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, or the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time?
Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.
Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?
A couple thoughts about the sign of the cross: HERE A taste…
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Christ takes the man aside in relative privacy, away from the crowd. He touches his deaf ears. He moistens the impeded tongue with the touch of His own saliva. He looks to heaven, and “sighed” (Greek stenazo, a deep groan). No word of prayer is recorded, only this sigh of compassion, a rush of ruach, Spirit-breath, that spoke volumes of divine pity communicating more than any syllables could. Then the command: Ephphatha … Dianoíxtheti, Greek aorist passive imperative, second person singular – “let you be opened.” And so “his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.”
Not simply the ears, not only the tongue, but the whole man was commanded into openness. The great commentator Cornelius a Lapide wrote that
when Christ opened the ears and unloosed the tongue of the body, He opened also the ears and tongue of the soul, that they might listen to His inspiration, and believe that He was the Messiah, and that they might ask and obtain of Him pardon of their sins. (The Great Commentary, vol. 3).
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