8th Sunday After Pentecost
Baptism Sermons, Part II of II: Sin and Grace.
7th Sunday After Pentecost
Baptism Sermons, Part I of II: The exorcisms.
6th Sunday After Pentecost
When distractions mask supernatural hunger.
The Image of God in the Human Face
St. Louis De Montfort teaches that Lucifer and all the angels were given a preview that one day, a creature would contain more glory than the angels. That creature is the Blessed Virgin Mary. So infuriated was Satan that a creature would be higher than him, that Lucifer (now Satan) led a third of the angels to rebel against God. St. Michael ejected the rebel spirits to the earth. So, eons later, Satan went to pursue Mary and her child: "And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.”—Apocalypse 12:13 Both before and after Satan's failure at spiritually overcoming the woman and the child, he decided to turn against the image and likeness of God on earth—man and woman. Like Mary, we are [...]
5th Sunday after Pentecost
This sermon considers the teachings of St. Igantius of Loyola on how to make decisions without fear. Ignatian discernment of spirits are linked on my blog as part I and part II.
4th Sunday After Pentecost
Cast into the deep.
10 Years After Summorum Pontificum
Ten years ago this week, Pope Benedict XVi issued an apostolic letter called Summorum Pontificum that decreed that all Roman Catholic priests could offer "the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite," also known as "the Traditional Latin Mass" that preceded Vatican II. In fact, Pope John Paul II had encouraged bishops to allow their priests to do this, but Pope Benedict went a step further in saying that priests did not need permission from their bishop to do the old Mass in private. Restrictions were to be loosened for this Mass offered in public, too. The Roman Catholic priest was also given permission to give the old absolution in Latin for penitents, extreme unction for the dying and early-Church blessings for anyone who asked. The priest can now live on the old calendar for both the Mass and the Roman [...]
The Over-Intellectualization of the Catholic Faith
I have only been a priest for seven years. About halfway through that period, I switched from the Novus Ordo to the Traditional Latin Mass and sacraments. It was also during this time that I stopped saying a line that I was famous for in seminary: “We do not have a crisis of sacraments. We have a crisis of catechesis.” I used to say this because I knew how many people received Holy Communion in this country without knowing Who they were receiving. In fact, I put my money where my mouth was: As a young priest, I taught a Eucharistic class just off-campus of Colorado State University, a school with 33,000 students. I called my class “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” after this excellent book by Dr. Brandt Pitre. Most weeks I had about 50 CSU [...]
3rd Sunday After Pentecost
Are you saved from eternal death by your conscience or by Jesus Christ? The primacy of conscience is the New Jansenism.
Trinity Sunday
Life is a pilgrimage that starts with the Trinity and ends with the Trinity. We'll consider the exitus-reditus of St. Thomas Aquinas in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Nota Bene: Although removed in the 1971 Liturgy of the Hours, the Athansian Creed was in every Roman Breviary for hundreds of years. Here is a good English translation of that supreme confession of the faith in the Trinity: Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic Faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the [...]