Sunday Sermon

Jesus knew there would come a time when He would not be physically present any longer with the church. Perilous times would come when supernatural strength would be needed. “Then they will fast IN THOSE DAYS.” We are living in such days today - the Bridegroom is absent and our needs for spiritual power are SO very great. Jesus intends for us to seek after God with great prayer and fasting.

What is the most important thing in life? How important are the things of this world, fashion, politics, fame, fortune? What should our priorities be? Let’s find out in 1 Corinthians 13

God, as the Apostle says, "will have all men to be saved" – I Tim. 2:4; but He also wishes us all to labor for our own salvation, at least by adopting the means of overcoming our enemies, and of obeying Him when He calls us to repentance. Sinners hear the calls of God, but they forget them, and continue to offend Him. But God does not forget them. He numbers the graces which He dispenses, as well as the sins which we commit. Hence, when the time which He has fixed arrives, God deprives us of His graces, and begins to inflict chastisement. I intend to show in this discourse that when sins reach a certain number, God pardons no more. Be attentive.

When we have a proper understand of God’s forgiveness of us we will have a proper disposition of forgiveness towards those who do us wrong.

In the story of the Pharisee and the Tax-Collector Jesus does not compare their deeds… he compares their attitudes. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled an those who humble themselves will be exalted.

MOST holy Mary lost her Son for three days: during that time she wept continually for having lost sight of Jesus, and did not cease to seek after him till she found him. How then does it happen that so many sinners not only lose sight of Jesus, but even lose his divine grace; and instead of weeping for so great a loss, sleep in peace, and make no effort to recover so great a blessing?

In his genealogy, Matthew breaks with Jewish tradition and custom. He mentions the names of four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba (who is the one to whom the pronoun “her” in verse six refers). Matthew has a reason for naming these four and no others. First, they were all Gentiles. Second, three of these women were guilty of sexual sins.

The purpose of Matthew’s genealogy, then, is to show why Yeshua could not be king if he were really Joseph’s son.

The root of the word “sacrifice”. “Sacrifice” comes from Latin, which means, “to make holy.” The ultimate act of love is to sacrifice for another. In sacrificing for another we are actually sanctifying our soul. When the sacrament of marriage is lived according to God’s plan, spouses are daily challenged to make sacrifices for the sake of their beloved. God designed marriage as a means of helping our spouse to grow in holiness and to be set apart for God.

“Behold, this CHILD is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel.” LUKE ii. 34.

 SUCH was the language of holy Simeon when he had the consolation to hold in his hands the infant Jesus. Among other things which he then foretold, he declared that “this child was set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel.” In these words he extols the lot of the saints, who, after this life, shall rise to a life of immortality in the kingdom of bliss, and he deplores the misfortune of sinners, who, for the transitory and miserable pleasures of this world, bring upon themselves eternal ruin and perdition. But, notwithstanding the greatness of his own misery, the unhappy sinner, reflecting only on the enjoyment of present goods, calls the saints fools, because they seek to live in poverty, in humiliation, and self-denial. But a day will come when sinners shall see their errors, and shall say. “We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour.” (Wis. v. 4.) We fools; behold how they shall confess that they themselves have been truly fools. Let us examine in what true wisdom consists, and we shall see, in the first point, that sinners are truly foolish, and, in the second, that the saints are truly wise.

The true “rule of faith”—as expressed in the Bible itself—is Scripture plus apostolic tradition, as manifested in the living teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to which were entrusted the oral teachings of the Prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus and the Apostles, along with the authority to interpret Scripture correctly.