Your Sunday Sermon Notes

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

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15 Comments

  1. Greg Hlatky says:

    Father cited the story of Judith, who fasted and prayed for the deliverance of the Israelites, then went in her finest clothes to the camp of the enemy and slew Holofernes.

    He touched as well on the man expelled from the wedding feast for not wearing wedding clothes and exhorted us to bring our best to church. All to the good: Mass is a serious matter, to be taken seriously. Would you go to a job interview wearing sweats?

  2. Philomena Mary says:

    I’m travelling throughout the USA (from Australia!) on my honeymoon. I was at Fr Heilman’s 7:30am EF Mass at St Mary’s Pine Bluff this morning and he gave a glorious sermon on spiritual warfare, the strength of belief in Our Lord (and how belief can make all things possible), and how this is an antidote to the threats posed by the Devil, modernism and the radical secular left.

  3. CaliCatholicGuy says:

    26th Sunday in Ordinary time – Father preached whoever is not against us is for us – do for instance if another Christian or even a non Christian is preaching or living a portion of our faith that is in agreement then we should not grumble that they believe differently when our principles agree.

    In regards to the gospel “if your eye causes you to sin pluck it out…” Father said we need to be mindful when we are stumbling blocks for other people and at the end our our lives we will be accountable for what we’ve done not only to ourselves but others – for instance “I’m too tired to go to mass” – but if we have children who cannot get to mass on our own then we’ve doubled up our sin not allowing them to get to mass as well.

  4. Simon_GNR says:

    It’s a long time since I heard this in a sermon, but today the supply priest standing in for our parish priest included the following comment:

    “Hell is real, and some people go there.”

    I was pleased to hear that from the pulpit and a little surprised to hear it from that particular priest, an old man who is very much a child of Vatican II and not in any sense a traditionalist. Still, one cannot ignore the plain words of scripture.

  5. JesusFreak84 says:

    The Canon who preached today is from outside the Archdiocese, so he could mention the current crisis without fear of reprisal for “going down a Cupich-hole,” and mention it he did. He started by talking how the guy without the wedding garment in the Gospel probably figured he’d “get around to it,” getting right with God towards the end of his life, etc. It really resonated with me because of how a former coworker’s mother died of a brain aneurism, passed out in her home while on the phone with him, and she died without regaining consciousness, so she couldn’t make her Confession. (This was ~3 years ago, but the lesson will never be lost on me.)

    Canon alternated between that thread and addressing the current crisis, decrying how many in the Church and the world refuse to admit when the Emperor has no clothes, etc. He even specifically alluded to how the Bishops had conveniently exempted themselves from the Dallas Charter.

  6. Luminis says:

    Archbishop Charles Chaput said our Mass as it is the 225th Anniversary of our Parish of St. Agnes.
    Archbishop Chaput is a gift and blessing to our flock here in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
    He preached on not being narrow in our dealings with Protestants and that there are some really good Protestant hymns and he pointed how much they know and love the Holy Bible. He said to try and recognize the good works of all people , even people with no faith.
    His Excellency also spoke about invoking The Holy Name of Jesus in our lives to conquer evil and if we feel fearful or anxious. He also stressed the importance to not use he name of Jesus unworthily or in any context other than in worship or prayer. His sister did this often and her 3 year old grandson repeated it one day and she realized her poor example.
    Parents must understand how their actions affect their children and he talked about how sad to see kids come to prep once a week and the parents dont even bring them to Mass ever!!! He mentioned scandal and how our bad actions that cause others to sin will be judged harshly.
    “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great milestone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” Overall a solid homily.
    His Excellency also announced that here in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia we are to recite “The St Michael the Archangel Prayer” at the end of every Mass!! Did I mention how much I love our Archbishop Charles Chaput!! May Our Lord watch over him.

  7. Luminis says:

    His Excellency also preached on hating sin, loving good, and becoming saints.

  8. oldCatholigirl says:

    Our pastor was out of town at his mother’s hospital bedside, so one of his friends, a young priest from another parish, kindly celebrated our High TLM. Fr. Jose preached on the reality of hell, the necessity of keeping our wedding garments clean, and what a very good idea it is to make a daily examination of conscience–not necessarily at bedtime, but when one has time to make a good job of it. To be fair, our pastor doesn’t let us forget about these things, either.

