So Far Transition Has Been Smooth

[Theologian in Training]

I hate to be a bother, but I must ask for prayers again as I was asked to preach this Sunday's Mass, and this Gospel has got to be one of the hardest I have encountered, as far as preaching goes.

I don't want to go with the typical be good otherwise you will be plucked out by the angels in the last days. I have some ideas, they just don't want to coalesce into something that I can work with.

So, if it is not too much to ask for, prayers would be much appreciated.

Thanks

God Bless

Edited July 15, 2005 by Theologian in Training

[Carrie]

Prayers!

[philothea]

Praying!

[Nicole8223]

I will pray for you....I'm glad your transition has been smooth. I'm sure you'll do fine preaching on Sunday. Take a deep breath and give it to the Lord.

[homeschoolmom]

Prayers for sure.

[Carnanc]

prayers

[Brother Adam]

We're here for ya'. You'll do great!

[Theologian in Training]

Thank you all. I pray that I may be able to come up with something soon.

BTW, Bro. Adam, you spelt captain wrong

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I like the first parable especially. You could point out why it is so important that God doesn't pluck up the weeds now, lets them grow along with the fruitful plants. This, of course, means that the righteous must bear with sinners (and consequently, the good must endure the temporal evils the weeds bring into our lives) in order to be given enough time to grow to their fullest. In other words...we have to put up with wicked people and their wickedness in order to make it. Otherwise, if they were to be rooted out now and stopped, the shock would harm us and our spiritual life. So really, it's a gospel about enduring to the end.

Of course, if you feel like fire and brimstone, you could take it from the angle of "repent, for the reaper is coming. Do not sit idly by and say, 'I will repent tomorrow and sin today,' for the reaper is coming and the only reason you have the time you do is for the sake of the righteous. Be righteous, then! Don't be proud and say, 'I will do as I wish, for God is giving me plenty of time...the time is not for the sinners, it is for the righteous. Repent!"

Of course...a good homily shows the full truth revealed in the Gospel and accentuates just right for each side to hear what they need to hear.

I love homiletics.

Prayers and God bless!

[photosynthesis]

i'm reading JP2's "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," and he wrote a lot about the verse from Romans that's going to be read next sunday. you should check it out. i'm not an expert on homiletics (i'm a woman) but when I talk to one of my favorite priests he always says stuff like "can i steal that and put it in my homily?"

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='photosynthesis' date='Jul 15 2005, 02:34 PM']i'm reading JP2's "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," and he wrote a lot about the verse from Romans that's going to be read next sunday.  you should check it out.  i'm not an expert on homiletics (i'm a woman) but when I talk to one of my favorite priests he always says stuff like "can i steal that and put it in my homily?"
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I think women can know how homiletics work...they can't give homilies, but they can know how to see meaning in scripture and how to evangelize effectively.

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Jul 15 2005, 03:38 PM']I think women can know how homiletics work...they can't give homilies, but they can know how to see meaning in scripture and how to evangelize effectively.
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can you give a homily if you're not a priest or deacon?

i don't advocate this, but there's this really liberal parish down the street from my college, and they do this thing called "critical mass" where they have a really loud rock band, and the youth minister gives the homily. and obviously you don't have to be male to be a youth minister. it seemed pretty suspicious, since I thought only priests and deacons can give homilies.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='photosynthesis' date='Jul 15 2005, 02:42 PM']can you give a homily if you're not a priest or deacon?

i don't advocate this, but there's this really liberal parish down the street from my college, and they do this thing called "critical mass" where they have a really loud rock band, and the youth minister gives the homily.  and obviously you don't have to be male to be a youth minister.  it seemed pretty suspicious, since I thought only priests and deacons can give homilies.
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No, you can't, but I mean...you can understand the gospel and still evangelize effectively, just not from the pulpit.

I do not in any way advocate lay homilies. They're forbidden. Report the abuse to the bishop.

