Was there a good point in the sermon you heard when you fulfilled your Sunday Mass obligation.
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Yes. My dear and good parish priest (ordained at 40; now 54 years old, and please God with many years of priesting still ahead of him) gave us a beautiful sermon on Baptism, linking it strongly with one of his favourite causes, namely regular Confession, to renew its graces.
And he always reminds us of the beautiful, bottomless love of God for us, and urged us to thank God for this deep and abiding love.
And he reminded us that the only limits to God’s love in our lives were placed there by us.
Plus afterwards he told me outside the church that he’s bought a ride-on mower for our church lawns. I have to see this.
On this feast of the Holy Family (EF calendar) father strongly condemned couples living together unmarried.
Very good sermon on the Holy Family as the cure for all that ails our culture, most especially the horror of abortion. “We live in a culture where a woman is more ashamed to have a child than to kill him.”
Father talked about the different forms of baptism, including martyrdom and baptism by desire. He noted that baptism by desire is often misrepresented, and that it needs to be an explicit desire on the part of the person, not simply having lived according to what they think is good.
Father Cook spoke about the need for the living water that flows from the side of Christ. He spoke of how water is important in the symblos of our newly renovated church. He spoke of the power of baptisnmal water, and our need for cleansing.
On an omenous or ironic side note, my family came home to find the water off due to a water main break for the the third time since Christmas morning. I believe there is a message in that for us to look to the true living water that is Christ’s mercy, not the stuff that comes from the tap!
Wives be subject to your husbands. Husbands love your wives. Children, respect and obey your parents. That’s about the gist of it.
EF Mass, feat of the Holy Family. Father preached on the importance of families, starting off with a story of a boy who saved up money then asked his father how much he made in an hour, then asked if he could buy an hour of his time, as he said he was too tired from work to spend time with the boy. When Jesus went up to the temple at age 12 it was the mark of his adulthood (Bar Mitzvah) and as shown by his preaching to the Doctors, he could have started his ministry then. However he chose to spend the next 18 years in Nazareth in obscurity in the carpenters shop and at home with Mary and Joseph. So of his approx. 33 year life he spent only 3 in public ministry and 30 with his family. Obviously family was important to Jesus and it should be for us too. Like the father in the story, we often put our job first when the family should come first.
I talked about confession. Our Lord getting in line to receive John’s baptism meant getting in line with people who were confessing their sins. I offered the image of our Savior coming into the confessional; and my response would be like John’s: “I need to be absolved by you!”
I pointed out that Jesus was with the repentant; not with those who stood by and said they didn’t need to confess. And I pointed out that the practice of confession has collapsed in recent years, and speculated as to why. It’s not, however, because we no longer sin, or something Vatican II taught!
I wasn’t at my home parish this week. We had a priest that has just been assigned to this diocese to help with campus ministry. He gave a solid homily on Baptism and how parents and godparents must live up to their vows to bring up the child in the faith. How Baptism isn’t just an excuse to have a party for the family, but an ongoing commitment. Why we need to take advantage of Confession to grow in faith. I was quite impressed.
this may not be the thread to post in but time is critical here. i have just set up a fundly account because Father Tom needs not only prayers but financial assistance. Here is his story:
Rev Thomas E Brown was a priest at the parish of St Thomas the Apostle Church.He was then transferred where he is now the pastor of a church in Eldred,Pa. Here the doctors discovered the 60 yr old Catholic priest had cancer. They could see where the cancer was located but could not find where it was coming from.Consequently the doctors surgically removed a large no of his lymph nodes.Now Father Tom has to go for aggressive treatments and may have no choice but to enter a facility while he’s taking these treatments. It is not covered by insurance-he will be required to pay for the stay out of pocket.As if he doesn’t have enough to deal with,he does not have the kind of money he would need.
Priest Stricken with Cancer fund raiser
every dime that is raised will go to Father Tom!
On Luke’s account of the finding of the child Jesus in the temple, for the Feast of the Holy Family. The finding of the child Jesus is one of the seven sorrows of Mary. An excerpt from a reflection on this Gospel by the Ven. Fulton Sheen. The Holy Family’s journey as pilgrims to Jerusalem for the feast, a description of the traditions associated with male Jewish boys turning twelve at the time, what our Lord would have witnessed and experienced with Mary and Joseph. The reuniting of the parents to discover the missing youth, and the supernatural patience with which they endured the anxiety. The experience of the sorrow of the Blessed Mother as well as her recognition of Him in the temple, His rightful place. The role of the Blessed Mother as the transmitter of faith and co redemptrix. Her continued experience of sorrow in His passion and sacrifice.
