Sermon Central
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Reformation
Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Sep 2, 2017 (message contributor)
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1. The Best Way To Understand Jesus's Teachings
Contributed on Jan 13, 2018
The magisterium is a two-thousand year old gift.
Thursday of 2nd Week in Course 2018 Reformation/Revolution Our first lesson from First Samuel today documents the strong friendship that Jonathan, king Saul’s son, and David enjoyed. It also tells us that Saul was jealous of David because the people saw him as a better military leader than the ...read more
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2. Epicurus And Christ
Contributed on Nov 11, 2017
Renaissance atheists ate, drank and were merry and ignored God’s teaching, because they thought of the Christian God as just another non-existent being who wanted to keep them from enjoying themselves.
Thursday of the 32nd Week in Course Reformation/Revolution The Pharisees were religious leaders in Israel at the time of Christ, and, like all pious Jews, they believed that God would send a Messiah to inaugurate the Kingdom of God. But most Jews thought that the kingdom would be brought by ...read more
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3. The Church Is Ever Being Reformed
Contributed on Sep 2, 2017
On the eve of the Protestant Revolution/reformation, there was both piety and corruption in the Church.
Thursday of the 22nd Week in Course 2017 St. Paul’s prayer for the Colossians, and for us, is simple and yet profound: “that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in ...read more
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4. Labor In God's Work
Contributed on Sep 23, 2017
Especially in difficult times, God raises up leaders to keep us on track.
Thursday of 25th Week in Course 2017 Reformation and Revolution St. Luke’s Gospel relies on information that we have from nobody else. For instance, it is fairly certain that he had a “mole” in the palace of the Herods, because we have in the Gospel and Acts stories that could only come from an ...read more
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5. No Purse, No Bag, No Sandals
Contributed on Sep 30, 2017
The reformers of every age have pointed to the words of Jesus to His first disciples: “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and salute no one on the road,” as a call to poverty.
Thursday of 26th Week in Course 2017 Reformation and Revolution The rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem, which the prophet Haggai had commanded, was accompanied by a rebuilding of Jewish identity and worship in the community of returned exiles. We must never forget that God does not act ...read more
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6. How Much More Will God Give His Holy Spirit
Contributed on Oct 7, 2017
If there is evil in our lives, God has to permit it to happen, or it wouldn’t. But God never wills evil. He only wants our good.
Thursday of 27th Week in Course 2017 Reformation/Revolution Who among us has not looked on some captain of industry or some venal politician and wondered why “evildoers not only prosper but when they put God to the test they escape.’” as the people did in Malachi’s day? Sometimes it does seem ...read more
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7. Faith And The Two Meanings Of Works
Contributed on Oct 14, 2017
Faith, above all, is a gift of God. Now it’s a gift that he pours out liberally on all humans, but it will not save our souls unless we cooperate with it.
Thursday of 28th Week in Course 2017 Reformation Revolution Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues Our readings today say the same thing in different ways. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans was really the first work of systematic theology. It positions the saving work of Our Lord in the context ...read more
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8. Five Solas And Catholic Teaching
Contributed on Oct 15, 2017
"we all know that few folks will change a closely-held opinion by arguing. No, let’s do it by service, by showing our faith in acts of unselfish love."
Thirtieth Sunday in Course 2017 Reformation or Revolution? Today’s Gospel is treasured by all Christians, and, in a perfect world, would be treasured by all humans. Our Lord challenges us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We find this law, which we can consider the core teaching of both the ...read more
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9. The Scene Is Set For Revolution And Reformation
Contributed on Oct 21, 2017
God writes straight with crooked lines, in every age.
Thursday of 29th Week in Course 2017 Reformation and Revolution Let’s imagine for a moment what happened when St. Paul and his companions came to a town in Anatolia or Greece, his two assigned missionary territories. There were probably Jews there, who met in someone’s home or maybe, if the ...read more
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10. Indulgences: Grace Or Scandal?
