#sspx #sermon #catholic #sunday

• On this feast of the Holy Name, we have the joy of inducting new members into the Holy Name Society. This Society was founded in the Middle Ages to help men increase their faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
• One way in which this is done is by asking the members to respect the name of Our Lord and to foster respect for the name of Our Lord and good use of language in those around them.
• But the Society also wants to assist men in their belief in Our Lord’s divinity by having them live Sundays as Catholic men ought. There are eleven obligations for Holy Name members and four of them concern Sundays:
  • 6. Never to work or carry on business unnecessarily on Sunday.
  • 7. To do all they can to induce their dependents to sanctify the Sunday.
  • 9. Communicating in a body on Holy Name Sundays.
  • 11. Staying after Mass on Holy Name Sundays to have a meeting.
• One of the basic means we must employ to restore society is living Sunday in the way that it should be lived.
  • we must try not to allow the spirit of the world to seep into our souls such that, while we go to Mass on Sundays, we still live Sundays in a secular spirit.
  • we must try to have a Catholic mentality about the true meaning of Sunday and then try to live out that mentality every seven days.

• Sunday is a period of time that we set aside as the property of God. It is a consecration of time. Just as, when a church is consecrated, the territory on which the church rests and the building of the church itself are set aside exclusively for the use of God, so too with Sunday. It is a time that is set aside for God.
• It is easy today for us to see Sunday as just the day that we have to go to Mass and not as a day consecrated to God. Under this mentality, once we go to Mass, we have the rest of the day for ourselves. People who have this mentality are more likely to:
  • Go to the shortest Mass possible
  • Leave as soon as possible after Mass without talking to people or hanging out
  • Spend the rest of the day in worldly entertainment
• They fulfill the letter of the Sunday obligation, but they do not have the spirit of Sunday.
• Whenever God asks us to do something, it is not only because He deserves that we do what He asks; it is also because what He asks is good for us.
• We need to keep holy the Lord’s Day not only to fulfill a commandment; we need to do it in order to live a properly human life, and for our freedom.

#catholic #christmas #sermon

• When God Himself became incarnate in this world, when He assumed our human life, He decided that there would be two symbols that would be representative of His life.
• Those two symbols were the manger and the cross.
  • Both of them are made of wood.
  • On both of them, Our Lord lied down. Our Lady laid Him down in the manger, while the Roman soldiers laid Him down on the Cross.
  • On both of them, Our Lord was bound and in a state of helplessness. In the manger, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, clothes that confine a baby in such a way that he cannot move. Likewise on the Cross, He could not move, because He was nailed to it.
  • On both of them, Our Lord was in a state of poverty. He laid in a manger in a cave, a place that was not his house, a place that belonged to no one. On the Cross, He was naked and completely despoiled of all of His possessions.
  • On both of them, Our Lord was in a state of humiliation. In the manger, He was a tiny, helpless child, born in extremely humble circumstances. On the Cross, He was being executed as a criminal in full view of hundreds of people.
• The Creche and the Cross are the two defining moments of Our Lord’s life; they are the two symbols that He chose to represent His life.
• We know that Our Lord chose the life that He would live, we know that He lived the most perfect life, and we know that His life is the model for our lives.
• This is why being a Catholic and living a Catholic life is always a great challenge, in every age. It is difficult to imitate Our Lord, because it is difficult to embrace poverty, humiliation and suffering.
• This is why Our Lord’s life has always been a scandal to the world. One of the many reasons why the world has always rejected Our Lord is that it does not want to be called to the excellence of Our Lord’s life. It finds His life far too demanding, far too difficult.
• As such, the world has always defined for its followers a different path. In place of poverty and humility, the world presents another “virtue” for everyone to practice. It is the “virtue” of mediocrity.

#catholic #sspx #advent

• There are two comings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the first at Christmas and the second at the Last Judgment.
• St. Paul speaks of the Last Judgment today when he says: “pass no judgment before the time, until the Lord comes, Who will both bring to light the things hidden in darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts.”
• We know this is one of the characteristics of the Last Judgment: everything will be revealed.
• But this is also one of the characteristics of the First Coming of Our Lord: His first coming brought to light many things that were hidden before.
• Recall what the old man Simeon said in prophecy to Our Lady, in the very same chapter as today’s Gospel, when He says that Our Lord will be a light of revelation to the Gentiles.
• The first chapter of St. John’s Gospel, which we read at the end of every Mass, also speaks of Our Lord as the light in His first coming, saying that He is “the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world”.
• And in this time of Advent, the Church quotes for us this prophetical passage from Isaias: “The people that sat in darkness, hath seen great light: and to them that sat in the region of the shadow of death, light is sprung up” (Is. 9:2). St. Matthew tells us that this prophecy was fulfilled by the preaching of Our Lord.
• The light that Our Lord brought to the world with His first Coming is very great:
  • He showed us clearly what our purpose is, what we are made for.
  • He taught us the moral law in a much clearer way than the Old Testament did. Recall the Sermon on the Mount, which shines a new light on the Ten Commandments. By doing this, He gave us a much clearer idea of what is good and what is evil, what is sinful and what is not.
  • Our Lord showed us clearly the meaning of suffering and how the Cross is a valuable part of our life, if we bear it with humility and resignation.
  • Our Lord showed us clearly the way that we must live our lives, if we are to fulfill our God-given purpose.
  • Our Lord gave us the fullness of revelation, all of the supernatural truths that we need to know in order to unite ourselves with God.
• St. John says of Our Lord that “His life was the light of men”. His life and His teaching changed the course of the world simply because Our Lord brought a light into this world that it had never seen before and which can never be exceeded.
• But, as you know, the reaction to this light was very different on the part of those who received it in Our Lord’s lifetime.
• When you are in a dark room for some time and then you go outside, the light is too bright for your eyes. There are three things that you can do:
  • Go back inside and return to the darkness.
  • Close your eyes to the light and try to walk in a state of blindness.
  • Allow your eyes to hurt for a little while until they are able to adjust to the brightness.
• These represent the three types of reactions to Our Lord’s light both in His time and ours.