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 this 6th Sunday after Pentecost? 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Novus Ordo.
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news? I know there is a lot of BAD news. How about some good news?
A taste of my thoughts from the other place: HERE
Latin eructo is “belch, vomit up”. Thank you for bearing with my burpings.
Perhaps some explanation is in order. First, in the ancient world, to belch at the table was a sign of appreciation for the food and host. Remember the scene in the movie Ben Hur (the 1959 version) when in Sheik Ilderim’s tent Judah is prompted to burp? Also, the verb eructo, -are is deeper than you might think.
We should take this “belching” as a metaphor to meditating on Scripture.
“How’s that again?”, you might be asking.
One way that we speak about meditating on Scripture is “to ruminate”. Literally, rumination is what cows do when they chew their cud. Cows and other ruminants (like giraffes) regurgitate and chew again previously swallowed food to get more nutrients out of it. Perhaps on the analogy of being able to “ruminate” about Scripture, kosher laws permit Jews to eat ruminants. Pigs are not ruminants, so they are not kosher.
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went to St. Ignatius today. the Jesuits relinquished it a couple years ago and the Community of St. John, which has its roots with St. Ignatius but not the recent SJs has it. Gospel was Mary & Martha.
Someone asked a great forester what he would do if he had only five minutes to cut down a large tree. he thought a moment and said “i’d spend the first three minutes sharpening my axe!” that’s what Mary was doing while Martha was “troubled with many things”. it’s also reminiscent of motto of the Benedictines “Ora et Labora” – pray and work. Prayer has to come first.
the schola was gracious to let me sit in. it was exhilarating to sight read the propers. was nigh unto sight reading the ordinary too as it was a setting i hadn’t encountered in years. glad to report i made only two small errors.
July 20, 2025
XVI Sunday of Ordinary Time C
Luke 10:38-42
In salvation history, something new happens every time the Lord enters a person’s home and life.
It can happen that an ordinary man or woman becomes a leader (like Moses, for example), that a barren woman becomes pregnant (like Sarah), that a dead person is resurrected (like Lazarus), that the story, in short, takes a completely different turn…
When this happens, we usually find ourselves on the brink of despair: a people long enslaved and exhausted, a barren couple without hope, enemies who humiliate and leave no escape. This happens so that it becomes clear that it is God who works salvation. And it is also clear that God intervenes gratuitously, without asking for anything in return. He chooses a people, a family, a person precisely because of their poverty, their need for salvation, because he loves them.
It is never an easy, immediate or obvious path: it usually leads through a crisis, because it is about leaving something old and opening up to something new; because it is above all about believing, as Abraham teaches us.
Today we see all this in the house of two sisters, Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42).
Jesus enters their house, because this is what the Lord does: He comes, He enters, He makes Himself a guest. He asks for nothing, unlike all the great men of the world. He comes out of friendship. He not only asks for nothing, but when He comes, He gives something that only He can offer, His Word, Himself.
And so it is that Mary welcomes Him in this way, by welcoming the Lord and letting Him give His Word.
Mary welcomes Him by listening to Him, because there is no other way to welcome the Lord (“She had a sister named Mary, who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak – Lk 10:39).
Martha, on the other hand, wears herself in doing something to welcome and to be welcomed (“Martha, burdened with much serving” – Lk 10:40). She does something that no one has asked her to do and for which there is no urgency. When the Lord enters a person’s life, the order of priorities changes, and the first thing everyone needs is to know Him and meet Him, everything else comes after that.
If, on the other hand, we put other things first and justify ourselves on the grounds that they are necessary, then only evil results. The evangelist Luke lists some of them.
The first is that Martha is “burdened” (Lk 10:40), i.e. involved in something else. It is not Martha who decides what to do, but the things that need to be done decide for her. And this is exactly the opposite of the verb used for Mary, who instead “chooses” (“Mary has chosen the better part” – Lk 10:42), that is, she is free to remain in what she thinks is good.
The second point is loneliness: Martha complains about being left alone, and she feels that no one, not even the Lord, really cares about her (“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?” – Luke 10:40). If you lose the essentials, you lose communion; the other person, even if it is your own brother, is perceived as an enemy who is taking something away from you.
Mary, on the other hand, takes nothing away from Martha, because the Word of the Lord is an inexhaustible source that is sufficient for all.
Finally, Martha takes the Master’s place: not only does she not listen, but she tells him what to say, how to speak: “Tell her to help me” (Luke 10:40).
Martha, on the other hand, although confused, has the courage to turn to the Lord and ask him for help. Her greatness lay in addressing this question directly to Jesus. This is a first step to being healed so that our relationships can be evangelized.
Every fraternal bond that exists between brothers, between clans, between ethnic groups, between peoples and between nations must be evangelized, otherwise it lives only from fear of the other. To evangelize a bond means to bring it back to its essence, to what Mary chose for herself.
Mary simply chose to believe, just like Abraham in the first reading. To believe that when God enters a home, i.e. a person’s life, he brings new life, a new perspective.
The life that God gives is enough for all and cannot be taken away (“Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her” – Lk 10:42).
So the Lord does not replace Martha in resolving the family conflict, but shows her a way in which every conflict and every failure can find peace, and life can unfold. A path on which he is reborn.
It is not about dividing up the tasks to be done equally, but about choosing what is essential, listening to his word and marveling together when the Lord comes in his own house to give one a fulfilled life.
+ Pierbattista
For the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, a sermon about anger. Anger by itself is not a sin, in fact to not be angry about some things could be a sin. Of course there are many situations where anger is a sin.
How we deal with anger may be a factor of our temperament. If we are of a choleric temperament we might “fly off the handle” when things don’t go our way. A more melancholic person might not express their anger but bottle it up and stew on it. For Sanguine persons it is often a flash in the pan that doesn’t last. For phlegmatic persons, they may not get angry at all even when they should.
There are several ways we can deal with anger. Mortification is one. Another is recourse through the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus said “I am meek and humble of heart”. Meekness is the opposite reaction to anger, and humility counteracts our pride and ego which often leads us to anger.
16th Sunday OT NO
Father talked about hospitality as a work of mercy, and how hospitality can bring the blessings of God (linking the hospitality of Abraham and Martha through the passage in Hebrews), and how in that way God can speak to us through those to whom we offer hospitality. In that sense, the Lord is the first we should be hospitable towards, and the best form of that hospitality is listening to Him like Mary; father went on to specify and explain the greater intensity and depth the notion of listening has in the Bible and how it goes beyond hearing into a transformation of one’s heart and life.
(This made me think whether the care of all things related to the altar, the cleanness and beauty of the sanctuary, linens and vessels could be explained cathechetically as the hospitality due to the Lord who comes to “plant his tent” in our midst. We wouldn’t give a guest a cup of inferior material, or dirty o ragged napkins, or the ugliest chair to sit in).
Father talked about hospitality not being just housing or receiving at home, but treating everyone with courtesy and amability in our interactions independently of how much we might like or dislike the person or how they treat us in turn, helping whenever we can in situations of need. He also said we can think of hospitality between generations as well, and how (besides euthanasia and abortion being murder) the neglect of the elderly, voluntary childlessness and unnecessarily delaying having children are the opposite of such hospitality, and in that sense could be understood as part of the actions contemplated in the judgement of the nations of Matthew 25 (I was a stranger and you welcomed/didn’t welcome me).