Mary: God’s First Love
Although the pro-life movement’s arguments can be proved from science as much as religion, one of the reasons that I am so involved in the pro-life movement is based on this piece of theology: God imagined every person as an unrepeatable blueprint long before their conception. Since God is the exclusive Creator of the Universe, and since God is in eternity (two philosophical necessities to a world with only One God) this means that God imagined the blueprint to each person’s genome long before an individual zygote was ever conceived. Of course, “imagined” and “before” are words that fail us, especially since we are speaking of a God who exists outside of time with a “mind" that is obviously not a physical cerebrum. It is good that we say in the pro-life movement: “From the moment of conception you were [...]
Hugh Hefner Part II
My last blog post called How Many Will Be Saved? had a lot of shares but also a lot of critique. This makes for good Catholic dialogue. I want to respond in a short blog post to a few objections. St. Augustine wrote: "There are two things that kill the soul: Despair and false hope.”—St. Augustine, Sermo 87.8. Another word for “false hope” is presumption. The reason I included in my blog post all the saints’ quotes on hell was not to judge Hugh Hefner but to show how many American Catholics live in presumption of last-minute imperfect contrition. So, if someone were to read those saints’ quotes about hell and subsequently scamper from false hope to despair, it’s is proof that the third way has not been tried, namely, a realistic but supernatural hope in salvation. Roughly summarized from St. [...]
The Rosary Will Triumph Over Abortion
In the TLM calendar, today is the external feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Although this sermon deals with abortion, I tried to avoid extremely graphic descriptions of the violence. In fact, the families with whom I inquired after Mass had no problem with my vocabulary in preaching. Nevertheless, I would highly encourage parents to preview this sermon in order to first determine the level of age-appropriate listening in your family. Nota Bene: Future sermons will probably be released on Mondays, blog posts on Thursdays.
How Many Will Be Saved?
"And a certain man said to him: 'Lord, are they few that are saved?' But He said to them: 'Strive to enter by the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able.'"—Luke 13:23-24. Hugh Hefner died today, and even bloggers like Fr. Dwight Longenecker at patheos are promoting a very different attitude towards Hefner than the tradition of the Catholic Church. I don't know where Hefner is any more than Fr. Longenecker, and I'm not saying Fr. Longenecker has a theology that is wrong, but his attitude towards heaven and hell is very, very different from that of Jesus Christ in the New Testament and the saints in every century. I don't have a better insight than any priest, but I do know that we simply need to return to the Deposit [...]
16th Sunday After Pentecost
The Mass and Salvation History, part 2. This two-part series is based on the stained glass around the high altar and sanctuary, here at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville, Florida. All of salvation history culminates in the single sacrifice of the Last Supper and Calvary, found in both of the center panes. The featured landscape image above is the sculpture of the Last Supper, found under the mensa of the high altar. Pictures for reference to the podcast are on my blog. They are numbered 1 to 9, going west to east with a north-facing high altar (still liturgical ad orientem, of course.) Today is 5 to 9 on the East Side, seen below on the blog. 5) Wedding Feast of Cana (Jn 2) 6) Abraham and Isaac (Gen 22) 7) Passover (Ex 12) 8) Multiplication of [...]
Padre Pio Sermon
This is a sermon on Padre Pio, suffering and love. (If you want to help spread these sermons, please click "Apple Podcasts" below and review this podcast on iTunes.)
15th Sunday After Pentecost
The Mass and Salvation History, part 1. This two-part series is based on the stained glass around the high altar and sanctuary, here at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville Florida. All of salvation history culminates in the single sacrifice of the Last Supper and Calvary, both found in the center panes. The featured landscape image is a stained glass from the nave. Pictures for reference to the podcast are on my blog. They are numbered 1 to 9, going west to east with a north-facing high altar (still liturgical ad orientem, of course.) Today is 1 to 4 on the West Side. Pentecost (Acts 2) 2) Melchizedek (Gen 14) 3) Moses and God giving Manna (Exodus 16) 4) Last Supper (Lk 22)
Leave Fr. James Martin Alone!
For the few of you who actually live human lives without social media, and don't know who Fr. James Martin SJ is, here you go: Fr. Martin is a highly influential Jesuit Catholic priest who is editor at large of America Magazine, located just off Columbus circle and Central Park in Manhattan. On 12 April 2017, Fr. Martin was also promoted as a consultor to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications. Now, I rarely name people by name in my blog posts, but this priest has over half a million Facebook followers. Fr. Martin has a wide footprint in the social justice world, but the most controversial of his teachings is that he implies on a weekly basis that sodomy can sometimes be morally acceptable for two Catholics. He recently said at an interview after speaking at Villanova the following [...]
What Muslim Invaders Could Not Accomplish
I am rarely shocked by what I see in the media, but this one got me: https://youtu.be/npj5MqcNPJU This 60 second video is Dutch children learning to pray to Allah in a small mosque in the Netherlands. So, the full title of this blog post will be “What Muslim invaders could not do against Europe, Europe did to herself.” But it is actually a hopeful blog post with a strong resolution. I want to get a little into the world of Divine Providence to ask why God would allow this. I don’t know the mind of God, but I think I may have a decent answer. Let’s consider that the only country in Europe which was conquered by the Muslims was Spain. Mohammed died in 632 AD but within that same century, his Muslim invaders were astonishingly capable of conquering the [...]
14th Sunday After Pentecost
You'll hear a lot of reverberation in this sermon in an old Florida basilica (my new home) but you'll need to tweak your volume until I adjust the basilica microphones for future podcasts. In this sermon, you'll hear about the Gospel of the day applied to Hurricane Irma.