  9. Rob83 says:

    Also had a visiting canon from out of town. He chose to work in St. Francis de Sales’s morning exercise about properly ordering the day with regard to putting on the new man and keeping the wedding garment unsullied.

    It was also mentioned that the above saint considering complaining about the ills or wrongs in one’s life to usually be a kind of sin, since ultimately a complaint about our personal situation is a complaint against God.

  10. Prayerful says:

    A good point made by the pp was each of us have a guardian angel, each of our enemies too, which should temper attitudes of hatred or contempt for another. Also said the St Michael and ‘Angel Guardian prayer’ to underline his point.

  11. Imrahil says:

    19th Sunday p. P.: Last week we had heard about grace (I see now btw. why he did not mention sin so much then), this week we hear about those who refuse it. Our priest noted first the (I think) little-known fact that the Parable begins with the words “a king”; it is not just any wedding, not even just any magnificent wedding, that the people in the parable are invited too. It is the wedding of the crown-prince of a monarchy; those who are invited but don’t go there don’t just deprive themselves of a good party and the inviter perhaps also a bit of their company: they are guilty of lèse-majesté.

    These now fall into three categories: the indifferent (who just go their way); the stubborn refusers (who, in the parable, murder the messengers); and the irreverent. Our priest noted that the These latter are represented in the parable by the man who is offered (emphasis our priest’s) a wedding garment but refuses it. It was the usual practice – which is, our priest said, necessary to understand this parable – that poor etc. people who could not afford wedding garments were offered one for borrowing in the antehall; he must have refused it, on the sentiment “he may get me as I am, or not at all”. Our priest then focused on these persons a bit, how they may even have the outward appearance of practicing Catholicism, and what we, who do aim to keep our state of grace, can learn from them not to be.

    Children’s Mass for the external celebration of St. Michael Archangel Patron of the Church: See the different images of St. Michael we have here: On the altar, he has a cross-stick in his hands and brushes evil aside: you can see the Devil there, his hand already deforming to claws (he’s greedy!), ram horns are growing out of his head (he’s stubborn!), his hair is already changing to snakes (he’s sly and a liar!). But St. Michael with the power of the cross brushes him aside and good triumphs over evil. – On the entrance of the Church, St. Michael does not have a cross-stick in his hands. He has a lance in his hands. This is because evil must be fought; because one must not shy away from the confrontation with it and meet it in combat. – On the pulpit, St. Michael has a sword and a pair of balances. The sword means, here, not combat (after all, that’s what the lance in his other images is for), but this: A sword is sharp and separates one thing from another. St. Michael makes a precise distinction between good and evil. Also, the pair of balances: that’s an old image for the fact that our heart will be weighed, after death, whether it was good. “So, after all there’s much to learn from our Church patron.”

    (I don’t usually go for Children’s masses, but this was a decent one.)

  12. JonPatrick says:

    Byzantine Divine Liturgy, 19th Sunday after Pentecost and 2nd Sunday after Holy Cross. “Even sinners love those that love them”. True love (Agape in Greek) loves without expecting anything back. This is the love that God has for us. Love is shown in how we treat others especially those in our families.

  13. iPadre says:

    I talked about the holy Angels in both OF and EF. Their importance in our spiritual lives, the Sacred Liturgy, esp. the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Like us, they were created to “know, love, and serve the Lord.” We need to grow in Communion with them, and become attentive to their voices so they may help in our journey to holiness and our God given mission.

  14. Danteewoo says:

    The sermon I heard last Sunday was in Ukrainian, so I understood almost nothing, but the sung Mass was certainly beautiful. I read from a prayer book and said the rosary during the sermon. Never a questionable sermon at my church!

  15. Nan says:

    Byzantine Divine Liturgy, center of the controversy. Father said he’d written to the Bishop of Presov, whose predecessor had sent our first priest, Father Toth, Orthodox Saint Alexis of Wilkes-Barre, thanks to Archbishop Ireland, and asked him to send another priest, in the form of relics.

    Our church has never had relics before and we received relics of two bishops last week, Bishop Basil Hopko, who died in 1947, poisoned by the Russians and Bishop Pavel Gojdic, tortured for preferring to remain Byzantine, died in 1960.

    We’ll learn more about them in the coming weeks.

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