Your Octave of Christmas 2020 Sermon Notes

12 Comments

1. ex seaxe says:

   1 January 2020 at 3:16 PM

   In England the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God is, alas, no longer of obligation. We had over twice as many in the congregation as a normal week day. We were given an exposition of the title Theotokos, and our attention was drawn to John Rylands Papyrus 470, the oldest known copy of a prayer to our Blessed Lady, known in Latin as Sub tuum praesidium …, kept barely 100 miles from here.
   We fly to Thy protection,
   O Holy Mother of God;
   Do not despise our petitions
   in our necessities,
   but deliver us always
   from all dangers,
   O Glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.
2. Filiolus says:

   1 January 2020 at 7:09 PM

   We heard a sermon on spiritual “New Years Resolutions” with very practical advice on how to overcome whatever vices we may have. One example our vicar gave was that to overcome the temptation to hit the snooze button in the morning (instead of promptly rising and using the extra time for meditation), we should place a crucifix next to the alarm clock. Every time we hit snooze, we should pick up the crucifix, kiss Our Lord’s feet, and tell Him, “I really wanted to pray today, but I wanted an extra 30 minutes of sleep instead of spending time with you.” Apparently we won’t hit the snooze button very often if we do institute this practice. :)
3. John Pomeroy says:

   1 January 2020 at 8:36 PM

   Homily on the various Councils of the 300s and 400s and how Mary being Mother of God was first reflecting on her Son and she was being “honored” only because of who He is. (Yes, Father explained it better.)

   We had perhaps 90% of a Sunday attendance. For some reason, we have more people show up on a Day of Obligation now that it is announced and we are reminded both during the previous Sunday’s Mass and also in the bulletin.
4. iPadre says:

   2 January 2020 at 4:42 AM

   In the OF, I gave an explanation of Mediatrix and Co-redeemer. All baptized are co-redeemers “making up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” And mediators. “Pray that my sacrifice and yours.” Many examples: priests are mediators in offering the sacrament, we are all mediators in praying for others. St. Pio displays it well in bearing the wounds of Christ for 50 years. And of Cours, our Lady, Immaculate Conception, is the more perfect Mediatrix and Co-redeemer.
5. iPadre says:

   2 January 2020 at 4:44 AM

   Above was EF. In the OF, I talked about the Hypostatic Union that becomes clear through our Lady’s title “Mother of God.”
6. JonPatrick says:

   2 January 2020 at 6:08 AM

   We have a tendency to want to make God conform to ourselves rather than making ourselves conform to God. In the early Church there were those that doubted the title of Mary as the Mother of God as they said God is infinite, how can a mortal person be his mother? Eventually this was worked out with the understanding that the Second Person of the Trinity was both infinite God as well as Man who was born of Mary.
7. UncleBlobb says:

   2 January 2020 at 8:42 AM

   Thank you for your sermon, Father Z. I’ll be working on installing the “opposite habit” for good. I found that to be a very valuable point.
8. Charivari Rob says:

   2 January 2020 at 9:14 AM

   Rang-in (well, “quietly murmured-in”) the New Year with midnight Mass for the Solemnity.
   Father spoke about the Council of Ephesus and understanding the identity of Mary & the nature(s) of Christ.
   He then touched on New Year’s resolutions – challenging talk of exercise and diets, etc… with a few questions, saying –
   IF we call ourselves disciples, if we call ourselves “friends of” Jesus –
   – When will we pray this year?
   – When will we go to Confession?
   – When will we help the poor?
   – …I’m blanking on his 4th point
   …and if we do those things, when are we going to go out and evangelize?
9. Fr Martin Fox says:

   2 January 2020 at 10:39 AM

   I talked mainly about the importance of names, and encouraged parents to pick saints’ names (including Biblical names) for children, and to tell their children about the patron saint they pick for them.
10. Anita Moore, O.P.(lay) says:

    2 January 2020 at 11:40 AM

    I just want to comment my appreciation of the custom of doffing the biretta at the holy names of Jesus and Mary. Yet another reason to make sure every priest has a biretta!
11. KateD says:

    2 January 2020 at 8:16 PM

    Shepherds were kind of on the outskirts society, (because of the time demands and location of their profession) they didn’t participate in the Sabath or the sacrifices at the Temple. They were the original deplorables. And yet time and again, God chooses shepherds. First with choosing the offering of Abel, then the covenant with Abraham, Joseph, David and now the Shepherds of the field
    were the given the honor of being first to see the Christ Child….I drifted off mentally here, thinking of t-shirts and coffee mugs with “Original Deplorable”, “O.D.”? No….

    Anyway there was more, much more. It was a rich and well woven homily, as always.
12. Imrahil says:

    4 January 2020 at 4:38 AM

    Our EF community had no Evening Mass; I guess, for the reason that we might just possibly attend the NO solemn Mass in the evening at the parish. I did want to attend a Circumscision Mass, though, so I went to the SSPX where the sermon was on the life of Matt Talbot. The stated intention was that in New Year resolutions, we should have a shining example of virtue and see that so shining virtue is still possible after having fallen prey to very deep-rooted vice.
    (One nice touch was that the celebrant and preacher did not fall into the too easy moralizing of “before conversion everything bad”: He explicitly stated that Matt Talbot, when a full-fledged alcoholic, basically still was a decent boy who brought no shame on his mother except, well, for his being a full-fledged alcoholic. He committed one major theft which lay heavily on his conscience even at the time, but was not a full-fledged criminal; and so forth.)

    Afterwards I attended an even later NO Mass, because I also wanted to attend a Mass for the Solemnity of the Mother of God and also because of my habit not to fulfill Sunday duties with SSPX Masses alone (though rationally I know that since the Year of Mercy at the least, there cannot possibly be a moral problem with that any-more). The sermon was, however, not on the Solemnity of the Mother of God, but on the First Reading, which was, apparently, the blessings from the Book of Numeri (I had arrived later) in connection with New Year. The sermon was nice and well-flowing (as it were); it was mostly in the style of “what a great thing it is, what a blessig it is, if the name of God is laid on God’s people”. Thus it has been easily forgotten (or almost), which I do not mean as criticism (these sermons do have their place); but I think I do remember as a good point that the preacher mentioned the Circumscision.

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