What was the homily?

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Instead of making a new thread each week about homilies, I thought I’d start a single thread and let postings be made each week (or everyday if you go to daily Mass).

This week my pastor talked about the HHS edict and our bishop’s reaction. I live in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and our bishop has been the vocal one about it. Our pastor told us that this coming election, politicians will be telling us what they stand for, and our pastor told us that we need to show them what we stand for as Catholics. He said that it’s time to stop sitting on the sidelines saying, “Someone needs to do something” and actually be that someone for once. It was very powerful and personal.

I thought it was very fitting too because the recessional hymn was “The Spirit Sends Us Forth”, and the one verse which we ended off on said, “We go to be the hands of Christ, to scatter joy like seed, and, all our days to cherish life, to do the loving deed.”

So, what was the homily this week?
 
“Being able to speak with the power of Christ,” about the Gospel. I was thinking he was going to talk about exorcism. :confused:
 
No real homily this week for us - it was announcements about the kick-off of the fund-raising for our new parish center. Somehow we need to raise $4 million :eek: in 5 months. Should be challenging, to say the least. But they’re going to get 10% of of my tax return, despite it having been ear-marked for paying down debt. But this parish has been so good to me, it wouldn’t feel right not to do it. I wish it could be more. 😦
Please pray for our success. :gopray2::gopray2:
 
Preparing for our “end of the world” (whenever we die). Also, how Paul wasn’t anti-marriage, he just stressed celibacy as a way a living whole-heartedly for God in a time of persecution and widespread belief that the world was literally about to end - in such a scenario you don’t want to be distracted.
 
Ohhhh, I’m so embarrassed. :o I read for the first time today. Ask me about the readings. 😛 I was so nervous. I don’t remember the homily. Geeeez!
 
asia53 said:
Ohhhh, I’m so embarrassed. :o I read for the first time today. Ask me about the readings. 😛 I was so nervous. I don’t remember the homily. Geeeez!
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Good for you asia for reading today!!! Don’t be embarrassed…it’s understandable you were focusing on the readings and not so much on the homily 🙂

Our homily was also on the health care mandate, a letter from our bishop explaining what was going on, and our pastor encouraging us to stand up against this.
 
That we shouldn’t think of demon / possession stories in the Gospel like in the movies - and that who of us hasn’t been “possessed” by anger, greed, or one of the lusts and addictions so common in society today. Further, that just as Jesus freed the man in the synagogue, he is here to free us today and touch us today, his teachings being not just words, but actions…his words and teachings conveying not merely information, but transformation. Incidentally, this was our deacon preaching. He’s always very good, and challenging.
 
Ours was about how different Christians churches across several denominations are combing resources for a pro life initiative.
 
It was about looking at the “demons” in our own lives and how God will help us change if we turn to Him in Faith and humility so that He can exorsize them.

It could be attending Sunday Mass more faithfully, not shopping on the Lord’s Day, making more time for prayer, eating more healthy…ie whatever our demons are at the moment
 
My Parish Priest preached about how there’s a little bit of the Devil in all of us…and how to get him out. He never talked about Hell unfortunately. I wish he had, though I also know of about 20 people in the parish who would give the Priest hell for mentioning it. I couldn’t attend the EF, so I went to the vernacular, and our new priest needs to warm up to the parish a bit yet.
 
Actually, the homily was very disappointing. Our pastor is very articulate, and he could have done a very good job with explaining possession and exorcism and generally educating the population on it, but he didn’t. I think things like these need to be discussed. If we pretend the devil doesn’t exist, then how do we know it if we ever, God forbid, experience his wrath in our lives?
 
YoungTradCath said:
Actually, the homily was very disappointing. Our pastor is very articulate, and he could have done a very good job with explaining possession and exorcism and generally educating the population on it, but he didn’t. I think things like these need to be discussed. If we pretend the devil doesn’t exist, then how do we know it if we ever, God forbid, experience his wrath in our lives?
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Gonna disagree with you about the need to speak on exorcism specifically in a homily. That would be more appropriate for someone in a specific instance.

