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 Laetare Sunday the 4th in Lent and in the Novus Ordo 4th Sunday of Lent?
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:
[…]
St. John Henry Newman, in a description preserved in Wilfrid Ward’s Life of Cardinal Newman, captured the Roman concreteness of the place: “This Basilica is so called, because Saint Helena, not only brought the True Cross there, but earth from Mount Calvary on which the Chapel or the Altar there is built.” The translation needed is scarcely more than the sentence itself, for it is plain English and deeply suggestive: Rome received Jerusalem into herself, so that one may stand in the heart of Rome and touch, as it were, the soil of Calvary. Newman continues, “thus if there be a centre of the Church, we shall be there, when we are on earth from Jerusalem in the midst of Rome.”
[…]
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Our pastor gave a great homily today at our FSSP parish. The Church was packed today; hard to find a seat. Two of my kids went to sit up in the choir loft.
In any case, he talked about how we need to trust more in our Lord when we see errors running rampant in his Church. He used the Gospel reading with the feeding of the 5,000 as his launching point. Did not our Lord Jesus sustain al the people there? He said there are two wrong responses one makes to corruption and scandal (perceived or actual) in the Church. First, liberals would rather start a new church from scratch. But on the opposite side of the spectrum, some would rather claim they are trying to “save” the Church, but basically are doing the same as the heterodox leftists.
He then quoted heavily from Pope Gregory XVI’s 1832 encyclical, Mirai Vos. He gave some powerful quotations, where the pope stated that we must realize the Catholic Church is indefectible because of Christ’s promise and her divine origin. The key quote he provided was from section 10:
“To use the words of the fathers of Trent, it is certain that the Church ‘was instructed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and that all truth was daily taught it by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.’ Therefore, it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain ‘restoration and regeneration’ for her as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune.”
After quoting a few more lines, he brought it back to the Gospel reading. Do we trust that our Lord will take care of us? The Church cannot be defiled. So do we trust Jesus to sustain us through every difficulty like He sustained the 5,000? We ought to.
Picking up on the Introit (and the Offertory), our resident visiting priest preached on the importance of joy and how two deadly sins are temptations related to it: envy and sloth.
We recently became a canonical house. Amazing news. Our Lady of the Snow.
Lots of children. More young couples attending the early Mass. Feels very alive.
On this Laetare Sunday we were abundantly blessed on the outskirts of D.C. … We celebrated a Solemn High Mass at Old St. John’s, the original parish of this nation’s original bishop. I heard that one of our auxiliary bishops, who recently visited our own chapel for a solemn high mass, also visited the latin mass community at the ineffably beautiful Franciscan Shrine in D.C. this would be the second such visit to a TLM mass in about two months… thats a pretty good record. The whispers are that he has enjoyed his time with our TLM communities, so hopefully we continue to be magnanimous, qnd deeply appreciative, hosts.