Superior Priest

9Jan22 (22Baptism). Jesus is baptized today and so I would like to take a deeper look at what the Catholic Church teaches about baptism both in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and Code of Canon Law (CCL). CCC references https://canonlaw.ninja/?nums=1213,1257,1259,1278&v=ccc .CCL references https://canonlaw.ninja/?nums=849,855,856,861,867,868,872-874,878

2Jan22 (22Epiphany). I love the idea that Epiphany is this pursuit of Truth in the world. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. One aspect of truth that we encounter that forms our life is the liturgy and how we celebrate the Mass effects our beliefs and the way we live. I would like to unpack a little more about the Sign of Peace in the liturgy. The wrong intention, the seeming intention and law of the Church. Let’s dive in to what the Vatican and USCCB says…Starting on page 27 of the USCCB’s newsletter is the published direction from the Vatican on the Sign of Peace. https://www.usccb.org/about/divine-worship/newsletter/upload/newsletter-2014-07-and-08.pdf.  Continued engagement is Adoremus.org. It is a great organization that dives into the liturgy and here you will find some commentary and explaining of the statements from the USCCB: https://adoremus.org/2014/09/ritual-expression-of-the-gift-of-peace-at-mass/ (these statements are also present in the newsletter after the Vatican’s statements, but I want to direct us towards Adoremus.org). Also, I mentioned about the liturgical rite used in Milan. It is called the Ambrosian rite and you can read more about it here: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2007/03/detailed-explanation-of-ambrosian-rite.html#.YeehBfFBzUI or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosian_Rite

26Dec21 (21Family). Joseph hears God in his Sleep is really good prayer. Explain the Gloria and incense. For the feast day of the Holy Family, we go over one role of each member of the family. Children: live and honor your parents. Be obedient to them. Wives: support your husband. Husbands: lead in love.

12Dec21 (21cA3). John the Baptist preaches Good News. It is not just what God has done for us but also what we are called to do for God. One of the gifts is the good news of giving. If you have two cloaks you should give one away (not to one who already has a cloak, but one who doesn’t). It is good news to give alms and tithe to support the church.

5Dec21 (21cA2). Advent is a time of preparation. Showing the season, but not yet Christmas. Almost, but not yet. Our life has many things that we are in preparation that are almost, but not yet. How is your Advent going? Do I love God if I can’t make time for Him? What is the largest concern for the Advent season? The decorations, or the relationship with Jesus? The readings of John the Baptist preaching repentance, reminds us that preparation in repentance is so important. Jesus want’s relationship so bad that He becomes a child, we need to also do our work in preparation.

 28Nov21 (21cA1). Advent is a time for preparing not just the tree, but ultimately our souls for judgement.

21Nov21 (21King). Truth is a difficult subject. What is true and how can we know what we know? We need to always approach it with humility, but not total skepticism. We do not believe in a relativistic truth because that is unreasonable, however we also don’t go along with the woke understanding of truth either. We seek the truth by listening to Jesus’ voice. Truth is truth.

14Nov21 (21bO33). St. Francis de Sales in his meditations wants us to meditate on our death. We should all remember our own death to put our whole life in perspective. Meditating on death helps us to prepare, not be afraid, and give us proper perspective. We hear about the end of the world. We know the world will end however the more important question is “Are you ready?” . The only two certainties of this life are death and taxes. We need to get ready to die at any moment. It is spiritually helpful to meditate on death so why don’t we do that right now.

31Oct21 (21bO31). There is nothing more important in our life than to follow God’s commandments to love Him with our whole mind, heart, and soul and neighbor as ourselves. If we place anything as more important than we are breaking God’s commandments. If we cannot fulfill our Sunday Obligation, we should take a second look if we really love God with everything. Love God by loving your neighbor (especially in prayer).

24Oct21 (21bO30). Sometimes we can be too tied up with being normal that we miss the necessity of Christian radical living. Christians are not called to be normal in this world. We shouldn’t be weird, but we also shouldn’t just be normal. In fact, in many ways not being normal of the world is the way that God wants us to bless the world.