What was the homily?

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Today my parochial vicar talked about Job and how the Book of Job is a description of why bad things happen to good people. He said that it may seem like we are alone in our trials in life, but Jesus always is with us in our trials. It was very uplifting.
 
Today we watched a video from our Cardinal Archbishop showing all the ministries of the Diocesan Services Fund and asking for donations.
 
today was “Father’s Checklist” day …he says he likes to do it 3-4 times a year and talk about how we as a community are responding to the call of the gospel.

Today he reviewed the new translation and our struggles with it. He went in to great detail of why we have made the changes, explaining the latin phrases and theological reasonings behind the teaching. He explained a great deal of the history of the Mass and the 2 parts…separated by the Creed. He spent 5 minutes explaining “and with your spirit” and how it ties in to the “my sacrifice and yours” which also ties in to the “in persona Christi” that occurs in the priesthood…we must humble ourselves because Jesus Christ Himself is fully present at the mass. I am not writing this quite as plainly as he explained it.

We have been attending this parish for less than 6 months but I think there has been more teaching in that time than I have heard in the previous 6 years.

My wife is a convert and said she learned more about the Mass in his homily today than she did in RCIA (she also went through RCIA at a different parish as a sponsor)

I must say we are blessed with 2 very faithful and wonderful teachers as our Priests.

They will teach about the Mass one homily, use the readings to delve into Church teaching by showing how dogma and doctrines were developed from the gospel teachings in another…explaining developments through the different councils…it is amazing…the younger one (ordained 3 years ago) is a very holy man…says JPII’s love for humanity drew him to the priesthood, and PBXVI’s wisdom is teaching him how to fulfill it.

And they always ensure that we entrust our cares and ask Mary to bring them to the altar in heaven.
 
Lame and meaningless homily about doctors. Okay, there was meaning, but it was very hard to find the (tiny) nuggets. Homilies lately have been so disappointing. Why can’t priests just go out and sermonize about real, meaningful and theologically-rich things? I don’t understand. Yes, make it accessible, but please don’t turn it into baby food goo. I kid you not, my priest today said something like, “We are guaranteed full life with Jesus already.” No qualifiers there, no additional clauses. It makes me sick to hear things like that, because it completely defeats the purpose of confession.
 
We have a wonderful homilist in our pastor. Hen focused on the responsorial psalm and the Gospel Acclamation…God heals the broken hearted… Christ bore our infirmities and diseases.

He spoke about human suffering and said that Jesus never answered the “why” question. It is not willed by God, but caused by our own choice in the Garden of Eden to “be God without God.”. Because we couldn’t be “happy with happiness”.

Suffering happens and a better response than “why” is what. Lord what do you want me to do? What do you want me to be? What do you want me to become?

This takes the focus off of ourselves and puts it on God and opens the door for His healing, strength, humility, obedience, and peace.

We can let suffering make us better…or bitter.
 
The Sunday’s homily was based on the Reading from Job, It focused on theodicy, that sometimes ‘bad’ things happen to good people. It was how we are to accept suffering in our lives and use it as God intents, as a way to grow in Faith.
 
Brendan said:
The Sunday’s homily was based on the Reading from Job, It focused on theodicy, that sometimes ‘bad’ things happen to good people. It was how we are to accept suffering in our lives and use it as God intents, as a way to grow in Faith.
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Same here
 
The homily was about a letter from our bishop against the HHS mandate. It seem though the priest reading the letter was not in support. He stated that the Church made a big fuss over birth control in the 60’s and issued a document "Humanae Vitae’ that he thought was not necessary. He said that most Catholics have used Birth Control and are not going to Hell from it. Catholics need to form an educated conscience and act on it. Basically to each their own. He even mention that the Church needs Federal money to operate (I never heard of that) so we do not have to choose to use any of the HHS services if we do not want to.

His tone seemed upset that he has to speak out against this mandate. The Priest seemed a little too left for me and my wife (she agreed with me). Any thoughts? Or is it just me?
 
ricofall said:
The homily was about a letter from our bishop against the HHS mandate. It seem though the priest reading the letter was not in support. He stated that the Church made a big fuss over birth control in the 60’s and issued a document "Humanae Vitae’ that he thought was not necessary. He said that most Catholics have used Birth Control and are not going to Hell from it. Catholics need to form an educated conscience and act on it. Basically to each their own. He even mention that the Church needs Federal money to operate (I never heard of that) so we do not have to choose to use any of the HHS services if we do not want to.

His tone seemed upset that he has to speak out against this mandate. The Priest seemed a little too left for me and my wife (she agreed with me). Any thoughts? Or is it just me?
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If the priest actually said things like this, this is a huge problem. He thinks Humanae Vitae was unnecessary? What arrogance and gall…

There is no way of knowing if a Catholic who has used birth control is going to Hell, because only God knows their heart, and their culpability, but the priest was basically saying that using contraception isn’t a sin.
If I were you, I would send a friendly email to the priest asking him to clarify his wording. I think we should always give our priests the benefit of the doubt and ask them exactly what they mean just in case we misheard or they misspoke. But I would not just let this go.
 
anp1215 said:
If I were you, I would send a friendly email to the priest asking him to clarify his wording. I think we should always give our priests the benefit of the doubt and ask them exactly what they mean just in case we misheard or they misspoke. But I would not just let this go.
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He has said things like this before. When he talked about purgatory, he stated something like ‘Purgatory, if you choose to believe in that, is like going to heaven.’

