Aug 23, 2015

Sunday Sermon, August 23 -- Receiving Communion Well, Preparation and Thanksgiving for Mass

Sermon for Sunday, August 23 -- the conclusion of the Bread of Life Discourse.

On making a good preparation before Mass and a good thanksgiving after Mass.

Listen online [here]!


Saturday, August 22 -- The Immaculate Heart of Mary and St Joseph

Sermon for the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (traditional calendar).
The human race has a heart to love the Lord, and this (Mary's own heart) was given fully to St Joseph.

2015 Eucharistic Conference, "The Eucharist: Sacrament to Be Adored" -- August 16-21

Talks given at our Eucharistic Conference from August 16 to 21. Priests came to Corpus Christi from around the USA to offer this conference with a daily Solemn High Traditional Latin Mass followed by a talk on the Eucharist and closing with benediction.

Sunday Sermon, August 16 -- On Unworthy Communions

The great sacrilege of an unworthy communion.

Listen online [here]!



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St. Cyril of Jerusalem said: "They who make a sacrilegious Communion receive Satan and Jesus Christ into their hearts - Satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ, that they may offer Him in sacrifice as a Victim to Satan."

The Lord said to St. Bridget, "there does not exist on earth a punishment which is great enough to punish it sufficiently!"

The Council of Trent: “For fear lest so great a sacrament may be received unworthily, and so unto death and condemnation, this holy Synod ordains and declares, that sacramental confession, when a confessor may be had, is of necessity to be made beforehand, by those whose conscience is burdened with mortal sin, how contrite even soever they may think themselves. But if any one shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or even in public disputation to defend the contrary, he shall be thereupon excommunicated.”

US Bishops, 2006: “If we are no longer in the state of grace because of mortal sin, we are seriously obliged to refrain from receiving Holy Communion until we are reconciled with God and the Church. While we remain members of the body of Christ and continue to be part of the Catholic Church, we have become lifeless or dead members. We no longer share in the common bond of the divine life of the Holy Spirit. Because our sin has separated us from God and from our brothers and sisters in Christ, we have forfeited our right to receive Holy Communion, for the Eucharist, by its very nature, expresses and nurtures this lifegiving unity that the sinner has now lost.”

Examples of mortal sins, given by USCCB:
• Believing in or honoring as divine anyone or anything other than the God of the Holy
Scriptures
• Swearing a false oath while invoking God as a witness
• Failing to worship God by missing Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation
without a serious reason, such as sickness or the absence of a priest
• Acting in serious disobedience against proper authority; dishonoring one’s parents by
neglecting them in their need and infirmity
• Committing murder, including abortion and euthanasia; harboring deliberate hatred of others; sexual abuse of another, especially of a minor or vulnerable adult; physical or
verbal abuse of others that causes grave physical or psychological harm
• Engaging in sexual activity outside the bonds of a valid marriage
• Stealing in a gravely injurious way, such as robbery, burglary, serious fraud, or other
immoral business practices
• Speaking maliciously or slandering people in a way that seriously undermines their
good name
• Producing, marketing, or indulging in pornography
• Engaging in envy that leads one to wish grave harm to someone else


USCCB: “If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the Church, or knowingly and obstinately to repudiate her definitive teaching on moral issues, however, he or she would seriously diminish his or her communion with the Church. Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain”

August 15, The Assumption -- Veneration of Mary's Body

Sermon for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Body and Soul into the Glories of Heaven.

Listen online [here]!


Daily Mass Sermons, August 11-14

Daily Sermons, August 11-14
St Clare, St Jane Frances de Chantal, Sts Pontain and Hippolytus, St Maximilian Kolbe


Aug 13, 2015

Sunday Sermon, August 9 -- What we mean when we say that Jesus is present in the Eucharist

Sunday Sermon of August 9 -- On what the Church really means when she teaches us that Jesus is truly and really present in the Blessed Sacrament.

To understand Jesus' presence in the Eucharist, we must know that the Church believes in transubstantiation which means that, by the power of the words of the priest, the whole substance of bread is changed into the substance of Christ's body and the whole substance of wine is changed into the substance of Christ's blood (and because the body and blood are united in heaven, the whole Christ is present under each species, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity), yet the accidental properties of bread and wine remain.

It is the substance (the underlying reality) that changes, while the accidents (the sensible and physical attributes) remain the same.
From this dogma, we can answer certain questions: Could I get sick from drinking the Precious Blood during flu season? Could a consecrated Host decay? Is Jesus present in the tabernacle in the same way he was present in Mary's womb? Is the physical body of Jesus really present in the Eucharist? Is Jesus bilocating when he is present in all the tabernacles around the world? And many more!

Listen online [here].


Aug 8, 2015

Daily Sermons, August 5-8

Homilies from daily Masses, August 5 - 8.

Our Lady of the Snows, Transfiguration, St Sixtus II, The Nativity.

Aug 5, 2015

Sunday Sermon, August 2nd -- The Miracle of the Manna and Why the Bread of Life Discourse Cannon be a Metaphor

Sermon for Sunday, August 2nd -- Bread of Life Discourse, part 2.

The manna in the desert fed over one million Jews every day for forty years. From the biblical narrative, we can estimate that roughly 300 rail train cars full of manna came to the camp each day (twice as much on Friday and non on Saturday). And yet, Jesus says that the bread his Father gives through him makes the miracle of the manna to be nothing at all in comparison. 
Could a mere symbol be a greater miracle than the manna? No. The Eucharist is greater, because the bread has changed into a man who is God. And, as God infinitely surpasses the whole universe, so too does the Eucharist infinitely surpass the manna.

Four reasons why the Bread of Life Discourse cannot be a metaphor:
1) Jesus doesn't use metaphorical language (he says, "Truly, Truly I tell you", "indeed", "true food", "true blood", etc.).
2) The people listening thought Jesus meant it literally, and our Lord doesn't correct them.
3) The metaphor "eating flesh" is used in Scripture to mean "to attack", "to persecute", "to hate", etc. Thus, it would be a bad thing to "eat Jesus' flesh" if we were to mean it metaphorically.
4) The earliest Christians never thought it was a metaphor but understood the Bread of Life Discourse in relation to the Last Supper.


Listen online [here]!