What Really Disappoints Me Is

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I’m assuming you all know the topic of the gospel reading for today, the 19’th Sunday in Ordinary Time. It was about watching and waiting because we don’t know where death is, and that we need to be ready whenever. What really disappoints me is that my priest didn’t talk about hell or the last judgement at all! This doesn’t mean that I don’t think he’s a good priest, or that he didn’t give a good homily. It’s just that it’s so common to get a gospel reading like that, and then, when they have the perfect opprotunity to let people know that hell does exist, that you aren’t exempt from going there just because you’re in Christ’s church, and that at the last judgement, everything that you did in your life is going to be put before you and before God and it’s going to all be gone through, they don’t. I just wanted to yell out “hey, talk about hell, talk about the last judgement”, but that wouldn’t exactly be appropriate, especially in a traditional Catholic church :o . How do you view this?
 
Mine did have a great homily, but he did not focus on hell… Instead, he emphasized the gift of faith and how we must choose to accept God’s grace – God will not force His graces on us.

Father made sure to tie together all three readings for today, and as we had both a baptism at the Mass, and a 40th anniversary couple (blessed after Mass) he drove home the point of how God keeps His promises and we should therefore strive today to renew our promises, and to be faithful to God as He is to us.

He also spoke about the challange of living today in our secular culture as a believing Catholic – how it is similar to the Jews’ situation, Abraham living in the promised land as though it were a foreign land. We too are living in a foreign land, but with the eyes of faith we too can look forward to the fulfillment of the promise of God – as long as we remain faithful to Him and His Church.

So, while he did not come out and preach fire and brimstone, our priest did make many other things clear in his homily – to always be ready, to be faithful to God and the teachings of the Catholic Church and to our promises, to choose to accept the gift of faith that God offers to us, to be strong even when the world is against us.

I do wish he would have connected the dots a little more with regards to hell being the outcome of one who fails to listen to the rest of his homily, but… all things considered it was not a bad homily at all.

+veritas+
 
my priest, who is just wonderful, didn’t preach on Hell either but gave a very good homily about letting Christ into our lives. As usual it was peppered with quotes from saints and patristics and he even mentioned Simone Weil, a 20th century philosopher/mystic. I wasn’t disappointed that he didn’t mention Hell very much; Jesus’ own words in the Gospel were quite sufficient!
 
My priest more applied the gospel to our personal life, emphasizing that God will bring us through suffering by redeeming it in the end, and that inspite of any hardships we may endure in this life, that we can have faith in God’s ultimate triumph. He also said that we had a choice whether to seek God in this life or not, that God did not force himself on people, but that we came to him of our own freewill. He didn’t mention the word ‘hell’, but I thought that it was implied.

I thought it was a good sermon. I didn’t answer the poll because none of the answers fitted for me. 🙂
 
I heard a good one about the second reading, what Father called the Old Testament Hall of Fame, and what it means to really live a life of faith, mainly using Abraham as an example. It was fine with me.

Betsy
 
We had a Missionary today from Liberia…

After he finished telling us about tribal warfare, murder, rape, aids and hunger…and schooling…I pretty much think he covered HELL…it was a great talk…a very emotional one for me… If I were financially able I wouldve written out a check for $10,000…after he got done with his appeal.
 
We also had a guest Priest from Nigeria. He was really all over the map but was pretty good. Some thing he spoked about were about the kindness of the American people - willing to help even enemies in time of natueral disasters, liberating people, etc. He also spoke about Poland and communism as he was at a Polish Mass. He spoke about Nigeria, but not as much as the other topics. He mentioned how Islam is out to kill the Catholics in Nigeria. He told of a story about Muslims going out and setting fire to a Church and waiting outside with machine guns to kill people trying to escape. He even told beifly of his own struggle in which he was almost beheaded.
 
The Priest today didn’t even mention hell or the last judgment, rather how we will not know the day or time of Christ’s return, therefore we must live our Christian lives today–be charitable, be forgiving, loving, Live our Faith! How the Kingdom of God is today!!!It was awesome! Isn’t it neat that every Catholic Church read the same scripture today–???
 
Yes, it’s very cool, Sparkle. 🙂

It was a wonderful reading today…
 
one church our Polish priest’s brother gave a short homily…the other was a continuation of the snoozer last week “Affluenza” about how being rich makes you miserable and such rambling like that
 
Faithful 2 Rome:
We had a Missionary today from Liberia…

After he finished telling us about tribal warfare, murder, rape, aids and hunger…and schooling…I pretty much think he covered HELL…it was a great talk…a very emotional one for me… If I were financially able I wouldve written out a check for $10,000…after he got done with his appeal.
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That’s odd because we had a missionary from the Phillipines, same basic themes.
 
I just noticed that the largest number of poll respondents really wish their priest had mentioned Hell.

I’ve noticed in certain threads that people seem to be upset that their priests aren’t preaching enough about Hell, Abortion, Homosexuality, Contraception, etc, because there are “so many uninformed Catholics out there” or whatever. Why are some people so concerned with what all those “other people” need to learn? Why the obsession among some people with hearing homilies that they think will make OTHER people uncomfortable?

I personally don’t find it helpful or admirable when a priest gives a homily that I can easily nod in agreement to, and that would include pretty much any standard homily about how evil Abortion is, or the reality of Hell, or similar. Most Catholics who go to Mass regularly have some idea what the Church teaches on those matters, and if they disagree with Church teaching they won’t really be swayed by a didactic sermon. I’ve heard homilies that really lit a fire inside of me, and homilies that convinced me of my own sinfulness to the point that I was bursting inside to go to confession, but they had nothing to do with these “big” topics. They had to be more subtle and nuanced to get to the root of the sin and corruption in my own life, and I’m guessing that’s true for others too.

I also trust that, as spiritual shepherd of his flock, the priest has a better idea than me of what the community NEEDS to hear. Perhaps from hearing many confessions, and acting as a spiritual director, he has an idea of what are big problem areas for people, and can gear his homilies toward that.
 
Our pastor briefly leaned on “to whom much is given, much is expected”…and then introduced a visiting priest from Tanzania, where they are in great need of financial help. We were called to live the Gospel message in a concrete way, right then and there. I was not disppointed in the homily in the least.
 
I told my community to be prepared to meet the Lord and with so many crazy people driving around with cell-phones, they could not be sure they would even make it home from Mass. ( Don’t forget some may have had a deacon give the homily.)

Thanks for the great homily evaluations. I need all the help I can get.
Deacon Tony SFO
 
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