At first when I heard this, I thought that he was a former protestant that became a priest and still does not know all teachings yet. I found out later, he has been an air force Chaplin for 20 years before coming to our church.

It small comments that I hear. I was going to email him but I do not know his email address and it is not online. I hate to confront a Priest but some things he says makes me wonder.
 
ricofall said:
He has said things like this before. When he talked about purgatory, he stated something like ‘Purgatory, if you choose to believe in that, is like going to heaven.’

At first when I heard this, I thought that he was a former protestant that became a priest and still does not know all teachings yet. I found out later, he has been an air force Chaplin for 20 years before coming to our church.

It small comments that I hear. I was going to email him but I do not know his email address and it is not online. I hate to confront a Priest but some things he says makes me wonder.
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Yes, it sounds like he is saying some very problematic things. 😦
 
Our homily in my church was based on the “Life of drudgery” portion of the Book of Job’s reading, and my priest was very adamant and uplifting in his message.

He explained that in life, we all go through this existential question of what we’re doing and why, and sometimes, no matter what we may think might make us happy, it will never be as truly fulfilling as being with God in Heaven, and living a moral life in his image.

He used examples such as how many people think being a celebrity is glamorous, yet countless times you see celebrities having pitiful lives, and living in sin. He also said that you may have a dream career, but once you reach it, you’ll find a lot of people wondering “what next” or “what now” or maybe they’re still not fulfilled.

It is only when we do all of these things in offerings to God, and we seek Spiritual enlightenment and awakening, that we feed our hunger to be with God, that all of a sudden all of these things become more exciting. Our life becomes more exciting, and we learn to live through the suffering, since it will make us better individuals.
 
Very moving today. First, Fr. related the the story of the lepers being cut off from the community to how sin cuts us off from our Christian community, and how we may feel like outsiders if we have removed ourselves from the community. He said that healing is always available when we reach out to God through the sacrament of Reconciliation, just like the leper reached out to Christ to heal him.

But the best part was when Fr. read the letter our Cardinal wrote to us about the HHS mandate. Here is a link to the letter, which was also included in our bulletin: archgh.org/default/Documents/021212_HHS_Letter.pdf

After the letter was read, there was a round of applause. I know that applause isn’t really appropriate in the Mass, but I saw it as a sign of our solidarity, that we agreed with our Archbishop, and we will NOT be pushed around. I think we wanted Fr. to know that we stand with him and our Bishops.

Fr. finished by saying that Archbishop Chaput also wrote a very powerful response that we should read online. Fr. concluded by saying, “We are in a war…a holy war.”

He left the ambo to more applause.

I must admit I was so moved that I teared up. Our pastor’s voice had such quiet determination and I am glad he is taking the matter so seriously.

God bless our priest and Cardinal.
 
We had a fabulous homily from a priest better know for less inspiring missives.

He told us quite forcefully that it was our duty to be like Christ and extend ourselves to society’s outcasts. Many Christians like to wrap themselves in a “cloak of moral superiority,” he said, but we should reach out to “today’s lepers” with Christ-like love.

Good stuff to think about this day.

Luna
 
We were visiting at another parish. The homily was incredibly brief, as the priest was suffering from a sinus infection.

God Bless him for being at Mass anyway 👍

The topics was " Christ desires to clean us, we just need to ask him" and did a quick tie in with confession.

Good topic.
 
The parish deacon gave the homily last night. He has a hell–fire and brimstone tone when he preaches, but he doesn’t use it to its full advantage of instilling Catholicism.
 
Our priest is quite good at giving homilies. He is articulate and has a way of catching the parish’s attention.

This week was a very passionate homily about HHS and the fight we have ahead of us as catholics.

Last weeks stood out. At face value it was about evangelization and spreading the gospel as he feels that Catholics don’t do this nearly enough.

The parish went on its annual ski trip two weeks ago. He went and wanted to learn how to snowboard. So our priest rented a snowboard and signed up for a lesson. The snowboard instructor was a young 20-something who was working his way through college. This young man had no knowledge of the Christian faith, let alone Catholicism. Also his language was quite colorful.
He asked our priest what he did for a living, which he replied “well, I’m a Catholic Priest.”
There was some general conversation at which one of the parishioners gave our priest some water.
The snowboard instructor asked “Is that your wife?” Our priest smiled and said no and said priests cannot marry.
The instructor asked him why. Our priest took the opportunity to explain why priests cannot marry…both because they take an oath to remain celibate and also, for practical reasons. He pointed out that the parishioner that gave him water was married with 8 children and a priest couldn’t concentrate on his parish if he was distracted with a family. The instructor actually thanked him for explaining to him something new he had never knew before.
He then asked our priest “Dude, what’s it like to be celibate and not be able to marry?”
Our priest quipped with “Dude, it sucks!”

The entire parish laughed and I come to find out that several of the kids from the parish’s Catholic school had fun calling him “dude” this week. It was all in good fun.
 
Leprosy, Obama, the Superbowl ( -_- ), Lent, Capital Campaign, etc.
 
My pastor talked about marriage and family this past week. He basically told stories about true family love. It would’ve been nice to hear him elaborate on the readings of this past Sunday, though.
 
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