Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.
Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Mass of obligation for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost (21th Ordinary in the Novus)?
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?
A few thoughts of my own, HERE.
This Sunday’s Gospel Has a Word that “Sums up the Whole Message and the Whole Work of Christ.”
In medias res…
[…]
Then Jesus looked up to Heaven and “sighed” and said “Ephphatha.” He didn’t talk to the Father or pray with words. He “sighed a deep sigh,” stenazo, “to groan,” which suggests the deep compassion with which the Eternal Word held the man who, all his life, had been cut off without words from his fellow men. That Christ was especially moved by this man’s plight is suggested in their going apart and the speechless sigh, which “said it all” a quiet uttering of the ruach, the Spirit.
I mentioned Greek, but we are perhaps distracted by that flashy “Ephphatha.” In Greek, Mark uses the verb dianoigo, “be opened,” dianoíxtheti in the aorist passive imperative form… 2nd person singular: “let you be opened.” Jesus didn’t command the ears and mouth to be opened, He commanded the man to be opened. As a result, “his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly” (v. 35).
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Heavy attendance at the 7:00 AM Mass at my FSSP parish this morning. The Mass schedule has been changed to accommodate better the now five Sunday Masses. We recently welcomed a third priest.
I’m told by my betters that love of the TLM is nothing but nostalgia on the part of dusties and crumblies that will vanish when they die off. But looking at those in attendance and especially coming out to see the long line waiting to go in for the 8:15 Mass, few can possibly have any living memory of the TLM prior to the introduction of the Novus Ordo. Something else must be drawing them in ever increasing numbers.
NO Mass today with a visiting Franciscan priest as celebrant. I was surprised that he spent a fair bit of time reminding us, pretty forcefully, that Hell definitely exists (although, Father said, we don’t like to think or talk about that!) and that we must take action to avoid spending eternity there. This action includes working every day to deepen our relationship with God (prayer, attendance at Mass, living our lives according to the teachings of Christ, avoiding sin, and so on) and that eternal life with God is more than worth the effort and difficulty of passing through the narrow gate. Father also reminded us that we will, in all likelihood, see our deceased loved ones if we get to Heaven, and we should take comfort in that thought.
This homily was even more interesting to me because on my way to Mass I listened, by chance, to an interview with Neil Gaiman that focused on how Hell is constructed in The Sandman. Gaiman, an atheist, stated that Dante’s Inferno was the main inspiration for his own version of Hell in The Sandman…so I was already thinking about Hell when Mass began.
Anyway, it was refreshing to encounter a priest who isn’t afraid to tell us hard truths…Hell exists, and it takes work to get to Heaven.
I attended a local parish Chapel, which is one of the few locations that the Bishop of Arlington, Virginia is permitting the TLM to continue without change of venue. Father emphasized in his homily the significance of the manner in which Christ cured the deaf mute. He noted that, as God, He could have done it in any number of ways, e.g., by just willing it, without any sensory input. But he didn’t, he took the man aside, put His finger in the man’s ear and, spitting, His finger on his tongue. In so doing, the man understood from his functioning sensory capabilities (sight and feel) that Jesus’s actions had caused his cure.
Out of town NO Mass this weekend.
A Deacon preached on entering the narrow gate. His take was the narrow gate could be a side gate, which is naturally narrower than the front main gate.
Dicop – Your “betters” have it backwards. The 1960s hippies are dying off and it is becoming obvious that their plan for a “new springtime” in the Church is a dismal failure. Youth are drawn to Tradition. Despite all the efforts of the people at the top. the Tridentine mass will survive and thrive. Thanks be to God.
Attendance at our local TLM is increasing every week, bit by bit. As for the “biological solution”, our TLM is heavily attended by young families. We have 4 altar boys under the age of 10. The N.O. has for months been advertising in the weekly bulletin for “servers”. No takers. The Saturday vigil Mass had no server. Which Mass seems more vibrant?
Our priest started his sermon with (as HFL stated) the manner of the cure, then went on to discuss the difference between sacraments and sacramentals. He stressed that sacramentals can prove powerful only with faith. (That brown scapular has no effect on the wearer if he does not truly believe in it.)
The priest at the SSPX chapel in Dublin focussed in his homily on how our Lord cured a deaf and dumb man in a very elaborate way, which like for the Centurion’s servant he could have done with a word, and so the Swiss priest related it to how in liturgy there are certain complex rites ordained even if it might seem unnecessary complex. An example was how baptism could be pour water over the forehead and an invocation of the Trinity, yet normally an elaborate rite is employed.