It’s the 1st Sunday of Advent. A new liturgical year begins.
Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Sunday Mass of obligation?
Share the good stuff. Quite a few people are forced to sit through really bad preaching. Even though you can usually find – if you are willing to try – at least one good point in a really bad sermon, that can be a trial. So… SHARE THE GOOD STUFF which you were fortunate enough to receive!
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news? We really need good news.
I have some thoughts about the Sunday Epistle reading posted at One Peter Five.
Early on living in Rome I learned always to close doors so they latched and to block or latch windows, often the tall, vertical kind that meet in the middle. Why? Because when the wind is blowing, by opening a door in one area, the air flow changes, and – BAM! – a door or window slams elsewhere, sometimes very hard indeed. You learn to take proper steps so that you aren’t shocked out of your socks. In any event, this common experience of life in Italy led to a proverb which I’ll get to later for dramatic effect.
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The Collect of the Day for Advent 1 in the Ordinariate says it all:
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Our Advent 1 homily was about preparing ourselves for Christ’s coming by depending our relationship with him through a stronger prayer life.
I also wanted to mention the mass we attended last week when we were visiting family in Rhode Island. We attended a Saturday vigil for the solemnity of Christ the King at a church which offers the NO mass ad orientem with Latin propers and communion kneeling at an altar rail. I hesitate to identify this church lest the Vatican finds out about it and shuts it down. It is amazing how much of a difference this makes to the reverence of the mass.
I forgot to mention the same church offers an early Sunday morning TLM plus a daily TLM.
Our assigned transitional deacon sang the Gospel (N.O.) and preached. His main point was how Advent allows us to reflect on three comings of Christ: in history, in mystery, and in majesty; i.e., his first coming, his perpetual coming in the Eucharist, and his eventual return.
An aside: he mentioned how he was talking to some kids of the parish at an earlier Mass and asked if they were planning to go sledding later in the day (there was a snowfall here in eastern WI overnight); they advised him they got up early and went before the 9:00 Mass. Good thing, as there was a bit of rain and the snow was melting by mid-afternoon.