Sermons on The Sacrament:

How Do You Clean A Heart Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Mar 15, 2017

If the house, once cleaned of this demon, is not filled with goodness, the evil spirit will return with seven more vices and perversions and make our souls even worse, our souls and families even sicker.

Third Sunday of Lent 2017 Extraordinary Form Today we find Christ, speaking through the Church’s liturgical texts, teaching us about the birds and the bees. I say the birds because the Communion verse tells us that the sparrow has found a home and the turtle dove a nest to lay her young near the ...read more

Scripture: Ephesians 5:1-14

Denomination: Catholic

Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit As Applied To Prayer

Contributed by Paul Andrew on Oct 23, 2017

Poverty of soul is a way of entering in prayer, especially at the outset of when we begin to pray.

Poverty of soul is a way of entering in prayer, especially at the outset. Poverty of soul cannot be sought as an item of self-knowledge. It retains always an unknown, elusive quality. It cannot be simply a thought of our unworthiness before God. Much less can it be a mood of despondency about ...read more

Denomination: Catholic

The End And The Reward Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Nov 12, 2016

Paul is not focusing on sinful behavior we should avoid, but on exemplary behavior we should practice.

24th or Last Sunday of the Year 2016 Extraordinary Form The five hundred year period since the end of the Renaissance has been marked by two events we Catholics can realistically call religious catastrophes. The first, of course, was the Protestant revolution most agree was begun by Martin Luther ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 24:15-35

Denomination: Catholic

How Much Must We Do? Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Dec 30, 2016

It’s ironic that when dealing with these positive commandments, we don’t ever come to a point when we can say, “I have fulfilled them.”

Thursday before Epiphany 2017 Joy of the Gospel St. John teaches us today in both Epistle and Gospel: “By this we know love, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet ...read more

Scripture: 1 John 3:11-21

Denomination: Catholic

Sharing The Father's Embrace In Preaching Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jul 26, 2015

The two sources of the scribe versed in the kingdom of God are Moses and Jesus

Thursday of 17th week in course 2015 Joy of the Gospel “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” We need to see the revolutionary idea in this short and familiar quotation of Jesus. ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 13:47-53

Denomination: Catholic

Apostolic Succession, Persecution, And Joy Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on May 24, 2014

Thanks to the Church's magisterium, we know what Jesus taught, and we can rejoice, even amid persecution.

Thursday of the 6th Week of Easter EF: Ascension Day; OF: Easter Weekday Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us one of those rare and precious bits of information that helps us to date the journeys of Paul and his letters. And it does so in one of the most important of his ...read more

Scripture: John 16:16-20

Denomination: Catholic

God Does Want Humans To Be One In Mind And Heart Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jun 13, 2014

Faith gives us a heightened respect for nature so that we "discern in it a grammar written by the hand of God." God's Fatherhood makes it possible for us to live together with one heart and one will.

Thursday of the 11th Week in Course 2014 Lumen Fidei Where did we get the idea that God is our Father? Surely the definitive statement of God’s fatherhood is in this prayer we learned from Jesus, the Son. Still, we didn’t fully know what a father is until Jesus came and established ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 6:7-15

Denomination: Catholic

Evangelization--Sacred Vs Secular Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jan 31, 2015

The pope encourages us to understand that non-Western cultures are suspicious of Christian evangelization because they confuse it with the spread of secularism and the culture of death.

Thursday of the 4th Week in Course 2015 Light of the Gospel St. Mark’s Gospel is rarely verbose. He always tells the story of Jesus using an economy of words, perhaps because the Church of Rome was too poor to supply him much in the way of writing supplies, or because it was often ...read more

Scripture: Mark 6:7-13

Denomination: Catholic

Faith: Touching And Being Touched By Jesus

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jan 18, 2014

"the light of love is born when our hearts are touched and we open ourselves to the interior presence of the beloved"

Thursday of 2nd Week in Ordinary Time 2014 Lumen Fidei King Saul of Israel exhibited what we might call paranoid schizophrenic tendencies. He had an on-off relationship with his son, Jonathan, and the same kind of relationship, but even more intense, with the man he considered his main rival, ...read more

Scripture: Mark 3:7-12

Denomination: Catholic

Seeing The Plan And Hearing The Word

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jan 25, 2014

Like Augustine, we must integrate into our lives the need to see God's vision and to hear God's call.

Thursday of 3rd Week in Course 2014 Lumen Fidei The vision of God is always broader and deeper than any plan of a human. King David was in a really good mind when he wrote this prayer of thanksgiving to God. Remember that Saul, his predecessor, had wanted a dynasty, but he turned against ...read more

Scripture: 2 Samuel 7:18-29

Denomination: Catholic

Our Face Set Toward Jerusalem Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Sep 28, 2019

Athanasius taught that God became human so that humans could be made divine. But even the baptized struggle with the profound negative impacts of original sins in our physical, emotional and spiritual lives.

Tuesday of the 26th Week in Course 2019 St. Therese of Liseaux The connection between our two Scripture readings today is stark. The prophet Zechariah, writing a couple of hundred years before Christ, is in a society dominated by Hellenist culture, polytheism and utter contempt for Biblical faith ...read more

Scripture: Luke 9:51-56, Zechariah 8:21-23

Denomination: Catholic

The Sermon On The Plain

Contributed by Christopher Holdsworth on Oct 26, 2019

Blessings and woes in the Gospel, and demonstrating Love under persecution.

THE SERMON ON THE PLAIN. Luke 6:20-31. The Sermon on the Plain is directed towards those who ‘came to hear’ Jesus (Luke 6:17). It was ‘toward His disciples’ that Jesus first lifted up His eyes (Luke 6:20). These are words for those already committed to building upon the rock (Luke 6:47-48). ...read more

Scripture: Luke 6:20-31

Denomination: Evangelical/Non-Denominational

Advent 2c-- Make Straight His Paths Series

Contributed by Paul Andrew on Nov 1, 2018

What needs straightening out in my life? How can I help ease the path of others?

Father Joseph Donders who lives in Washington DC tells an interesting story about going to the airport to pick up a friend who was coming to visit him from Africa. It was a cold, winter day and all the trees were bare except for a few firs and pines. This was the first time his friend ever left ...read more

Scripture: Luke 3:1-6

Denomination: Catholic

Canonized Or Not, All Are Called To Be Saints Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Sep 7, 2019

The slavery to sin that we all labor under for some part of our lives is destroyed by the infinite loving power of Christ.

Tuesday of 23rd week in course 2019 St. Agnes Tsao-Kou Ying We don’t become disciples of Jesus Christ on our own volition. We must be called to follow Christ. Some teachers have misunderstood this to mean that some are called and others are not called, and therefore are damned to perdition by ...read more

Scripture: Colossians 2:6-15, Luke 6:12-19

Denomination: Catholic

Blessings And Woes In The Gospel

Contributed by Christopher Holdsworth on Jan 20, 2019

Jesus pronounces His followers Blessed, and pronounces woes against those who are taking their ease in this world.

BLESSINGS AND WOES IN THE GOSPEL. Luke 6:17-26. The context here teaches us that Jesus had spent a whole night alone on the mountain praying to God (Luke 6:12); then He called His disciples to draw near and from them He chose His twelve Apostles (Luke 6:13). Jesus came down with them all and ...read more

Scripture: Luke 6:17-26

Denomination: Evangelical/Non-Denominational