easy way. Sometimes things are hard. These quick fixes don’t really fix anything. Sometimes we must suffer.

    Just doing good works but being a not-so-good person is not enough. What if you have a beautifully kept house and a landscaped yard but when you enter inside the house it’s like a homeless encampment?

    He noted that the crisis in the church today is partly because people have chosen the easy way, not the hard way. The superficial way. I was so happy that he brought up the crisis that I didn’t take note of exactly what he was saying…but it was good. .

    He is from another country. I told him after Mass that I am so glad he is our priest. (He also used EP III!)

  7. Adelle Cecilia says:

    [No. I don’t like just links. No.]

  8. RKR says:

    Our homily was on the theme of charity (drawing from both the epistle and the Gospel), the virtue we should desire most of all. The celebrant was a young visiting priest from a nearby parish which does not offer the Latin Mass currently but he clearly loves to celebrate it (and has done so frequently here) and does a great job. He also spoke about Ember Days and urged us to observe them, which for me was a great encouragement.

  9. Kevin Fogarty says:

    One of the good points I heard was that if we could see the effects of our sins played out in the long term, even our venial sins, we would understand how much they are an affront to the all-good God.

  10. un-ionized says:

    Kathleen10, because 8 is the number of perfection? That’s why baptismal fonts have 8 sides. Just kidding, sorta. If a homily is good I want it longer, not shorter.

  11. Adelle Cecilia says:

    A piece of the homily that I posted the Facebook link to (above):

    “The turmoil we are seeing in the Church now is a direct result of those who ruptured this continuity. It was sprung from disobedience. We see this in the dissent from authentic church teaching, especially in matters of who the human being is and therefore the nature of sex and sexuality. There was dissent on the matter of artificial contraception, which, by the way, continues to this day to be proclaimed as intrinsically evil. There was dissent on the matter of divorce and remarriage, which should have been settled by simply appeal to the very words of Jesus Christ in the Gospel. Now, there is dissent on the matter of the intrinsically disordered nature of same-sex sexual activity. This dissent happened among the laity for sure, but more scandalously it happened among the priests and bishops of the Church! There are so many who are acting like Peter in today’s gospel, thinking as human beings do and not as God; who are trying to accommodate the sinner rather than accompany him to the truth. How many bishops and priests have made excuses for the flesh to the faithful because first they had made excuses for the flesh for themselves. There is no wonder then that we are seeing its ramifications in the latest scandal the Church is facing.

    If all I do as a priest is accommodate broken humanity, I offer nothing of substance to the world. My role is not to accommodate the sin but rather to present the gospel to the sinner so that he can be set free. My job is not to make people feel good about themselves, rather it is to help them to actually be good!”

  12. Patrick L. says:

    The Pharisee poses a question to Jesus, trying to entrap him: what is the greatest commandment? Jesus answers, and then poses his own question, although not to entrap: whose son is Christ? David? Then how does David in the psalm call Him Lord?

    To many, at first glance, the two questions might seem unrelated, but they aren’t. Jesus answers the Pharisee’s question, showing both that he knows the Law and has no intention of contradicting it. Then, by asking His own question, He shows that He knows the meaning of the Scriptures to a greater extent than even His interlocutor. David could call his descendant Lord because his descendant is at once both a man and God. And He Himself is that person.

    His adversaries then took refuge in silence, much like some in the Church today.

  13. zag4christ says:

    I have to be honest. At today’s 11:00 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes, I did not hear the homily. We are in the process of restoring the Cathedral from its post Vatican II revamp and actually making it into a Catholic Cathedral. The temporary sound system is such that I must be in a specific spot in order to hear the priest. I went to a different spot today, and I was unable to hear Fr. Kyle Ratuiste most of the time. The Mass began with all of us directing our attention to the rear of the church. A beautiful young family had their new son, Levi James, and their other 4 children, were presenting Levi James for his Baptism. Fr. Kyle invited all of us to welcome a new member of the Church. As a aside, I went to Confession yesterday. I am finding that once a week is best for me. Normally there is a long line at both confessionals, but on the Feast of our Lady of Sorrows there was no one in line. As usual, I was burdened by my favorite sins. I went into the confessional and their was Fr. Kyle, in the Person of Christ. I confessed my sins as per Fr. Z’s recommendation: the sins, the number, and nothing else. I thank God for priests who obviously love the Lord. I thank God for the most Holy Roman Catholic Church. I thank God for my Irish Catholic grandmother who by the Grace of God planted the seed of faith in my mother.

    Back to the Mass of today. Following the readings, Fr. Kyle asked the family and the God parents to approach the baptismal fount. He also asked all of the children who wanted to witness the baptism to come forth. I was amazed to see many young children sprint to the fount. All during the Mass, and the baptism, my eyes continued to drift to the tabernacle. Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, have mercy on me, the sinner.
    Fr. Kyle made mention of the indelible mark we receive at baptism. I think of that often, for myself and for all my family members who are baptized and have left the faith. It was a wonder-filled Mass, like all Masses.

    Peace and God bless

  14. Gregg the Obscure says:

    a truly outstanding homily this week! Father related the story of St. Catherine of Siena who, though she had no worldly standing and no place of honor in the Church, took it upon herself to remind the pope himself of his duties of which he had been grossly negligent. So we too should do in these dark days. St. Catherine first made sure her own house was in order through penance and prayer, as should we. Having done so we should address ourselves to today’s negligent and incompetent bishops (and copy the papal nuncio). He then mentioned several suggested practices for growing in sanctity to make this task fruitful.

    I didn’t get to speak with him after Mass as there was a goodly amount of food to stow away in the pantry for the St. Vincent de Paul. I did drop him an email thanking him.

  15. defenderofTruth says:

    “Live the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…”

    Father said that if we, upon reflection, have a hard time giving something up besides God, we’re doing it wrong. That is what “all your heart, soul, and mind” means.

  16. Nan says:

    Sunday after Exaltation of the Cross in the Byzantine Church. Father’s homily was about Blessed Karl of Austria, the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, from whence our families immigrated, who gave up an empire for God.

  17. Nan says:

    Sunday after Exaltation of the Cross in the Byzantine Church. Father’s homily was about Blessed Karl of Austria, the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, from whence our families immigrated, who gave up an empire for God.

  18. Ellen says:

    Our pastor has been on vacation for a couple of weeks. Our assistant preached a wonderful sermon about the abuse scandal when Father was gone, and when he came back Sunday, Father doubled down. He particularly stressed “Lord to who shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” He also mentioned off hand that in a few cases the stoles of the abusing bishops would become nooses around their neck. It was hard hitting and quite bracing. I felt like applauding.

  19. ajf1984 says:

    24th Sun O.T. for our Novus Ordo Mass at the Basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady, Help of Christians at Holy Hill: one of our holy Friars preached on the importance of getting who Jesus truly is correct–mistaken Christology leads to errors in just about every other aspect of the faith. Particularly interesting was a story Father told of his time in seminary, when one of his learnéd Fr.-Dr. Professors told the class that Jesus was a human person, rather than a Divine person with both human and divine natures. The learnéd Fr.-Dr. was not overly thrilled with being publicly corrected by a shoe-less Carmelite!

  20. mo7 says:

    Our priest preached ably on the readings from the OF, speaking of the value of suffering, at the EF. Hey It’s all good.

  21. Pingback: One Mad Mom spanks James Martin, LGBTSJ | Fr. Z's BlogFr. Z's Blog

Comments are closed.