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 3rd Sunday after Easter (N.O. 4th 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:
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The Epistle from 1 Peter deepens the same mystery from another angle. Christians are addressed as “pároikoi kaì parepídemoi, advenae et peregrini …strangers and pilgrims,” “aliens and exiles.” You know the book, perhaps, by Michael O’Brien, in the Children of the Last Days series, Strangers and Sojourners. The phrase tells us where we stand in history and how we must live while we stand there. We belong here and we do not. We have work to do here, given by God Himself. Yet our final belonging is elsewhere, or rather above, in that patria where Christ has gone before us. This earthly life is charged with purpose precisely because it is provisional. The unfinished quality of our present existence, the sense that things remain unrealized, even the ache of incompletion, all of that belongs to Christian consciousness. We know there will be a recapitulation of all things in Christ, their submission to the Father, “that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). For that reason our time here is real and urgent, yet not terminal.
[…]
Father warned the graduating seniors that following Jesus faithfully, and speaking the truth, would often mean that they would get nasty responses from other people, and even accusations of the truthful person being dishonest.
Father made a really roaring and passionate homily about vocations to the priesthood, about parents encouraging them like any noble job. However his accent is so heavy that many people just tune him out in exhaustion. Plus he was surrounded of course by altar girls, and the usual dozen or so women serving as lectors and singers (walking grandly around and bowing) and ministers of Communion. So I couldn’t help but feel snappish privately.
Father spoke on the gospel (3rd Sunday after Easter) on the subject of suffering. Essentially, because of Original Sin, all would suffer in this life; for those that followed Christ, their suffering would indeed end, and they would have joy thereafter. For those that did not follow Him, their suffering would not have an end. My takeaway was that, although one’s life might be hard or difficult, it does not mean you have lost God’s favor or love. You should trust in Jesus’ promise and remain faithful.
“the sheep know My voice”. Fr. explained that often flocks would be mixed for safekeeping at night or during storms and that when it was time to move on, each shepherd had a distinctive call that his sheep – and only his sheep – would follow.
He mentioned a recent magazine article where a woman going through some sort of crisis programmed an AI chatbot to tell her the things she thought would help her.
He read a few excerpts from Pascendi Dominici Gregis of St. Pius X.
It’s too easy to be like that woman in the article. Our culture is suffused in modernism and even in a Catholic church one runs across what is best described as moral therapeutic Deism.
Christ is the gate for the sheep. He shows this through the cross. only by taking up the cross do we follow Him.
Before Mass he coached the men of the schola in chant and falsobourdon. So incredibly blessed to have him.
Long-timers at the parish must be in shock. only two years ago the parish was still in the custody of Jesuits and would have been a home for moral therapeutic Deism and there surely would be no chant!