Man Does Not Live By Bread Alone: Recent Episodes
Fr. John Honiotes
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Cycle A
Cover Art: Segment of "The Last Supper" by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (date unknown).
Link to book on the Eucharist being prefigured in the Old Testament
Cycle B
Link to Cover Image taken from a 2018 "pride pirade" in San Francisco, California
Cycle B
Link to Mary Eberstadt Articles
Link to Mary Eberstadt's long essay on the emergence of identity politics as a biproduct of the deteriorating family life and religious life.
Link to Description of Cover Art
Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy), Cycle A
Link to Mass Readings
Link to Divine Mercy Image
Follow Link: Did the Resurrection Really happen?
4.9.23 Easter Sunday (The Resurrection of the Lord), Cycle ALink to Mass **Readings
Cover Art: The Resurrection by Johann Koerbecke**
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Cycle C
Link to Readings for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Cycle C
Link to Mass Readings
Link to Cover Art
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year C
Link to Mass Readings
Link to cover art
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Cycle C
Link to Mass Readings
Link to Cover Art
Pentecost Sunday Mass during the Day, Cycle C
Link to Mass Readings
Cover Art: PENTECOST. Illumination from a Flemish Breviary, c1500.
The Ascension of the Lord, Cycle C
Link to Mass Readings
Cover Art: The Ascension of Our Lord by the Novgorod School, in the Malo-Kirillov Monastery (1543).
Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Holy Thursday), Cycle ALink to Holy Thursday ReadingsLink to Cover Art: Last Supper, by Fra Angelico, 15th Century
Easter Sunday The Resurrection of the Lord, Cycle B
Link to Easter Readings
Link to Cover Art
This reflection given at St. Daniel the Prophet during their First Friday Communio's prayer/adoration/confession service on 3.4.22
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C
Link to Sunday Mass Readings
Link to Cover Art Source
Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Cycle C
Link to Mass Readings
Link to Cover Art
Second Sunday in Advent, Cycle C
Link to Archbishop José H. Gomez's (Archbishop of Los Angeles) Letter to the Congress of Catholics and Public Life
Link to Mass Readings
Link to Cover Art
Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Link to Mass Readings
The Rabbi. 1892. Jan Styka (1858-1825). Oil on canvas. Private collection.
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Link to Mass Readings
Link to Cover Art
Notes: I made a mistake with the recorder and the initial 3 minutes are missing. I think the essence of the homily is still in tact in the recording above.
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI Church of the Charterhouse of Serra San Bruno
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate,
Dear Carthusian Brothers,
Brothers and Sisters,
I thank the Lord who has brought me to this place of faith and prayer, the Charterhouse of Serra San Bruno. In renewing my grateful greeting to Archbishop Vincenzo Bertolone of Catanzaro-Squillace, I address this Carthusian Community, each one of its members, with deep affection, starting with the Prior, Fr Jacques Dupont, whom I warmly thank for his words, while I ask him to communicate my grateful thoughts and my blessing to the Minister General and to the Nuns of the Order.
I am first of all eager to stress that this Visit of mine comes in continuity with certain signs of strong communion between the Apostolic See and the Carthusian Order, which became apparent in the past century. In 1924, Pope Pius XI issued an Apostolic Constitution with which he approved the Statutes of the Order, revised in the light of the Code of Canon Law. In May 1984, Blessed John Paul II addressed a special Letter to the Minister General, on the occasion of the ninth centenary of the foundation by St Bruno of the first community at the Chartreuse [Charterhouse] near Grenoble. On 5 October that same year my beloved Predecessor came here and the memory of him walking by these walls is still vivid.
Today I come to you in the wake of these events, past but ever timely, and I would like our meeting to highlight the deep bond that exists between Peter and Bruno, between pastoral service to the Church’s unity and the contemplative vocation in the Church. Ecclesial communion, in fact, demands an inner force, that force which Father Prior has just recalled, citing the expression “captus ab Uno”, ascribed to St Bruno: “grasped by the One”, by God, “Unus potens per omnia”, as we sang in the Vespers hymn. From the contemplative community the ministry of pastors draws a spiritual sap that comes from God.
“Fugitiva relinquere et aeterna captare”: to abandon transient realities and seek to grasp that which is eternal. These words from the letter your Founder addressed to Rudolph, Provost of Rheims, contain the core of your spirituality (cf. Letter to Rudolph, n. 13): the strong desire to enter in union of life with God, abandoning everything else, everything that stands in the way of this communion, and letting oneself be grasped by the immense love of God to live this love alone.
Dear brothers you have found the hidden treasure, the pearl of great value (cf. Mt 13:44-46); you have responded radically to Jesus’ invitation: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mt 19:21). Every monastery — male or female — is an oasis in which the deep well, from which to draw “living water” to quench our deepest thirst, is constantly being dug with prayer and meditation. However, the charterhouse is a special oasis in which silence and solitude are preserved with special care, in accordance with the form of life founded by St Bruno and which has remained unchanged down the centuries. “I live in a rather faraway hermitage... with some religious brothers”, is the concise sentence that your Founder wrote (Letter to Rudolph “the Green”,
Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
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Link to Cover Art
A Vision of the Future Church
by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
(Excerpted from a talk in 1969 before he was pope)
From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity.
