Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 2nd Sunday of Advent – 2020

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at the Mass for your Sunday (obligation or none), either live or on the internet? Let us know what it was. Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.

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

For my part,…

I explained Christ’s response to John the Baptist’s question, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  People assume that John wanted to know if Christ was the Messiah or not.

It is more complicated than that.   Are you “he who is to come” refers more to Almighty God than to the Messiah.

Christ tells John’s disciples to return and tell John what they have seen and heard, all of which things prophesied by Old Testament prophets not about the Messiah, except for one of them, but rather about the LORD, that is, God.  Isaiah says that when God comes, the blind will see and the lame will walk and the deaf will hear and the dead shall be raised.  By saying that lepers are healed he references what Elisha said in 2 Kings to Naaman the Leper who asked for healing: “Am I God?”  If lepers are being healed, then the one healing is God.  That “the good news preached to the poor” is, in fact, reference to the Messiah.  So Christ answered John indirectly by reminding him of Scripture about the coming of God while He also acknowledges that He is the Messiah.

That also explains two other things in the passage, one, and enigmatic part of Christ’s answer and, also, what Christ says about John.

After Christ gives the list of what is going on, he added: “And blessed is he who takes no offense at me.”   Hence, Christ is underscoring that He was talking about Himself as DIVINE, not just as the Messianic Davidic King.   People later would in fact take offense at Christ’s divine claims and He would be put to death.

Moreover, Christ says that John is MORE than a prophet and then He quotes the prophet Malachi, who said that there would be a forerunner, a “messenger” to prepare the way of God’s – not the Messiah’s – coming.  That makes John greater than all the other prophets and, in fact, the greatest man ever born of woman.  It also points to Christ as more than just the Messiah.

This was for a sung Mass at the parish at University of Wisconsin at Platteville, for the pastor who was struck by the Wuhan Devil.  I filled in.

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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4 Comments

  1. Padre Pio Devotee says:

    Fr. Z, today was our parish pastor’s 1st Latin Mass ever! The parish is located here in the islands of Hawaii. And he did an excellent, excellent job. He studied and trained for 5 months with the assistance of our TLM community.
    He gave an excellent homily that like John the Baptist, we must not waver in our beliefs for Christ and his church. We must be strong reeds NOT “shaken in the wind”. And that sometimes this commitment requires taking off soft clothes and putting on rougher clothes on penance and good works.
    So thankful to have a regular TLM back here in this particular island.

  2. Rob83 says:

    Not posting so much about the Sunday but instead the Rorate Mass held recently. It was quite something with all the candles and chanting. It did also answer the rather important question of what happens to a candle that has burned down to the base of its holder.

    All things considered, the situation here is quite a blessing considering what I know is going on elsewhere locally. Christmas is probably going to make a lot of people unhappy as I don’t expect there will be enough Masses to accommodate everyone with capacity restrictions. Some prayers for the parish secretaries who will shortly be dealing with lots of irate people over ticket policies for those Masses are in order.

  3. Ms. M-S says:

    Having recalled the Lord’s questions to the crowd about just why they’d gone into the desert to see John, Father asked us just why we come to Mass, offering some less than praiseworthy motivations, such as simply falling in line with the family or escaping the boredom of home. Evaluating one’s own possibly trivial motives in relation to those of that crowd is a valuable exercise. This kind of teaching is well worth the hundred miles drive to the nearest TLM.

  4. Gregg the Obscure says:

    a very pointed call to repentance with admonition to, as i have seen here from time to time, GO TO CONFESSION! also exhortation to draw near to the Blessed Mother, particularly this week with the observances of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

    the city continues to maintain the limit of 50 (capacity is 800) for in-person attendance with assigned seating. all Sunday Masses were fully booked. people who can’t attend in person but who view livestream of Mass are welcome to come to receive the Eucharist for about a quarter of an hour after the conclusion of Mass.

    there was a letter from the Archbishop about a recently released supplemental report on priests reported to have committed sexual abuse. the rector offered some observations of his own as well. several of the priests in the report were men he and his family knew, though he did not know of the allegations against them until they were published. three of these men (all now deceased) were significant influences on him, including one of his predecessors as rector of the Cathedral.

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