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NEW YORK — To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Priests for Life and to highlight its core mission of empowering clergy to be passionate advocates for the unborn, Father Frank Pavone, National Director, has released today his newest book, Proclaiming the Message of Life: Weekly Reflections from the Lectionary (Servant Books, 2016) The book guides clergy –and laity – through the pro-life themes found in the readings of every Sunday of all three liturgical years. Proclaiming the Message of Life provides an overview of the Scriptural, doctrinal and liturgical bases for preaching the pro-life message, presents homily...

Pope Benedict XV . . . Poor Preaching Responsible For Fall Back Into Paganism February 12, 2014 Frontpage No Comments By PAUL LIKOUDISThe horror of World War I, preoccupied with massive humanitarian projects on behalf of widows, orphans, and prisoners of war, engaged in intense diplomatic initiatives to defend the rights of the Church in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Pope Benedict XV issued an encyclical Humani Generis Redemptionem on June 15, 1917, which blamed ineffective preaching by priests for the decline in morals and civilization’s backsliding into paganism. Pope Benedict reminded bishops that their foremost duty is...

When was the last time you heard an archbishop discuss preaching this way: Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas has urged Catholic priests to always prepare and think carefully about the content of their homilies, saying delivering “boring” sermons is unjust to God and the churchgoers. deliver better quality preaching. These included, he said, their failure to prepare for the liturgy. Drawing from his own experience, Villegas attributed his long and winding homilies to his failure to “know my people well.” “In other words, I was speaking about hunger when I did not feel the hunger myself. I was speaking about death,...

Archbishop Charles Chaput, currently of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, sees some things a bit differently than I do at times (such as amnesty for illegal immigrants), but I believe he is a sincere, honest, honorable, holy Bishop, and I respect him immensely, and always try to pay attention to what he has to say or write. (He reminds me a little of David going up against Goliath in his new assignment in Philadelphia, with all the problems they've had there!) With that in mind, I wanted to share a link with "ROKU Streaming TV" users, where you can add the...

The Vatican newspaper reported Tuesday that 29 previously unpublished homilies said to be the work of one of the most important and prolific early church fathers have been discovered in a German library. The 3rd Century theologian Origen of Alexandria is considered to have played a critical role in the development of Christian thought. Pope Benedict XVI, himself a theologian, dedicated two of his 2007 weekly church teaching sessions to the importance of Origen's life and work. Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said that despite Origen's importance, few of his original texts remain in part because he was condemned by the...

[OK, here's one more post for Holy Week. It's a Palm Sunday homily from last year.] We all, IÂ’m sure, look forward to Holy Week with a certain degree of anticipation: we are about to relive drama of salvation, to celebrate the holy events which achieved our redemption and made the forgiveness of our sins possible. Liturgically, we look forward to the whole cycle of the Holy Week services, with all of their rich and profoundly moving symbolism, all culminating in the feast of feasts, the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ. The week, as we...

Divine Mercy Sunday Year A- Death of Pope John Paul II (2005) Today, if Jesus would stand before us, he would say, “Be not be Afraid”, “Peace be with You!” Today, the Church, and the world mourns, the loss of Pope John Paul II, who died yesterday. One of the greatest popes, in the history of the Church, he passed into eternal life. And now, we feel abandoned. For us, now is a time of great sadness, but also a time, to celebrate God’s gift of mercy, on this feast of Divine Mercy, given to us, by this future saint:...

May the Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament be praised adored and loved with grateful affection at every moment in all the tabernacles of the world unto the end of time! Today, Holy Mother Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the 1600’s, Our Blessed Lord appeared to St. Margaret Mary revealing His Sacred Heart and requesting the establishment of the Feast, the Friday after Corpus Christi, in order to make reparation for sins, which offend His Sacred Heart. In the first reading, Moses told the people, “the Lord set His heart on you...

Monday September 12, 2005 Most Holy Name of Mary Reading (1 Timothy 2:1-8) Gospel (St. Luke 7:1-10) In the first reading today, Saint Paul tells Timothy that there is only one mediator between God and men, and that is the man Jesus Christ. The reason why Jesus is the sole mediator between God and us is because He alone is both God and man. He is fully God and He is fully man, consequently, He has one foot in each camp, if you want to think of it that way. The mediator is the go-between, the one who can operate...

Thursday July 26, 2001 Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading (Sirach 44:1, 10-15) Gospel (St. Matthew 13:16-17) As we celebrate today the feast of Saints Joachim and Ann, we see the critical importance of the role of parents because these are the people that God raised up to bring Our Lady into the world, to raise her, to teach her, and to prepare her soul so that she would be able to be the Mother of God. They did not know, when they were raising her, that she was going to be the mother of the Messiah; yet, at the...

