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 in the Vetus Ordo (19th Ordinary Sunday in the Novus Ordo)?
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. I wrote about the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost but related it to the great feasts nearby.
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There is encouragement for the sinner who looks back on wasted years. Saul became Paul. The persecutor became an instrument by which Christ’s name reached the nations. “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor 15:10). While life remains, grace can open what has been closed and make former failures material for humility, vigilance, gratitude, and apostolic zeal. Paul remembers that he persecuted the Church. Memories can be purified. Our memory can focus and drive labor. “Abundantius illis omnibus laboravi … I labored more abundantly than all of them.” Under grace, the past becomes fuel for fidelity rather than paralysis.
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I used thought from theologians Josiah Royce, James Luther Adams and Thandeka and Rebecca Parker to talk about how people become effective churches, and analogized those to how individuals become persuasively holy. Perhaps a sermon in a Catholic Church but it would probably take a different route.
(England) At the diocesan TLM it was a pastoral letter from the bishop encouraging everyone to petition our MP against the second edition of the second reading of the “assisted dying” legislation on the cards for September. In no uncertain terms, the bishop said “you can’t be for this legislation and call yourself Catholic”. Catholics are called to protect life at the most vunerable times – at the beginning and the end.
Today, Father shared wisdom of St Thomas of Villanova :
“Nothing so deaf as the sinner.”
Of all of creation, only man is capable of sin.
St Ambrose:
In the creation account, only man is not declared good.
St Thomas Aquinas: 4 Reasons why God made man capable of sin.
1.For his own benefit
2. To recognize goodness
3. Manifest Devine Justice
4. Manifest His Mercy
See, hear and speak the Goodness of God
Our sermon was about St. John Vianney, the only canonized saint who was just a parish priest. He had many weaknesses including illness that plagued him throughout his life, but his weakness made him dependent on God.