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='photosynthesis' date='Jul 15 2005, 03:42 PM']can you give a homily if you're not a priest or deacon?

i don't advocate this, but there's this really liberal parish down the street from my college, and they do this thing called "critical mass" where they have a really loud rock band, and the youth minister gives the homily.  and obviously you don't have to be male to be a youth minister.  it seemed pretty suspicious, since I thought only priests and deacons can give homilies.
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No, besides it is not even considered a homily, because a homily is only that which is done by one who had been validly (have to add that now too) ordained.

I will definitely check the book out that you are talking about, but I am still trying to focus on the one for this week.

Thank you all for your support and prayers.

God Bless

[Theologian in Training]

God has definitely blessed me with better, but for some odd reason, this is what I came up with.

God Bless

Today Jesus continues, by the means of parables, to explain to us what prayer is and how we must go about in maintaining an ongoing prayer life throughout our lives. Last week, as you recall, the problem was in finding fertile soil on which to let the seed sprout, that is, the seed of faith. Today, the problem is no longer the soil, but the seed itself. For, unbeknownst to the man who sowed the seed, an enemy came in and planted weeds along with the seed.

Jesus is teaching us a very important lesson: even if we successfully plant our seed in the soil of our souls, to grow and flourish, the weeds are always right next to us, to remind us that we were not fully responsible for their growth, and that even the most fertile soil can be flawed. For, while the seed sprouts into the finest wheat, the weeds grow near that wheat, possibly choking some of it, because the weeds are our sins, and that sin always reminds us that though we strive for holiness, we are by no means saints. Without the weeds we might be tempted to falsely believe that it is by our own merits and strength that our prayers are effective. Yet, it is the result of those weeds that we know this not to be true. In fact, every Friday morning, in the Liturgy of the Hours, the prayer of the Church, clergy and laypersons alike will pray Psalm 51, where they echo with the Psalmist: “My offenses, truly I know them; my sin is always before me.” A constant reminder that the growth of our spiritual life, that sprouting seed, coexists with our own offenses, our own sins.

A humbling thought, to be sure, and one we should be mindful of every time we kneel before the altar in prayer. Yet, oftentimes, we forget this, myself included, and then our prayer becomes empty and lifeless and what used to bear fruit becomes burdensome and painful. Sometimes so much so that prayer becomes more something we do for ourselves rather than what it truly should be, that is, a sacrificial act impelled by the Spirit. St. Josemaria Escriva said: “Action is worth nothing without prayer: prayer grows in value with sacrifice.” In other words, when we pray we should be making some kind of sacrifice, be it time, sleep, or doing something else we might deem more pleasurable.

I remember a while back I took a class in diocesan spirituality and the priest that was teaching it said something very helpful. He said when you attach someone to the prayers you pray, they become sacrificial, and you become like Christ, offering yourself for another. In fact, I often find that offering prayers for others is also helpful to my own prayer life, because I then become a minister in the true sense of the word.

I remember in my second year of my first semester I was assigned as a hospice worker, helping an elderly woman diagnosed with cancer, in her last days. I made it a point to pray for her everyday, sometimes three or four times a day, and I can tell you not only did it give life to my prayer, but enabled me to minister to her while unable to be physically present with her.

Sometimes also it can occur that when we pray it may seem to take everything out of us, and yet, believe it or not, it is then when our prayer is the most powerful and the most effective, because when we pray in this way, we pray from our poverty, offering true sacrifice, and from the poverty of our own spirit, we offer prayers for those that need it even more. Remember the one who was repaid more was the woman who gave her almsgiving from what she did not have, not those that had, and gave what they wanted.

So too with prayer, when we pray from our poverty we pray from the little bit we have. Our heart is empty, our body weak and racked with pain, and our understanding shallow and distracted, and yet when we pray through all of that, we realize that we are no longer praying, but it is the Holy Spirit filling us and teaching us how to pray, for, as our second reading reminds us: "we do not know how to pray as we ought."

Therefore, our greatest prayer then is not even ours.

Edited July 15, 2005 by Theologian in Training