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 2nd Sunday after Easter (N.O. 3rd Sunday OF Easter)?
Tell us about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?
A taste of what I offered at 1 Peter 5 this week:
[…]
That promise of unity is no minor afterthought. The scattered sheep are in peril precisely because they are scattered. Sheep wandering alone do not remain sheep for long. They “became food for all the wild beasts” as Ezekiel put it. The same urgency lies under the Lord’s words in John 10. If the Shepherd lays down His life, the danger must be proportionate to the sacrifice. He does not die because the flock is mildly inconvenienced. He dies because the sheep are in mortal peril. That theme is sounded magnificently in the traditional Collect for this Sunday:
Deus, qui in Filii tui humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti:
fidelibus tuis perpetuam concede laetitiam;
ut, quos perpetuae mortis eripuisti casibus,
gaudiis facias perfrui sempiternis.
A literal rendering
O God, who by the abasement of Your Son raised up a fallen world,
grant to Your faithful perpetual joy,
so that those whom You snatched from the calamities of perpetual death,
You may cause to enjoy everlasting joys.
The prayer does not permit a shallow estimate of our condition. We were stranded in a fallen world. We were snatched by Christ from perpetual death. The height of the joy offered here is sharpened by the depth of the abyss from which we were delivered.
[…]
GO TO CONFESSION!
I was pleasantly surprised to hear our priest give a brief catechism on the Church’s Just War Theory using St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas as the foundation. Very refreshing and cleansing for the conscience.
Addendum: Hearing this homily of course reminded me of your post about this very topic a few days ago using Augustine’s letter to Boniface as your source. Methinks someone besides me is reading your blog, Fr Z!
It was an Exile Sunday for us (this is one of the Sundays a month our home parish is not allowed to offer the TLM out of the generosity of our bishop), so we went to an FSSP parish an hour and a half away. During his sermon, the priest started talking about an anecdote about Mother Teresa caring for the wounds of one of the Untouchables who was on death’s door . . . it wasn’t until we were back at home that the kids (who watch a lot of classic TV shows) told me they were confused – did Eliot Ness know Mother Teresa?
I was not expecting that. It got a good laugh out of me.
In our parish yesterday Father gave a good talk about how the concept of a shepherd giving his life for the sheep would have been hard for the times. Because the shepherd not being a hireling would have probably been an heir and thus more valuable then a couple of sheep lost to a wolf. Also that even a hireling is of more value ( being a person) is more valuable than a couple of sheep.
Yet another example of how Jesus went against the thoughts of the times.
Traveling in Southern Maine, we attended mass at the recently established St. Joseph’s Oratory in Portland which Bishop Ruggieri established as a home for the TLM there. I was impressed by the size of the group attending there, larger than was present when they still had the TLM at the Cathedral chapel. Fr. Kyle Doustou (whose first mass after ordination I attended at the Basilica in Lewiston ME which was a TLM) is the rector of the Oratory and celebrated the Missa Cantata. His sermon was about shepherds, how sometimes they have to lead from the front and other times push from behind. In biblical times shepherds were not highly regarded so for Jesus to identify himself as a shepherd was a shock to them. There was much more that he said but I have a memory like a sieve. I was just very impressed at how the Traditional Latin Mass has grown in this diocese, with a supportive bishop and a capable clergy. In nearby Lewiston with the retirement of the priest who previously offered the TLM, the parish priest Fr. Greenleaf took it upon himself to learn to say the TLM. Several other priests have learned the TLM and offer it as First Saturday masses and other special occasions.