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 this 11th Sunday after Pentecost, or the 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time?
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?
A couple thoughts about the sign of the cross: HERE A taste…
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This powerful encounter in the Gospel, with the opening of man’s ears and loosing of his tongue, offers us an opportunity to reflect on our own use of our ears and tongue. Even nature suggests that we should perhaps talk less and listen more. As the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (+ 135 AD) quipped, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”.
Nice solid homily on the Real Presence.
the rector was in top form today.
He opened by reciting the “Hail Holy Queen: up to the word “tears”. He gave several examples of how the image of the valley of tears might apply in the lives of those present: family strife, loneliness, health problems, financial stress, and many more. But the valley of tears isn’t our home, it’s the place we are journeying through.
Quick summaries of famous journeys – the Iliad(!), LoTR (highlighting the lembas bread), and the Exodus (highlighting the manna ofc).
Nothing but the Eucharist can sustain us on our journey through the valley of tears. But with the Eucharist, we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death fearing no evil.
An exhortation to commit passages of Scripture to memory.
The Real Presence reaffirmed with the statement “a single consecrated host is of greater value than the rest of the universe combined, including you and me”. A reminder of the gravity of desecration of the Eucharist is that it cannot be absolved by anyone other than the pope himself.
Abp. Aquila instructed the priests of the archdiocese to include mention of two recent events in this Sunday’s homilies. The first was the sordid spectacle in Paris. The second was much closer to home. A new Ignatian religious community located about a mile from the site of the big WYD Mass back in 1993 has a chapel with a tabernacle. When the fellows were offsite at an event, someone broke in. Nothing was disturbed but for the contents of the tabernacle, which were gone. Abp. has instructed each priest of the AoD to offer three Masses of reparation for this horrific act and has asked the faithful to make acts of reparation too.
Like everybody in the NO sequence, we are 2 weeks into the Bread of Life Discourse with the sermons connected the same way the gospel readings are linked. The pastor tied Moses and the manna story to the gospel and talked a bit about American Catholics, belief in the Real Presence, and the vagaries of polling questions. Something I had never heard of before is that the Greek of the gospel is more varied than what we read in English. Throughout the discourse Jesus returns to the directive to eat His body, but eat is not the verb used every time in the Greek. What we read as “eat” is actually “eat,” bite,” then “chew” His body. That is a rather more graphic rendering and very directly conveys the idea of the Eucharist as actually Jesus body and blood. It also tends to explain why everybody left. I might well have left too if He were conjuring images of His leg being roasted on a spit.
I am looking forward to seeing what I might learn about the mysterious Melchizedek as we proceed.
The deacon who preached had some bold words about Jesus and the necessity of him in our lives and us acting that out. It was very solid.
We have a susan from the parish council at our church. This person is always on her cell phone. Acts as if she has no fear of the Lord. Our priest, glorious fellow who I have prayed for for many years, never a bad homily from this guy, he found a way inside his homily to tactfully mention that you should not be on your cell phone at mass while dressing the rest of us down about how serious we are as Catholics. Do we really believe in the real presence? On fire he was. Susan may have been on her cell phone since I don’t know but I have not seen it. and boy did people wake up a bit after that homily. People at a standard Australian mass genuflecting before they receive. More people receiving in the proper manner. It was a homily not to be missed. Very powerful.