As the number of her adherents diminishes, so she will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more like a voluntary society, entered only by free decision.
As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession.
In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion.
Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly.
But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world.
In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.
The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right.
It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek.
The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will have to be shed.
One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution—when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain—to the renewal of the nineteenth century.
But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.
Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty.
Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times.
The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith.
She may no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.
Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Vigil, Cycle B
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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
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Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle BLink to Readings
Cover Art: “MULITPLICATION OF THE LOAVES AND FISHES” BY TRÈS RICHES HEURES (15th Cent.)
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Link to Sunday Mass Readings
Link to Cover Art: Raising of Jairus Daughter byIlya Repin, 1871
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B
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Link to Cover Artist: Christ Asleep in his Boat by Jules Joseph Meynier, (19th Century).
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Readings
Link to Cover Art: The Holy Communion and the Last Supper by Fra Angelico, 15th Century
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Cycle BLink to Readings
Link to more information on cover art: Trinity by Andrei Rublev, 1411
Pentecost Sunday Mass during the Day, Cycle B
Link to Readings For Pentecost Sunday Mass during the Day
Link to Cover Art: Russian Icon of Pentecost
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Mass Readings
Cover Art: Icon of the Ascension
Sixth Sunday in Easter, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Mass Readings
Cover Art: James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
Fifth Sunday in Easter, Cycle B
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Link to Cover Art: St. Clement in Rome Mosaic
Fourth Sunday in Easter, Cycle B
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Link to Fr. Gallagher's Book on Amazon
Link to Cover Art: Ignatius reads in bed during recovery from his injury by Peter Paul Rubens
Third Sunday in Easter, Cycle B
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Link to Cover Art: The Anastasis fresco in the parekklesion of the Chora Church, Istanbul.
Second Sunday of Easter (Sunday of Divine Mercy), Cycle B
Link to Divine Mercy Readings
Link to Divine Mercy Image with commentary
Easter Sunday The Resurrection of the Lord, Cycle B
Link to Easter Readings
Cover Art: Piero della Francesca, “Resurrection,” c.1463, fresco, 89 x 79 in, Museo Civico, Sansepolcro, Tuscany, Italy
Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Holy Thursday), Cycle ALink to Holy Thursday ReadingsLink to Cover Art:Last Supper, by Fra Angelico, 15th Century
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Cycle A
Link to Sunday Readings
Cover Art: Mary Anointing the Feet of Jesus Icon
Year B, Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Link to Readings for Annunciation of the Lord
Cover Art: The Annunciation with St Theodore Teron, 14th century
Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Readings
Link to Cover Art: Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Francesco Hayez, 1867
Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Readings
Link to Cover Art: Job Rebuked by His Friends by William Blake, 1825.
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Readings
Link to Cover Art: Jonah Preaching before Nineveh by John Martin
Link to Full Mass on YouTube
The Epiphany of the Lord, Cycle B
Link to Readings
Cover Art: Fra Angelic Adoration of the Magi, Detail from a Predella Panel, 1434
The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) - Mass During the Night, Cycle B
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Link to Cover Art: Adoration of the Christ Childby Gerard van Honthorst
Third Sunday of Advent, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Readings
Link to Cover Root of Jesse Icon
Third Sunday of Advent, Cycle B
Link to Sunday Readings
Link to Cover Art: St John the Baptist Goes into the Wilderness by Giovanni di paolo
First Sunday in Advent, Cycle B
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Link to Cover Art: Agony in the Garden, Andrea Mantegna, 15th Century
The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Cycle A
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Link to Cover Art: The Last Judgement, Michelangelo. 1536–1541.
Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Link to Sunday Readings
Unknown Cover Art
Solemnity of All Saints, Cycle A
Link to Sunday Readings
Cover Art: The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs: Inner Right Predella Panel by Fra Angelico, 1423-24.
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
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Cover Art: "Lawyer Standing Up and Tempting Jesus" by James Tissot, late 19th Century
Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
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Link to Tribute Penny on Wikipedia
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
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Cover Art: Pieter Aertsen, The Parable of the Marriage Feast. 1550-1554
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
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Cover Art: Parable Of The Tenants Of The Vineyard by Jan Luyken
Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Link to Sunday readings
Cover Art: Jesus and John the Baptist, Unknown Artist, (15th century).
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Sunday Readings
Cover Art: Parable of the Wicked Servant by Jan van Hemessen (c. 1556)
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Cover Art: Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter, Pietro Perugino, (1481–1482).
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Link to Sunday Readings
Cover Art: The Temptation in the Wilderness by Briton Riviere, (1898)
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Cycle A
Link to Sunday Readings
Cover Art: Jesus walks on the water, by Ivan Aivazovsky (1888)
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
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Cover Art: The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio, (1601)