Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 5th after Pentecost (NO: 14th Ordinary) 2020

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard at the Mass for your Sunday, either live or on the internet?

Let us know what it was.

Also, are you churches opening up?  What was attendance like?

For my part…

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13 Comments

  1. HvonBlumenthal says:

    SSPX Mass. Attendees had to notify in advance how many were coming. Families were separated by alternate pews. This reduced the capacity of the chapel by half, so many families were told to stay away. Total attendance 30 down from normal 60-80.

    We celebrated St Peter and St Paul
    Good point: St Stephen prayed for his persecutors at his martyrdom. As St Paul was one of those persecutors, we can be confident that his conversion was due to this prayer being found acceptable.

  2. Lurker 59 says:

    Moderate sized diocesan parish regulated by the diocese to be no more than 25% of fire code capacity. It is required that you sign up for a ticket/”permission slip” on the web giving name, address, phone number, email address, for all members of the party in attendance. You must show the ticket at the door. Attendance down from the 25% capacity by 26-39%, depending on the Mass.

  3. einkleinerknabe says:

    8 AM mass at the only church in a small town (a large, older church). Plenty of space, probably 80-100 present in a church that holds 600.
    In his homily, the priest paraphrased Benjamin Franklin’s comments on the dangers of sacrificing freedom for safety.

  4. Pariah says:

    The virtue of purity and the threefold necessity for a selfless heart, for obedience and for devotion to achieve that virtue. This in honor of tomorrow’s feast of Saint Maria Goretti.

  5. Yorkmum says:

    First public Sunday Mass at our church since 3rd Sunday of Lent.
    2m separation of households adhered to. Mask wearing optional (most didn’t).
    About 50 at TLM, 5th after Pentecost. Good turnout with room for just a few more…

    Before Mass a reminder that Holy Communion would not be distributed and a request made that we pray fervently that a way be found to distribute HC both safely and reverently.

    In the homily; anger itself is not a sin….however anger can lead us to sin in several ways including too much anger and not enough anger….there is plenty to be angry about at the moment – explicit mention made of amendments to domestic abuse bill which seek to legalise abortion and are up for a vote in parliament today with an exhortation for us to act. The importance of the virtue of prudence in guiding us to act in the best way when righteously angry. It was an excellent homily!

  6. Robin says:

    Diocesan TLM, 4th Sunday in the church after 3 weeks of parking lot masses. Limits on numbers but church seemed comfortably full, with casual/minimal social distancing and mask wearing. No signup or reservation system. It also seems like a lot of new people, specifically young families, in the last few weeks.
    Father (visiting from another parish in the diocese where he is parochial vicar) talked about, and read in its entirety, Quo Primum, in honor of its upcoming 450th anniversary.

  7. Passepied says:

    Masses have been open for a while and we were informed that the Archbishop is now graciously permitting us to receive the Eucharist on the tongue again. I am grateful considering that C19 hospitalizations have jumped here and it would be easiest just to panic and shut down instead. Attendance was still very light yesterday, but the age distribution is good and Father has doubled the number of weekend Masses to allow more distancing. Although the county is requiring the wearing of masks now, I didn’t see any. I suspect we’re all just burned out.

    Father preached on the four biblical signs of the impending Parousia, to address some parishioners’ concerns based on the craziness going on around us. I learned some things, e.g. St. Paul mentions that Israel will be converted at the end. He also spoke about trusting in God and preparing ourselves for death, rather than being panicked by modern end-times prophecies.

  8. JohnMa says:

    Only TLM offered by a Diocesan priest in the State. Every other pew closed and masks mandatory. Attendance was about normal though. Priest compared the Precious Blood of Jesus with the blood shed by those who signed the Declaration of Independence.

  9. I went to the 8 a.m. Novus Ordo Mass in my Dominican parish in DC. We have been able to have Mass in the Archdiocese of Washington since June 14 (Corpus Christi for us). I have been regularly attending various Sunday Masses there, but until this Sunday attendance was extremely sparse. This Sunday, however, attendance looked pretty good, with many of the “regulars” for the 8 a.m. Mass, whom I hadn’t seen since early Lent, back in place. Early Sunday Mass in our parish has never drawn many attendees in the first place, so the sparse crowd wasn’t a surprise. The pews where we’re not supposed to sit are roped off (three roped pews for every open one), but our parish church is so large that this didn’t mean turning anyone away.

    We in the congregation are required by archdiocesan rules to wear masks at all times during the Mass except Communion and for lectors, reading–including singing, which is, in my private opinion, insane (I just skipped the “four hymns” because you can’t project your voice easily behind a mask). We are, however, allowed to have Communion on the tongue as long as the tongue people go at the end of the line so the priest can use hand sanitizer between each distribution of Communion. This creates a certain awkwardness, since our parishioners are used to walking up the aisle in pew order, and since the vast majority of them are hand people, they halt politely when they see someone who looks ready to go to Communion but isn’t moving. Since I am a tongue person, I plan next Sunday to sit way in the back of the church if that is feasible (I am a lector from time to time, so it may not be). Other than that, it was nice that the Coronavirus rules here have done away with the “handshake of peace,” the lay Eucharistic ministers, the Offertory lay walk up the aisle with the bread and wine, and the entrance procession (instead, the priest emerges from the sacristy, just like in the days of the old Latin low Mass). Not singing the “four hymns” enables me to concentrate better on what is actually happening in the sanctuary.

    The priest gave a dynamite sermon. He talked about all the hardships of the months of coronavirus lockdown: the people out of work, the suicides, the drug dependency, the broken marriages, the disruptions from the riots–and then pointed out that throughout all of this, the “president” has been the only public figure to mention God. It was a clear reference to Trump’s July 3 speech at Mt. Rushmore–and it was true. Since Washington, DC, is 92 percent Democratic in party affiliation, I expected some in the congregation to walk out. But they didn’t.

  10. iamlucky13 says:

    Some unusual planning due to my wife going to a limited attendance Mass in person while I took care of the kids led to me watching an Ordinary Form streamed Mass from a parish I would not otherwise have.

    The (transitional) deacon’s homily turned out to be providentially topical to some of my current struggles – he talked about God giving us rest when we seek to rest in Him, in particular by making time to be able to pray without worrying about other things we feel like we should be doing with our time.

    Humility is an important virtue in support of this restfulness. We should be willing to accept our limitations with regards to worldly concerns in order to more easily set them aside to give God the time he deserves.

    Jesus had begun this Gospel passage thanking God for those “little ones” who accepted His message. This is an interesting contrast because immediately before this, He had criticized the many towns where people had seen His works, but refused to believe. But instead of being despondent about those who ignored Him, He praised God for the few who repented. Despite being God, He had the humility to be happy with what by human wisdom we would view as very meager success.

  11. Patrick71 says:

    What a surprise to learn that the 11 am mass in the parking lot tent in 90 degree heat was a solemn first mass for a new priest ordained three weeks ago. Five priests, half a dozen altar servers and a schola. I managed a seat near the portable a/c. The young priest’s homily was about the evils of communism and the false earthly paradise it preaches. I was blessed!

  12. JOYfulmom says:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lipTVlV2HIg

    A must listen (start at 3min 20 seconds…)-a priest with conviction and love of God and country!! You won’t be disappointed. We Christian/Catholics must rise and take over our nation once again! +JMJ+

  13. exNOAAman says:

    Joyfulmom… I watched it
    Everyone else… it’s worth the 20 minutes. Take a look.

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