It’s Sunday and in the Vetus Ordo the Feast of the Holy Family. In the Novus it’s – in most placed – transferred Epiphany. Tomorrow is the last day of the Novus Ordo Christmas cycle, Baptism of the Lord. In the Vetus the cycle continues through Epiphany tide and to Candlemas.
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.
I just read that the Archbp. of Perth crush out a thriving TLM community in his pastoral beneficence.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news? We really need good news.
I have some thoughts posted at One Peter Five. A taste…
In a sense, clinging to injuries, wallowing in past sins is a form of vanity because it is all about “me.” It shoves Christ to the side when He must be at the center of those memories. Harboring the wrongs, rubbing one’s face with the mire of sins that you have sincerely confessed and been absolved for is a kind of denial of Christ’s power to forgive. To use another image, it is like constantly picking at a wound so that it doesn’t heal and then taking a perverse joy in being hurt no matter how much the Physician of our souls extends Himself to heal us. There is a sort of person, perhaps you’ve met one, who is only happy when he is unhappy. On the contrary, the default setting for a Christian ought to be joy. Even when we are struggling, tried and suffering, knowing who we are and what Christ obtained for us should bring us peace.
Our flaws and wounds are not a problem for God insofar as He loves us. We are loved by God with all our faults and wounds and pasts. While we can reject Him, we have no power over His Love. We cannot make God love us more. We cannot make God love us less.
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It was actually Epiphany at our NO parish (since it fell on the 7th or 8th, and the Baptism of the Lord is transferred to tomorrow. Homily was on moderation and a little history on abstinence and fasting.
The priest at our FSSP parish remarked on Our Lord’s actions in the Temple- He sat, He listened, and He asked. Father asked us to reflect on who we sit with and listen to, and what questions we ask and how those things bring us closer or further from our salvation.
Our FSSP priest started by describing the Santa Muerte idol worship that started in Mexico and has taken hold in the Hispanic criminal community, because “she” will “hear your prayers and help you” no matter what kind of dirty business you’re involved in, unlike God. When I was sitting there thinking, “Where is this going?” then he said, “Those criminals are Catholics (bad Catholics, but Catholics). They know God will not bless sin. They know more than some cardinals in the Vatican these days.”
During the homily, which I could not hear, I reflected on the gospel passage (N.O., so Matthew’s passage on the Magi), I considered the typical modern reader, for whom it seems to be an almost automatic response, a reflex, to imagine the star that the Magi saw as being an ordinary astronomical object, either a comet or asteroid or some nova that lit up the sky, and then they go looking around for known comets etc that could have been “the star”. The “miracle”, then, (in this light) is that God so pre-arranged the universe so that there would be the necessary star / comet to lead the Magi at the right time to the right location.
Aside from the ill-mannered reflex of seeking some natural-istic event that could have been “the cause” of what the Magi saw (a reflex built mostly of doubt that God could do more than 1 isolated miracle at a time, and a preference for believing no miracle took place), I asked myself a question: if one were to assume that Matthew was describing in a totally literal way what happened without any embellishments, is it even possible that a natural event could have accounted for it. And I think the answer is: no.
The key is in knowing how star-watchers observe, and how they credit “movement” of a star (typically, not an actual star like our sun, but an astronomical object, including planets and comets). First, they “saw his star at it’s rising”, this must have meant it’s first appearance, i.e. one night there is no star at a particular location in the sky, the next night there is one. Second, the star “preceded them” to Bethlehem, which means it was moving. But “moving” for a star means that it changes where it is in the sky in relation to the other objects in the sky, typically over a period of several nights, not usually in the same night: generally the motion is SLOW – you can’t see it moving. But over time they can establish a direction.
As far as I can make out what Matthew is describing, the star moves in such a way that the Magi follow it to Jerusalem, where (seemingly) the star may have stopped moving for a time. This gave the Magi time to ask Herod about the new born king, and Herod’s consulting the scribes probably took a few days (or more). THEN, after the Magi got their answer, the star continued moving, leading them to Bethlehem, and stopping there.
Celestial objects don’t behave this way by nature. First, you can’t discern a direction between Jerusalem and Bethlehem by their motions: the two towns are only 6 miles apart. The motions of the stars aren’t that fine-tuned. More importantly, if the Magi were approaching Judea from the East (or Southeast) the star was leading them west or northwest. Then it led them south to Bethlehem. Stars don’t change directions like that.
Then the star stopped again. And again, stars don’t behave that way.
It seems to me that the attempt to identify the star of Bethlehem with some natural object is hopelessly implausible. It is far more believable that it was a flat-out miracle from beginning to end.
Many thanks for the link to your comments on One Peter Five! Your words on the happy repurposing of our sins in future spiritual growth called to mind the use of animal waste as fertilizer for cultivation of crops.
Fr. Z, I My wife and I attended a new place for the TLM and the priest was a great delight. He went through some of history of dates around the birth of Christ. Mixed in this was a short note about gold and money during the time of Jesus, and that all coins were not really differentiated by metal and that although there are references to Judas’s 30 pieces of silver, they were gold.
I agree your article was inspirational brilliance.
…” The Risen Lord is, in His glorified humanity, still suffering our hurts with us. He bears our burdens. When you weep, He weeps with you. Everything about us is important to Him. It would be selfish, in a sense, not to hand them to Him completely.”…
I submit the reading of your article was the grace of going to confession.
In addition from: https://luisapiccarreta.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/December-Calendar-Web-Security-2.pdf
…”This is why I want your thinking to be occupied by
nothing other than Loving Me and Living in My Will. My Love will burn all your
miseries and all your evils, and My Divine Volition will become your Life,”…
Holy Family. The visiting FSSP deacon (newly ordained) inundated us with good points. He also chanted the Gospel very well. I’m confident the FSSP is about to gain another good priest.