Wednesday September 15, 2004 Our Lady of Sorrows Reading (Hebrews 5:7-9) Gospel (St. Luke 2:33-35) Today as we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, it comes the day after the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. Even though we know that Our Lord has triumphed victoriously through His Cross and Resurrection, nonetheless, the pain and the anguish in which Our Lady would have been suffering as she stood at the foot of the Cross is certainly recognized and celebrated. It is celebrated for a very particular reason, first of all, because she became our mother at the...

Friday September 14, 2001 Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time Reading I (Numbers 21:4b-9) Reading II (Philippians 2:6-11) Gospel (St. John 3:13-17) Today, as we celebrate this feast of the Triumph of the Cross, Our Lord reminds us that the very purpose for which He came into the world was to save the world. And there is only one means by which the world is going to be saved: that is, the Cross of Jesus Christ. The Cross stands as the center point of all world history. When we consider the Cross, Saint Paul reminds us that we are to glory...

Conceived Without Sin Saturday September 8, 2001 Birth of the Virgin Mary Reading (Romans 8:28-30) Gospel (St. Matthew 1:1-23) This homily was given at a Poor Clare Monastery in Central Minnesota Today we celebrate a most beautiful feast: the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Church's calendar there are only three times in the year that we celebrate anyone's birthday; that is, the three people that were born without original sin: Jesus Himself, Saint John the Baptist, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jesus, of course, is God, so He had no sin. Saint John the...

Wednesday August 29, 2001 Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time Reading (Jeremiah 1:17-19) Gospel (St. Mark 6:17-29) Today as we celebrate the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, it strikes us, initially, as something that most people would not want to be celebrating. Yet, we recognize that this was the greatest act of witness to Christ that John the Baptist performed. Of all the things that John did in preparing the way for the Lord this was the greatest because he was willing to give complete witness of his entire life for the Lord. As he offered himself,...

Friday July 20, 2001 Feast of Elijah Reading (1 Kings 19:1-9a, 11-14a) Gospel (St. Luke 9:28b-36) Today we celebrate the feast of the prophet Elijah. Elijah is the first of the great line of prophets. He is considered the greatest of all the prophets, even though he did not write any prophetic books like Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Jeremiah; nonetheless, he is the greatest of all the prophets. Consider Elijah and all the things he did: Three times he called down fire from heaven, on one occasion he raised up a little boy who had died, on another occasion he prayed...

Friday August 24, 2001 Feast of Saint Bartholomew Reading (Revelation 21:9b-14) Gospel (St. John 1:45-51) As we celebrate today the feast of Saint Bartholomew, we have to remember that Bartholomew, like many people in ancient times, had two names: Bartholomew and Nathanael. That is why we hear about Nathanael in the Gospel reading today because it really is the same person. At the very end of the Gospel reading today, Our Lord says of Nathanael that he is a true Israelite; that in him there is no guile. He was single-hearted; he was focused on the Lord. There is a...

Wednesday August 22, 2001 Queenship of Mary Reading (Isaiah 9:1-6) Gospel (St. Luke 1:26-38) As we celebrate today the queenship of Our Lady, we recognize also that we are in the octave day of the solemnity of the Assumption; the Church is making very clear the connection between Our Lord bringing His mother up to Heaven and now seating her right next to His own throne. This is something that is also in line with what they did in Israel. We read in Scripture, for instance, about Solomon and his own mother being seated next to the royal throne. When...

Wednesday August 15, 2001 Feast of the Assumption Reading I (Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab) Reading II (1 Corinthians 15:20-27) Gospel (St. Luke 1:39-56) Today, we celebrate the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is very different from the Ascension of Our Lord: Our Lord ascended, body and soul, into Heaven by His own power. Assumption means "by someone else's power." And so what we celebrate today is that our Lady was "taken" up to Heaven by the power of God, body and soul. She is not the first person to be taken body and soul from...

Tuesday July 3, 2001 Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading (Ephesians 2:19-22) Gospel (St. John 20:24-29) As we celebrate today this feast of Saint Thomas, we tend to equate Thomas with a doubter. We think of Thomas often in a negative way. Yet, we can think about how many people throughout history have been positively influenced by Saint Thomas because of this particular story. He was able to say, "My Lord and my God," when he saw Jesus. Many have been able to say the exact same thing. The reason why they can say it is because Thomas doubted and...

Wednesday July 4, 2001 Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading (Isaiah 57:15-19) Gospel (St. John 14:23-29) Today, as our country takes time to celebrate Independence Day we need to ask ourselves what this really means. For most Americans, we think of "independence" as meaning "I can do whatever I want. I am not dependent on anyone." Unfortunately, in the minds of many Americans these days that includes God. We think, somehow, that we are not dependent on God and that "freedom" means we do not have to follow any rules, we can make our own rules, and we can do...