Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Septuagesima Sunday (NO – 4th Ordinary) 2021

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 your churches opening up? What was attendance like?

For my part…

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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

  1. Paul says:

    Bless you Father and your sermon was great. Watched via web.
    I am having foot surgery this week and I know all will be good for me after seeing you do Mass.
    God Bless and always watch over you.
    You made my week.

  2. Fyrdman says:

    Notwithstanding a one month period early on, the parishes of our Diocese have been open to limited attendance. It has truly been a blessing.

  3. Joy1985 says:

    Very good homily about the liberalism in the world and in the Church today, things our current President is supporting and choosing even as a professed Catholic and that we can NOT go down that path. As Catholics we MUST stay true to the Faith and not let the craziness and sickness of our world and it’s leaders sway us from the Teachings of the Church and the TRUTH. God’s laws are what we need to be following not the changing whims of this world.

  4. samwise says:

    Sermon on the blessing of celibacy vs temptation for worldliness. Reminded me of Dietrich Boenhoeffer admitting to Joseph Mueller in CHURCH OF SPIES that he admired priests whom the Gestapo could not blackmail by threatening nuclear family

  5. Gregg the Obscure says:

    was at OF today. attendance seemed to be right about at the city-allowed 89 in attendance.

    kindly old priest had the homily. best points: the demon asked the Lord if He was there to destroy them. well yes, He was, but not in the way understood by the world. indeed it appears that the demons have more influence than ever given the prevalence of abortion (!) – human life has never been held in lower regard by society. but the Lord’s victory is of a different sort, becoming visible only gradually in the souls of each of His followers.

    bonus: yesterday when i arrived for confession at the Cathedral, it was evident that a wedding ceremony had just ended. that’s not uncommon for Saturday afternoon confessions. when i entered the church proper they were finishing up the photos. also not uncommon. the pleasant surprise was that it had obviously been an EF wedding. of course i prayed for the happy couple.

  6. Ame E. says:

    Well point 1 was basically how Pre-Lent (Septuagesima) is preparation for Lent just like Lent is preparation for Easter.
    Point 2 was that all had to work in the vineyard in order to get paid.
    Point 3 was the reflection on Many are called but few are chosen, and Father thought about this in terms of vocation to the priesthood.

  7. Gab says:

    Fr Z thank you for your homily. Your analogy to Heaven was insightful and very powerful. God bless you and I keep praying for you.

  8. Padre Pio Devotee says:

    Beautiful Homily Father. Thank you so much! You’re in my prayers.

  9. ex seaxe says:

    We are just emerging from a 25 day ‘circuit break’, ends in an hour. Stay at home except for exercise and essential shopping, no collective worship (but churches open). In our situation, an island imposing quarantine on all arrivals, this seems to work.
    My impression over the previous six months of freedom from restriction (and from virus) was weekday masses slightly up, and Sundays slightly down. (OF, sober, careful, reverent clergy)

  10. Iacobus Mil says:

    Monsignor spent the bulk of his homily explaining the Gospel of Mark. He pointed out that even though it’s the shortest, Mark tends to describe the incidents he includes in greater detail than the other Evangelists. Mark uses the word “Gospel” (Evangelion, Good News) in his first sentence, and develops the theme of Good News throughout. It was good to hear the most overlooked Gospel given some attention.
    A side note: the response for the psalm in the OF today was “If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart”, which is used in the Invitatory for Lent. Even the OF has Pre-Lent, even if it’s not as explicit as it is in the TLM..

  11. Kathleen10 says:

    How many wonderful sermons have your people heard from that pulpit. What a tremendous blessing to them. Thank you for the timely introduction to the “gesimas”, which I am going to try not to waste this year, and be that person (again) scrambling to think of what to do for Lent.
    Fr. Z., you love God so much. Imagine how much God loves you.

  12. pannw says:

    My OF parish priest preached about the devil being real. C. S. Lewis wrote of two wrong ways to think about the devil; think about and fear him too much, or never think about him at all as if he doesn’t exist. The devil is real and we need to be wary of him, but he too is a mere creature. He does not have unlimited power. We have to open ourselves to him. Father used the analogy of a dog chained in a yard. If you stay away from the yard, the dog can’t harm you, but if you go in, either voluntarily or carelessly, the dog can get hold of you and mess you up, even to death. We open ourselves to danger by messing with things like the occult: ouiji boards, fortune tellers, tarot, etc. or even very dark movies or music or nonChristian religious practices like yoga or Buddhist meditation. With it, one tries to empty themselves and the evil can fill the void, but in Christian prayer and meditation we try to be filled with the knowledge of God and the Holy Spirit. We must be on our guard and praying often, the Holy Rosary, prayer to St Michael, wearing the scapular are all good practices to help us, but we should not attribute too much power to the devil. Jesus is so much more powerful. Our Lord cast out the demon by His own authority and not by invoking any other power. He gives that authority to The Church and certain priests are still authorized by the bishop to be exorcists and even nonCatholics will contact a priest when demonic activity is suspected.

    He referenced Fr. Amorth and the power of a good Confession as a form of exorcism.

    Father also talked about the Messianic secret, where Jesus told the demon to be quiet, as He also told His disciples and the healed man not to tell of His miracles and power. Why would He not want all to know He was the Messiah right away? It’s a mystery but most likely because people expected Him to be a different sort of Savior, as the Zealots hoped for a mighty military leader who would free them and destroy their earthly enemies, but His mission was spiritual and the enemy He was concerned with was the devil, sin and death. And He won. By His death and Resurrection. Deo gratias.

    I love my priest.

    We have been at half capacity for months now, with every other pew roped off. I was at the noon Mass which is always more sparsely attended but I’d say most open pews were occupied. We still have communion on the tongue at the altar rail too. Did I say I love my priest?

    Also when we arrived, there was a special Mass ending. It was offered for a nice sized group of young adults (college and high school looked like) who had held a 48 hour retreat or something for Life, rather than going to DC for the March for life this year. I’d say the church was close to half filled, or more than a quarter since the spacing restrictions. A beautiful site in any case. God bless them.

  13. hwriggles4 says:

    Novus Ordo Mass Sunday afternoon. The Gospel highlighted authority, and the priest began his homily with why many of us are hesitant to trust authority today. The priest mentioned social media, news reporting, so called experts and scandals as issues pertaining to why many of us have become skeptics. What we need to do is to look to God as the authority and ask, “what would God do?” “How would God judge?”

    This reminded me of a saying in the early 21st century, “What would Jesus do?” This priest is fairly young (early thirties) and my opinion was he hit the nail on the head when it came to discussing social media influences and the different opinions that come from news media today.

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