The Dogmas of Christmas

Christmas Conference 2024
In a moment in time the Word assumed a human nature and from then on, He was completely God and completely man and will be so for all eternity.  This feast of Christmas also includes the doctrine of the Virgin Birth.  The Blessed Mother was virgin before, during, and after the birth of Christ.  This miracle foreshadowed the Resurrection, in which Christ passed through His tomb while leaving it shut.

The reason why the Son became man was first to honor His Father, and only secondarily for the salvation of mankind.  All things were made as an expression of His goodness, and all mankind was made for God first.  God became a Father in a new way on Christmas, because it was only then that He became Father in the flesh.  Our Lord came to dwell forever in our hearts as the King of Peace.  This is a feast of hope which offers a foretaste of the final victory at the end of time.  The three Masses of Christmas focus, first on the eternal birth of the Son from the Father, then the birth of the Word in the Flesh, and finally the birth of the Word in men’s hearts.  Christ appeared as a helpless child, and all are drawn to the innocence and purity of an infant.  It teaches each one of us to become like little children so we might enter the kingdom of Heaven.
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The Best Gift for His Mother

First Friday, December 2024
Conference on Grace and The Immaculate ConceptionWhen we speak of perfect passive conception, we refer to the moment in which the product of active conception is infused with a soul and becomes a human person.  From this moment of perfect passive conception, the Virgin Mary was redeemed in a preservative, not a liberative, manner.  The Blessed Mother from this point possessed a greater union with God than all the angels and saints.  Our Lady was not only free from the guilt of Original Sin, but also the concupiscence of the flesh, of the eyes, and the pride of life.  By a divine ligature, she was unable to consent to even the slightest imperfections.

Sanctifying Grace is a created share in the supernatural life of God.  When God breathed human life into Adam, He breathed a share of divine life into him as well.  Grace must be valued above all things.  We must be willing to live and die to preserve it.  The Blessed Mother was given the plenitude of grace in preparation for her role as the Mother of God, as well as Mother to each one of us.
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Our Spiritual Resolutions

1st Sunday of Advent 2024
Today is New Year’s Day in the Church, and we are reminded by the violet color at the beginning of the liturgical year to do penance for our sins.  We have a lot of work to do this Advent to prepare for the coming of Our Lord into our souls.  This is the time to make spiritual New Year’s resolutions.  If we wish to obtain our heavenly reward, we must perform the spiritual and corporal works of mercy and maintain purity of body and soul through prayer and mortification.  The Son of God honored our flesh when He took to Himself a human nature.  In following the purpose of this Advent season, let us “put aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light!”
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We Must Answer to God

26th Sunday after Pentecost 2024
In this Epistle St. Paul encourages the Thessalonians, who were enduring persecution for the Faith, instructing them to persevere in their struggle.  The parables in the Gospel similarly encourage Christ’s followers by explaining the external growth of the Church as well as our internal growth in sanctity.  God’s ways are not ours; His way is irresistible.  We should be encouraged by the words of this Gospel and never forget the favors God has sent us.  Our battle is with principalities and powers, and it is easy to be fooled by the sophistries of a pagan society – a society which constantly makes excuses for the murder of the unborn.  Each of us, even the great and powerful, will have to make an answer to God for the choices of his life.
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True Mercy and Forgiveness

25th Sunday after Pentecost 2024
We live in a time when the weeds spoken of in the Gospel are found among the members of the Church’s hierarchy – those called to be the wheat.  Catholics frequently ask for God’s mercy, but it is only when we practice this virtue ourselves that Our Lord will dispense His mercy.  Every act of forgiveness comes from the Heart of Jesus Christ, because we are incapable of forgiving without His help.  Those in the state of grace participate in the life of Heaven; and they begin to live and love like God.  The spiritual life is like swimming against a river, if we are not making constant progress, we are being carried down the river.  Let us never give up the fight, strengthened by God through prayer.
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Our Belief In Purgatory

All Souls Day 2024 – Evening
The Vestment for tonight’s Mass displays a cross intertwined with the branches of a weeping willow, reminding us to weep for those souls who have not reached their heavenly reward.  Because of its implicit denial of the general resurrection of the dead, the practice of cremation was so condemned by the Church that it incurred the penalty of excommunication.  We see how ancient the practice of praying for the dead is from the account of the Machabees.  To say that everyone goes to Heaven directly contradicts the words of Christ, the Scriptures, Tradition, and reason.  The souls in Purgatory are so close to their eternal end, and we must do what we can to speed their journey.
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Your Steps To Sanctity

All Saints Day 2024
This feast has a twofold purpose: firstly, to give honor to all the saints, especially those unknown saints in Heaven; and secondly, to remind us of our ultimate goal.  We are given great encouragement to follow their example in the pursuit of holiness, knowing that if they could achieve sanctity in this life, so can we.  Our Lord began His public teaching with His instruction on the beatitudes – the summit of Christian perfection.  Like a fruit that has not yet ripened, the practice of virtue in its early stages is hard, bitter, and distasteful, but with continual practice virtue ripens into the Fruits of the Holy Ghost, which make the service of God sweet, easy, and enjoyable.  If we steadfastly follow the example of the saints, this will be our feast as well someday.
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His Priestly Reign

Feast of Christ the King 2024
This feast was instituted in our times to combat secularism.  Those who claim that we need not proselytize, or that all religions are paths to God, are in direct contradiction of the words of our Redeemer.  The doctrine of the kingship of Christ comes from both His divinity and His humanity.  God owns us because He is our Creator and, by the union of His human and divine natures,  He became Head of the human race.  Christ is both priest and king and will continue His priestly reign until the end of time.  The Catholic youth should have one anthem echo in their hearts: “We have no King but Christ.”
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Plead For The Children!

22nd Sunday after Pentecost 2024

This Sunday is a fitting prequel to the feast of Christ the King, reminding us of all we owe Our Lord.  As we approach the end of the year we continually ask for mercy from God.  With the approach of the feast of Christ the King, we should reinvigorate ourselves in fulfilling our duties.  Parents and teachers should especially strive by both word and example to raise the youth to be virtuous members of the Church.  Good parents would save their child from physical danger, yet there are Catholic parents who do not think twice about the moral dangers to which their children are exposed.  We must plead to God that he will save our children – those under our care as well as the unborn.
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God’s Mercy For The Merciful

21st Sunday after Pentecost 2024
The Gospel for this Mass gives us hope in God’s mercy and fear of His justice.  The debt we owe God for a single sin we have committed we could never hope to repay, so when we approach Our Lord at every Mass we beg for His mercy in the Kyrie.  God is quick to offer forgiveness, and even showers us with additional gifts.  Those who squander these gifts and fall back into their evil habits, assuming God will always show mercy, are like the man in the Gospel who warranted the wrath of his king.  Those Catholics who refuse to forgive the offenses they receive from their neighbor will be condemned as wicked servants, exemplifying the words of St. James, “Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy.”
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