Was there a good point you heard during your Sunday Mass sermon? Let us know!
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Reflection on divorce and the evils it has brought to our society. God’s Law was established for our own good, and since it is for our own good then evil and curses can only follow from our abandonment of it. Divorce causes pain and breakdown in individuals, families, and society. Why do we so badly seem to want this pain?
As posted in the Vespers entry: A pitch for the archdiocese’s annual fundraiser constituted the entire sermon at the NO Vigil Mass I attended Saturday afternoon. The TLM I attended Sunday morning featured an actual homily, in which Father discussed the legend of Hippomenes and Atalanta (oh, dem golden apples!) as a parallel to the Epistle.
I started with the mysteries of curling as a lead into the the mysterious hidden wisdom of God, and I concluded that we should go beyond the mere ‘requirements’ of the Faith to be counterculture in our modern culture of death. (Though I hope I said it in a way that might be heard by those who reflexively close their ears at the mere mention of abortion.)
Attended a Sat. eve OF Mass while spending the long weekend away from our usual parish. Homily got off to a good start talking about how our righteousness had to exceed that of the scribes and pharisees, in other words rather than just observing the letter of the law, we had to observe the spirit, that the law had to be in our hearts. If we insult someone that is akin to killing his or her spirit which is just as bad as a physical killing. Then the homily got off the rails when talking about divorce, Father’s natural “progressive” tendencies got the better of him and he began talking about how the church needed to have “compassion” for divorced and remarried Catholics. Since we are only supposed to talk about good points of the sermon I guess I’d better stop here.
I remember that the gospel was about “the law” and that our new bishop was both a canon and civil lawyer. While the deacon continued with the rest of the homily, I was stuck on that one thought.
Fr. told us in so many words that if we had someone to ‘mend a fence’ with that we should do that before we came before the altar. He then told us that marriage is not a contract, but rather a covenant. He said, in so many words, that a contract has articles of agreement, while a covenant of marriage is with someone.
I thought Fr. did an awesome job of differentiating contract and covenant…and in placing marriage as a covenant between 2 people.
How do we surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees?
http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2014/02/surpassing-righteousness.html
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
The gospel was the story of the vineyard owner and his workers, some of whom worked all day and some only worked an hour, but all of whom were paid. Father started by saying, “This parable is not about labor relations or fair wages. It is about the kingdom of God.” Later, talking about the reaction of the earlier-hired workers, he said, “Envy is the only vice that isn’t even fun at the beginning.”
No.
The sermon was about Law, specifically the places where men’s law clashes with God’s law.
Father illustrated his lesson with the example of Belgium’s new law on child euthanasia.
A child may suffer from an incurable disorder. Yet a law allowing assisted suicide affects, not just the child, but the whole nation.
It’s a slippery slope. One could foresee the child feeling pressure (real or imagined) to end themselves in the interests of the rest of the family or the state (since society must bear the financial burden in keeping them alive under socialist healthcare system).
Utilitarianism rears its ugly head once again: spare the collective, but do not spare the child.
Only in Belgium…so far.
We had the “Friends of the Cross” letter from St. Louis de Montfort, about suffering and
how to react to it. Very timely.
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From Saturday night’s anticipate Mass, this gem from the parochial vicar at my in-laws’ parish: now that modern society has shoved God out of the picture, we have lost our sense of sin. This was accomplished by renaming sins: “I’m not lazy, I’m just really good at relaxing. I’m not lustful, I just have needs,” &c. I especially liked the ‘good at relaxing’ bit. :-)