Is this an appropriate topic for a sermon?

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blondeone

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I just came from Mass. Can anyone help me with the answer to this question? What does the founding of Pennsylvania have to do with the feast of Corpus Christi?
That is what our priest gave his sermon on. On top of that, he gets the history of Pennsylvania wrong! I am a history teacher for 23 years. My degree is in American History. It is bad enough that the students do not know Pennsylvania’s history, but a priest born in Pennsylvania!
I don’t go to Mass to listen to a sermon about history when I teach it for 180 days. I brought up his errors in history previously, even offered to tutor him, but he didn’t get the message.

What should I do? I feel like giving him a book on the history of Pennsylvania and telling him to get it right or stick to religion. But then again, he doesn’t say Mass correctly either. He inserts his own words in the Eucharistic prayer.
 
I’m not sure what the answer is. As a mother of 5 I’m tired of coming home from Mass and having to explain why the priest talked about how the time has come for women priests, or more recently,(this morning), that the miracle of the loaves and the fishes was indeed a miracle, or that Jesus was not ashamed of himself for not taking care of the woman who touched the hem of his garment.
 
Vote with your feet and pocketbooks. 🙂

Of course sometimes the feet walk from parish to parish trying to find one that practices and preaches the Catholic faith and the road seems endless.
 
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blondeone:
I just came from Mass. Can anyone help me with the answer to this question? What does the founding of Pennsylvania have to do with the feast of Corpus Christi?
That is what our priest gave his sermon on. On top of that, he gets the history of Pennsylvania wrong! I am a history teacher for 23 years. My degree is in American History. It is bad enough that the students do not know Pennsylvania’s history, but a priest born in Pennsylvania!
I don’t go to Mass to listen to a sermon about history when I teach it for 180 days. I brought up his errors in history previously, even offered to tutor him, but he didn’t get the message.

What should I do? I feel like giving him a book on the history of Pennsylvania and telling him to get it right or stick to religion. But then again, he doesn’t say Mass correctly either. He inserts his own words in the Eucharistic prayer.
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Send a nice letter to him regarding this grave matter. If he does not respond in a positive way, send a second nice letter to your bishop, copying your pastor…
 
Whatever you do, first, do it in charity.

I would not have a problem pointing out the errors of the priest’s sermon. I would do it in a letter to the priest, that way, he can read it in private and have time to reflect on it without having to answer immediately or feel threatened by having been called on the errors.

I would also end the letter by offering to discuss the issue if he feels that your fraternal correction is wrong/misdirected.
 
This reminds me of a nice little story of how I took my 6 yr. old to the Teen Life Mass (first mistake) and during his Homily the priest was talking about materialism and how this or that advertizes that if you buy this or that you will have a better sex life… My daugher turned around and said “Mommy, what’s a sex life” I am just glad I was the one who explained a little more that evening instead of a public school! I just wish he had said “love life” instead!

On the other hand at another parish, the priest couldn’t help but brag that Notre Dame was his alma mater at practically every Mass. And it seemed he intentionally tried to be academically above the parishoners.Ahh what can you do, they’re only human!

You should give your priest a book on Pennsylvania hisory for Christmas tucked into a gift basket of fruit…in a very kind loving way
so as not to embarrass him or make it too obvious.
 
Was the homily on the history of Pennsylvania totally unrelated to the readings? And the priest made no effort to tie his homily to the readings? Or did he give any explanation about why he was talking about the history of Pennsylvania? Sounds odd to me.
 
La Chiara:
Was the homily on the history of Pennsylvania totally unrelated to the readings? And the priest made no effort to tie his homily to the readings? Or did he give any explanation about why he was talking about the history of Pennsylvania? Sounds odd to me.
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Maybe his point was that William Penn was a closet Papist who used to have the local Catholic priest enter his home under the cover of night and give him Communion?

…

…

(No, folks, that didn’t really happen.)
 
Come to my Parish: Saint Mark’s in Fairbanks. Father Jerry will blow you away with his sermons! He’s awsome.

🙂 🙂 🙂
 
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MichelleTherese:
Come to my Parish: Saint Mark’s in Fairbanks. Father Jerry will blow you away with his sermons! He’s awsome.

🙂 🙂 🙂
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It’s a bit of a commute from San Diego, where it’s SUNNY and WARM in February.
 
It is also a bit of a trek from Northeastern Pa? how many time zones is that? 5 or 6. Besides, we have cold weather here too.!
 
Last year I was travelling for the Feast of Corpus Christi and the priest gave a “sermon” on his visit to Ireland!
 
I now know it was wrong of me to walk away completely, but one of the reasons I generally got fed up with going to Church many years ago was the pastor’s obsession with so-called “liberation theology”, as well as his endless yammering about how important it was for we as Christians to support Daniel Ortega’s (murderous) Sandinista regime in Nicaragua (which, after being democratically elected, had immediately set about abolishing democracy around that time).

Talk about inappropriate matter for a homily – sheesh.

I ended up attending an Episcopal Church for a time(again not the right thing to do, in retrospect) simply because the rector there was actually talking about decidedly un-chic notions like “salvation”. Turns out this particular Episcopal rector was pretty much spitting into the wind, as that denomination was already skipping down the broad highway of Relativism; he eventually left, and became an Eastern Orthodox priest.
 
My experience is that most priests’ sermons are not heretical but are just simple-minded. Typically, the sermons are incredibly bland or mundane with no deep spiritual message or revelation of the meaning of the readings. Rarely are the readings tied into important issues of the day in an intelligent and illuminating way, which may explain why so many so-called Catholics can think that they can be “pro-choice” and truly Catholic. In the last 15 years (i.e., some 750+ sermons), I’ve attended Mass at several parishes and have heard exactly one erudite sermon condemning abortion and the culture of death. It seems that many of the priests are just plain soft on Church doctrine and teachings. Moreover, in comparison to the priests of my youth, a high percentage of the current batch of priests just seem less manly and lack the passion or backbone to convey the truth even if they know it.
 
As far as the gift basket is conserned…might I suggest Guinness as opposed to fruit?
 
I like a homily which is uplifting, instructive or enlightening, an addition or insight into the gospel which I had not been blessed to receive on my own.

From the sounds of it, you like that too, and you did not get it.

Consider what my parish priest chose to speak about on Corpus Christi: Denial of Eucharist to ANYONE who approached in a reverential manner was something he would not do. And the day he is asked to do that, he will stop being a priest. He received a standing ovation from about 95% of the parishioners.

I live in Western Washington. I think we still reap fruit from Hunthausen’s seed.
 
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margie:
I live in Western Washington. I think we still reap fruit from Hunthausen’s seed.
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My sympathies==Didn’t Hunthausen support the nuclear freeze movement whose success would have assured the continual enslavement of East and Central Europe by Soviet Communism?
 
Our priest used his Corpus Christi sermon to harangue those who attend Adoration by accusing them of thinking that they are ‘spiritually elite’!

The Adoration Committee meets tonight to try and convice the powers that be that Exposition in the Monstrance is not the same as prayer in front of the tabernacle and not to pull the plug on adoration.

Please remember us in your prayers.
 
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