Our priest’s homily was on his first experience doing a baptism (5 years ago, just after he had been ordained a deacon) and on how we should not only celebrate our birthday, we should celebrate our baptism day.
Today’s sermon was one of those you had to be there type. Father, connected the prayer of exorcism for Theophany water to that of baptism (there’s a one word difference) “final.” He explained why the cross is plunged into the water (representing the death and resurrection)…So many good points, twas at the Russian-Greek parish in LA, and twas the feast day of St Tatyana of Rome
EF; Holy Family…How the two greatest things that can combat and conquer the Evils that surround us daily in our contemporary / secularist world today are 1. The Family and 2. The Catholic Church (ie: Sacrements of Marriage and Holy Orders) and that the powers of the DAILY reception of the Eucharist (“our daily bread”) gives us our strength in this battle. How Jesus (bow your head) is w/ us in this world EVERY DAY on the Alter.
Father Ubel talked about Christ being in line for Baptism, putting himself on the side of the sinners.
(a) Holy Family Sunday …Father did the arithmetic, and if he were to preach as long on the “hidden” years of Jesus, as he did on the public years, the sermon would last a day and a half.
(B) He pointed out that we don’t know what Jesus was doing between the 12-year-old at the Temple and the Baptism in the Jordan- no recorded miracles, but he probably, as a devout Jew, went up to Jerusalem every year with his family (I had never before thought of Jesus in his 20 s going to Jerusalem every year)
(C) So Jesus showed by example that it is good that most of our lives are ordinary and more or less hidden, and we should try to make our homes like a little Nazareth, like the home Jesus and his family lived in
OF here, so the Baptism of Christ. I attended Mass with my college-student sister at an on-campus parish about which I’d heard a lot of great things…obviously, a lot of them were true!
Father began his sermon with a discussion about identity: he’s a Catholic; he’s a priest, which puts him in a paternal relationship with us and a brotherly relationship with other priests; he’s a son; he’s a brother; he’s a grandson; he went to X college, etc. We all have identities like the ones he has (i.e., are siblings, are the sons/daughters of our parents, etc, etc). However, the single most important identity is the identity that we share with Christ: beloved children of God.
At Christ’s baptism, the heavens opened, the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a dove, and the voice of God the Father–the voice which brought the earth into being–said, “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.” Throughout his ministry on earth, Christ referenced His Father and that Father’s love for all of us on countless occasions. We are all beloved sons and daughters of God the Father, and our mission here on earth is to live in such a way that He is indeed well pleased with us–i.e., by living our Faith.
In an age when many students come from broken, dysfunctional, and even quite loveless families, these messages are vital. The one reassures them that they are loved by a Father who loves them perfectly, and the other tells them, of course, how to try to live up to that love. I imagine that Father touched many hearts with that sermon, especially as this was the first Sunday of the semester when students have just returned to campus from their homes.
I made sure to compliment him on the sermon after Mass…and to drop a few extra bucks in the collection plate. ;)
Our homily was about humility — Christ’s humility in being baptized by John. It made me think of Christ’s birth and how both events are births and both are signs of profound humility — one by being born as a human being and coming into the world as a tiny baby, and one as the second birth of baptism, by choice, at the hands of a sinful human man.
At the EF, Father talked about how the family is under attack now from the government, not just the secular society. He noted that contraception, abortion, fornication, homosexual adoption, and same-sex marriage were the great weapons of Satan against the family, and that the Church would have to stand firm in days to come.
Father also noted that he was very happy to be the celebrant at this EF. He has a beautiful singing voice and also pronounces the Latin better than most.
Father gave a small footnote that when he gave this same talk at the NO Mass he said, that five people walked out of the congregation. He noted that too many Catholics think ssm is ok. He was happy with the EF group, of course, as we all are on the same page with marriage and family issues.
One small, good point from the homily on the feast of the Holy Family was that parents should make their homes a good place for children to make mistakes and avoid telling everyone about all their children’s mistakes (they’re people, too!). I really want to try to put that into practice, because I’m always tempted to vent about my kids on facebook or at playgroups.
Visited back at my old parish from before I moved. The priest was a visiting priest from Africa who’s in the US taking classes at the nearby Catholic university. He talked about how Jesus’ Baptism made all the waters of Baptism holy; and that the Father wanted us to know that He was well-pleased with us when we were first Baptized, and how we should try to live as children of God with whom He could be pleased (and go to Confession to help that, whenever we sin).
[NO:] How many in the congregation know their baptismal date? (I was one of four or five in a congregation of 50-60.) We should celebrate the date of our baptism. Baptism opens the soul to an infinite source of grace, but only an actively cultivated soul will bear its fruit.
The responsibilities of Baptism are fulfilled and summarized in creed, code and cult.