One of the losses that comes with ordination is that you just don't hear a lot of homilies anymore. You read the classics, of course, and hear bishops, religious superiors, and even Popes preach at larger occasions, but most of the time you don't often hear the plain old day-to-day preaching that can be so honest and encouraging.
Here's a line from a daily Mass homily I heard today:
"We're like people sitting in jail. The bail has been paid and the gates have been opened, but we don't believe it."
Wow. That's the whole tragedy of my so-called spiritual life.
Like things often do, my confrere's words reminded me of a line from New Seeds of Contemplation:
"The devils are very pleased with a soul that comes out of its dry house and shivers in the rain for no other reason than that the house is dry."
5 comments:
At our parish, the 2 priests take turns with the Sunday homily, so that every second week, each gets to hear the homily of the other.
I don't think I've ever seen it in the Ordinary Form where the homilist was neither celebrating nor concelbrating the mass, or was at least the deacon of the mass. But every other week, when it is time for the homily, a priest leaves the confessional, and goes up to preach, while the celebrant listens from the sacntuary, the homilist then goes back and hears more confessions until it is time for him to assist with communion.
Father Charles, I really do enjoy reading your homilies online. Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to put them there.
Ben,
That's edifying stuff. At our place we don't help at different Masses with Holy Communion, but use EMsoHC instead.
I love the "sitting in jail" analogy. I've met folks like that. Wouldn't it be nice if all of us lived in God's freedom? We don't need to wait until we're admitted to heaven; Jesus told us that the Kingdom of Heaven has already begun.... we're already living in ti.
Deprived, all too often, of the ability to hear good homilies at Masses that I attend, I've turned to audiosancto.org to hear what doesn't get preached from the pulpits.
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