All Souls Day and Its Indulgences

Homily was about All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and indulgences.

Here's the criteria for the indulgences:

The 3 constants for all indulgences:

1) Prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father (usually an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be)

2) Receive the Holy Eucharist.*

3) Make a good Confession. A Confession made up to a week before or a week after the 4th item applies.


And then there is the 4th criteria, which changes with each indulgence. The two I mentioned today as being connected to All Souls Day and Allhallowstide (the octave of All Saints, i.e. the First through the Eighth) are:

For Nov. 2nd only: A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, may be obtained by those who, on All Souls Day, piously visit a church, public oratory, or (for those entitled to use it) a semi-public oratory. On visiting the church or oratory it is required that one Our Father and the Creed be recited for the dead.

For Nov. 1st-8th: Visit to a Cemetery. Applicable only to the souls in Purgatory when one devoutly visits and prays for the departed. A plenary indulgence is bestowed for this work each day between November 1 and November 8, inclusive.

* Note: Holy Communion follows the same "week before or after" rule that applies to Confession, except, if a person is seeking indulgences on multiple days, while they don't need multiple Confessions, they do need separate Communions. So if a person went to Confession on November 5th and visited cemeteries on Nov. 1st, 2nd, and 7th, they do need 3 Holy Communions (and prayers for the Holy Father, but those usually go with the "work"). As best as I can tell, the Communions don't have to be on the same days as the works, but probably follow the "week before or after" rule. But I don't think a separate Communion is called for if a person both visits a cemetery and a church on Nov. 2nd.

Recovering The Saints

In the rearranging of the Roman Missal and Calendar after Vatican II, a new emphasis was placed on Sunday Mass being about the Paschal Mystery and the Scriptures, which is great but it means we rarely get Sunday homilies about saints, traditions, or pious devotions. So today I discussed that trajectory, the benefit of the saints, and about three of the most important ones: Augustine of Hippo, Francis of Assisi, Thérèse of Lisieux. 

The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is Scarier than We Think

This parable, told shortly after the parable of the Dishonest Steward, is more threatening to our easy lives than we thought. That other parable was about a conniving, cheating criminal, but if we look closely, we'll note that the Rich Man is not described as dishonest, defrauding, or even a lazy heir to all he had. In other words, his being separated from Lazarus and Abraham cannot be assumed to be from criminality. It may just have been his indifference and his willingness to help out even the single closest person in need. And that scares the crap out of me.  

Today's homily for the 26th Sunday here. 

(If you would like to read more on the Church Fathers on social concern, see Part Three of this old homily; sources included.)

The Triumph of Christians Can Only Be The Triumph of the Cross

Left, Right, Center, or None-of-the-Above, if any individual Christian wants to win, or any Christian nation or church wants to succeed, it will only ever be possible by triumphing in, through, and formed by the humility and weakness of Jesus' crucifixion.

Today's homily

Faith, or Faithfulness, or Both?

This homily is from last weekend, Aug. 24th, the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. It was about some key words in the shortest of all psalms, Ps. 117, and it connects somewhat on the previous week's homily on Hebrews 12, Hadestown, and Orpheus & Eurydice. The key question is whether a faulty set of connotations has been attached to the words faith/fides/pistis/emeth, and that has led to an unnecessary fight in Western Christianity.

August 24th homily

Hadestown and Hebrews, Ch.12

Homilies are funny. Saturday night is always me at my most frenetic self: talking fast, maybe "playing to crowd" more, testing the waters, but not always smooth or complete. I'll go back and listen to those and change, clean up, expound, or edit stuff out. Last night's version of this reflection on Orpheus and Eurydice being succeeded and healed by Jesus, the pioneer and completer of our faith, was 16.5 min. Amazingly, after cutting out several pieces, but also clarifying and probably pacing myself more with a fuller, written-out script, the 8am was a whopping 22 minutes and I had even hurried through the end because it was taking so long. (No, I will not share that one. It stunk.) So, knowing that pacing and explaining was ballooning the time, I tried to cut some more and also weight things better for speed. 10am came in at 21.5 minutes; not short, but it balanced not rushing the last part (the Jesus part!) and making more space. Anyway, I'm posting the first and the third here:

First Try

Last Chance

Ten Homilies, Because I'm ADHD and Messy.

Welp. I don't love preaching, and I don't love going back later to figure out which of three imperfect tries is the one, and once I stall out on that and decide I'll just post two next week, and then when the next week goes the same then I can repeat the can kicking process.

But eventually that has to end. And so here, whether it's the best take or not, here's everything May 24-August 15 (Assumption Holy Day). Some are coverages at other parishes, and so are actually repeats of things done here in Beatrice. 

No commentary, not much care in selecting or cleaning. But I know I've got some friends who put them on to get their kids (or themselves to sleep) so I needed to just have something out there. Here's the dump.

6th Sunday of Easter

Ascension Thursday

7th Sunday of Easter

Pentecost

Trinity Sunday

Weekday homily at Carmelites in L.A.

Peter and Paul

15th Sun. C: Good Samaritan

16th Sun., C: Martha and Mary

Assumption