Contributed on Oct 28, 2017
When pious Germans dropped money in Tetzel’s collection plate, they were doing so out of love, or maybe fear, but they were intending to do good.
Thursday of 30th Week in Course All souls day We shall all die, but what then? That is perhaps the key question of human existence. As Christians, we believe that the Father did not abandon us to the effects of original sin, and He does not leave us writhing in our personal sin. Instead, He, ...read more
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11. Surrendering To God's Will
Contributed on Nov 4, 2017
If we are to be living stones in the Church built on Christ, we must have the attitude of surrender to God’s will that infused Mary and Jesus.
Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica 2017 Revolution and Reformation “Today the liturgy celebrates the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, called “mother and head of all the churches of the city and the world.” In fact, this basilica was the first to be built after Emperor Constantine’s ...read more
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12. Islam, The Church And Reformation
Contributed on Nov 20, 2017
Was Islam the "rod of God's wrath" or the foil for the great miracle of the sixteenth century?
Feast of St. Andrew 2017 Reformation/Revolution The Synoptic Gospels don’t pay a lot of attention to St. Andrew. The triad Peter, James and John is often seen–on Mt. Tabor, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in leadership and healing roles in the early days of the Church. Andrew has more ...read more
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13. Build On Rock, Not Sand
Contributed on Dec 2, 2017
" pray for our young religious and seminarians, for all of us will be judged on the basis of where we build–on the firm rock of obedience to God, or on shifting sand."
Thursday of the First Week in Lent Reformation & Revolution It is the happy decision of the Church that brings us so much of the prophet Isaiah as we celebrate the time of expectation, the time of Advent. Isaiah was a prophet of hope in a time of social and religious and political upheaval. ...read more
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14. Writing Straight With Crooked Lines
Contributed on Dec 9, 2017
In the midst of the Reformation, God weaves a tapestry of faith in the lives of weak human beings.
Thursday of the 2nd Week in Advent 2017 Reformation/Revolution When external situations are the bleakest, God acts to fulfill His promises to His people–first in the history of the Jews, and now in the age of the Church. The second and third parts of Isaiah were probably written by his ...read more
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15. The Love Song Of Christ And The Church
Contributed on Dec 16, 2017
Indeed, the deepest meaning of the Song of Songs is the celebration of the love of God, the Bridegroom, for His faithful people, seen as the dark beauty, the Bride.
Thursday of 3rd week in Advent 2017 Reformation/Revolution The beautiful Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, is on the surface a long love song, or compilation of love songs. It celebrates the love of husband and wife, the longing of one for the other, and the joy that can come from a loving and ...read more
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16. Herod, Dead Babies, And Hope
Contributed on Dec 23, 2017
There was a time in the seventies of the last century when Catholics seemed to stand alone among the Christian churches in their condemnation of abortion. Now they often stand with us outside the abortion mills and pro-choice lectures, praying.
Feast of the Holy Innocents 2017 Reformation/Revolution I don’t think it is possible to read or hear the account of the flight into Egypt and the intentional murder of an unknown number of children by Herod dispassionately. St. Matthew, writing at least forty years after these events, is ...read more
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17. Christians And Sin And Forgiveness
Contributed on Dec 30, 2017
As we image Christ more and more, so does the nature of God abide in us. Let’s strive daily to attain that blessedness, and pray for all Christians to aspire to that state.
Thursday in Christmas Season: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Reformation-Revolution John the Baptist’s witness to Jesus was like the little snowflake that hits the snowbank and causes an avalanche. “Behold the Lamb of God” was a sentence that to a Jew tuned to the prophets would evoke images of ...read more
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18. Justified By Faith And Living In Love
Contributed on Jan 6, 2018
“Luther’s expression sola fide is true if faith is not opposed to charity, to love.”
Thursday After Epiphany 2018 Reformation/Revolution The action of the Israelites and the response of the Philistines we have heard proclaimed from the first book of Samuel help us see the two primitive and wrong conceptions of the divine. For the Israelites, their God was the God of Moses who ...read more