Pastors have to think about the over-all general day to day needs of their flocks. Exorcism is something most of them will never need. But dealing with our own personal “demons” and those things that keep us from God would probably be of greater need.

Sometimes you have to look at a flock from the vantage point of where they are at and lead them closer to Christ.

Not going down a path that may never be relevent.
JMO
 
it was in Spanish but I think the essence was that Christ came to proclaim the kingdom so we need to hear, read and heed the Word, and be evangelizers of the Word.
 
Marie5890 said:
Gonna disagree with you about the need to speak on exorcism specifically in a homily. That would be more appropriate for someone in a specific instance.

Pastors have to think about the over-all general day to day needs of their flocks. Exorcism is something most of them will never need. But dealing with our own personal “demons” and those things that keep us from God would probably be of greater need.

Sometimes you have to look at a flock from the vantage point of where they are at and lead them closer to Christ.

Not going down a path that may never be relevent.
JMO
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Well, true, most people will never need it, or will ever even encounter a person needing it. But I think it’s prudent to educate the laity on every aspect of Catholicism, not just the touchy-feely warm ones. Either we can be ignorant and hope we never encounter the devil or a demon or we can be educated and if we do, we at least have a bit of background. I don’t think it would be prudent to give a super-long homily on exorcism, but I think it serves good to talk about it.

The young Bishop Flores of Brownsville, Texas gave an excellent talk at a recent Catholic meeting of young adults, and his entire 30 minute speech was on exorcism and possession. You can listen to it here, #1: cdob.org/communications/audio It doesn’t go very much in depth, and you can tell if you’ve read any books written by priests, but it gets the necessary information across. As I said, that talk was given at a meeting of young Catholics, and no one seemed (as far as I heard) to be freaked out or seriously affected. Please listen to it. If we expect priests to be social workers, that is what they will become, lame social workers with a weird title.
 
Went to Mass in Portland, Oregon this morning. The priest read a letter from the Archbishop about the USCCB’s stand against HHS’s position on Obamacare.

Very good stand; I am very proud of His Excellency.
 
My Priest spoke about the devil, hell, demons, exorcism, sin, etc. It was great to finally hear and I thanked him after Mass. He also spoke of a sculpture on the outside of Notre Dame that shows the weighing of souls with the devil cheating by having a demon hanging from their side of the scale. Very powerful homily from our wonderful Priest.
 
It was good. The Deacon talked about the danger of moral relativism, for example, the people who say “I’m personally opposed to abortion, BUT…” He talked about the new contraception mandate, and said that we must vote and make our voices heard in opposition to it. He talked about how we unfortunately have a president who wishes to take away the rights of doctors to follow their conscience and we must oppose this. He said true freedom and liberty aren’t about getting to do whatever you want whenever you want, but true liberty comes from following God’s law, and we must follow God’s law.

Love to hear the truth proclaimed at Sunday Mass!
 
The first comment was to take Paul’s letter to the Corinthians with a grain of salt. Yes, that’s exactly what he said.

Then he told a story about a shepherd with a badly worn sheepskin coat who’d been asked by the king to be treasurer and was given a new pair of boots. He was very successful as a treasurer and the advisors were jealous of him so because he locked himself in his room every day for a few hours they accused him of stealing from the treasury. One day when he was away they convinced the king to let them search his room and all they found was a pair of boots and his coat. He walked in on them and explained that each day he sat and looked at his boots and his coat, seeing what he’d been and what he’d been given.

Not sure how that fit with the readings and I have to admit that I often don’t get metaphors and need to be given a direct explanation – as I explained to my English lit prof, “when I read a poem a tree is always a tree.”
 
The deacon using the scriptures reminded us of those who have the true authority and after that he read a letter from the bishop to the faithfuls addressing the administration anti-catholic attitude through the HHS mandate. In the letter the bishop also asked the faithful to pray, to fast, and to take active ownership of the issue.
 
Our pastor spoke on Christian authority, in the home, in the Church and the ultimate authority of God and what that should mean for us.
 
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