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 traditional 3rd Sunday of Advent?
Tell us about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?
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When the Lord returns, He is going to come by the straight way, whether you have helped to straighten it or not. Right now, that straightening can be gentle and merciful, even if there are repentant tears and the burdens of repairing wrongs and doing penance. However, when the Lord returns as Just Judge, King of Fearful Majesty, it will not be with gentle mercy. This week’s Gospel and next week’s from Luke 3 coordinate in Isaiah 40 about the ultimate Advent.
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Last Sunday, I attended the TLM in Tokyo at the old cathedral of St. Joseph. This Gaudete Sunday I attended the TLM in Singapore at St. Joseph’s Church, built in 1912 in the Portuguese Neo Gothic Style and renovated recently. It was the church for the Portuguese mission in Singapore.
The TLM was well attended and indeed, I noticed more people this year than last year (I visit Singapore every year in December). There are many young families and men in their 20s and early 30s. The choir is even better this year. Some changes: the priest does not read the epistle and gospel in English anymore after chanting it in Latin. The only English one hears is in the sermon.
The sermon: Father emphasized the importance of rejoicing in the face of life’s difficulties. He instructed us to meditate on Heaven because no matter how terrible things are in this realm, they are temporary and heaven is more glorious and eternal. He told us to think of St Paul’s words “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him.”
At my local NO parish I heard a confusing point. The deacon told us “someday we will be free of hate, poverty, and war.” Is this so? In our lifetimes, or in the human experience generally? Somehow I had visions of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ pamphlets, and people in a perfect future picking fruit.
We attended a Simbang Gabi Mass this evening (Sunday) in Northern Virginia. Lovely, just lovely. Standing room only, too. The choir sang in Tagalog and did a great job. The homily was about hope (as in, faith, hope, and charity) and included mention of St. Thomas Aquinas’ writings about hope, as well as several reminders that we can never be perfectly happy here on Earth because we were created to be happy with God in Heaven. Father encouraged us to deepen our relationships with God and with family and friends as important steps toward helping each other toward Heaven.
It’s always a blessing to learn how our fellow Catholics celebrate the important feasts of our Church calendar, and I feel privileged to have been at this Mass tonight.
Father spoke of the recent feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe commemorating an event that resulted in the conversion of many followers of the Aztec religion. Flowers were an important symbol to the Aztecs and symbolized truth, so that when Our Lady made flowers bloom out of season on barren ground this was a sign for them. The roses on the altar remind us of those flowers, also being cut flowers they will die, so they remind us of sacrifice. There was much more to his explanation of the Aztecs and their reaction to the apparition, I am somewhat simplifying it.
This was at our high mass at our FSSP parish, church was packed. At the end of this mass which is usually around 12 noon we sing the Angelus in Latin. My wife was very moved by this and now prays the Angelus every morning as part of her morning prayer. She has also asked we do our daily rosary in Latin also. The TLM truly transforms people.
Dear NancyWmichael,
someday we will indeed be free of hate, poverty and war: after death, and after the final judgment.
(But what about the damned? Well, “we” means the Church, and they will not then be part of the “we” even if they should do so now; may God prevent the fall of Church members. – An outgoing soccer captain might well say “next year we will hopefully win the Champions League” even if he himself personally will have retired by then. So it’s still correct what the deacon said. – And besides, even the damned do not, I guess, have poverty and war in the literal sense of the term; but of course they hate.)