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July 7 2020 Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 8:4-7, 11-13 Thus says the LORD: They made kings in Israel, but not by my authority; they established princes, but without my approval. With their silver and gold they made idols for themselves, to their own destruction. Cast away your calf, O Samaria! my wrath is kindled against them; How long will they be unable to attain innocence in Israel? The work of an artisan, no god at all, Destined for the flames— such is the calf of Samaria!When they sow the wind, they shall...

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope A Warning From The Prophet Amos Explains a Lot of Our Current Decline Continuing this small series on the decline of culture, a word from the Prophet Amos in today’s reading (Thursday of the 13th week of the year) paints a brief picture of what happens when we a nation demand that the Word of God be banished from it hearing. The picture is not complete and may need a bit of adjustment to fit our times but the basic parameters are clear. Let’s look at an excerpt...

July 6 2020 Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Hos 2:16, 17c-18, 21-22 Thus says the LORD: I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt.On that day, says the LORD, She shall call me “My husband,” and never again “My baal.”I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity,...

Posted on July 4, 2020 Stop Yoking Around – A Homily for the 14th Sunday of the Year We in the West live in a place and at a time in which almost every burden of manual labor has been eliminated. Not only that, but creature comforts abound. Everything from air conditioning to hair conditioning, from fast food to high speed internet, from to indoor plumbing to outdoor grilling, from instant computer downloads to instant coffee machines. You don’t even have write letters anymore, just press send and a text or email is delivered nearly instantaneously. Yet despite all...

July 5, 2020 Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Zec 9:9-10 Thus says the LORD: Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass. He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; the warrior’s bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. Responsorial Psalm...

Posted on July 1, 2020July 2, 2020 Right Fear, Wrong Fear The readings from Tuesday (13th week of the year speak about the right and wrong kinds of fear. The wrong kind of fear is illustrated in the Gospel reading:As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up,...

July 4 2020 Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Am 9:11-15 Thus says the LORD: On that day I will raise up the fallen hut of David; I will wall up its breaches, raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, That they may conquer what is left of Edom and all the nations that shall bear my name, say I, the LORD, who will do this. Yes, days are coming, says the LORD, When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the vintager, him who sows the seed; The...

July 3 2020 Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle Reading 1 Eph 2:19-22 Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Responsorial Psalm 117:1bc, 2 R. (Mark 16:15) Go out to all...

July 2 2020 Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1Am 7:10-17 Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent word to Jeroboam, king of Israel: “Amos has conspired against you here within Israel; the country cannot endure all his words. For this is what Amos says: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be exiled from its land.”To Amos, Amaziah said: “Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah! There earn your bread by prophesying, but never again prophesy in Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.” Amos answered...

Posted on June 30, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope Of Hunger and Hallucinations – How the Stages of Starvation Describe the Decaying West This is the third in a series of articles on the decline of the West. Given the exceptionally poor condition of whatever is left of Western Culture and Christendom, it may help us in this article to gain some perspective of what is going on from the stages of starvation.Physical hunger is a serious problem; We are obliged to assist the starving and malnourished. But even more prevalent these days is spiritual hunger, if not outright...

July 1 2020 Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Am 5:14-15, 21-24 Seek good and not evil, that you may live; Then truly will the LORD, the God of hosts, be with you as you claim! Hate evil and love good, and let justice prevail at the gate; Then it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will have pity on the remnant of Joseph.I hate, I spurn your feasts, says the LORD, I take no pleasure in your solemnities; Your cereal offerings I will not accept, nor consider your stall-fed peace offerings....

Posts Posted on June 29, 2020June 29, 2020 How Civilizations Rise and Fall in Eight Stages In yesterday’s post we examined the danger of marginalizing God and how the Lord warns that such a thing is a civilization killer. In today’s post we ponder a more sociological examination of how cultures and civilizations go through cycles. Over time, many civilizations and cultures have risen and then fallen. We who live in painful times like these do well to recall these truths. Cultures and civilizations come and go; only the Church (though often in need of reform) and true biblical...

June 30 2020 Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Am 3:1-8; 4:11-12 Hear this word, O children of Israel, that the LORD pronounces over you, over the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt:You alone have I favored, more than all the families of the earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your crimes.Do two walk together unless they have agreed? Does a lion roar in the forest when it has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from its den unless it has seized something? Is a bird...

Posts Posted on June 28, 2020 A Question and a Warning from the Lord. In the 4th Century, St. Augustine lamented the decline of Rome and Roman culture. Like any good citizen, he loved his country and culture. But things were falling to pieces, decadence was everywhere. He struggled to understand this and accept it. In his sorrow he wrote The City of God which contains his own observations and explanations of a time much like our own wherein a civilization was collapsing.There is something of a cycle that empires, nations, cultures and civilizations go through. They rise, sometimes...

June 29 2020 Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles Reading 1 Acts 12:1-11 In those days, King Herod laid hands upon some members of the Church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword, and when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also. –It was the feast of Unleavened Bread.– He had him taken into custody and put in prison under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. He intended to bring him before the people after Passover. Peter thus was being...

Posted on June 27, 2020June 27, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope Four Disciplines of Worthy Disciples – A Homily for the 13th Sunday of the Year In the Gospel this Sunday, the Lord gives four important principles for a disciple. He also teaches on the concept of being worthy of Him. We tend think of being worthy as acting in a way that meets a certain standard, but the Greek word for “worthy” involves more than merely external behavior, important though that is. To be worthy of the Lord is to ascribe worth and give proper weight to who...

June 28 2020 Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a One day Elisha came to Shunem, where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her. Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine. So she said to her husband, “I know that Elisha is a holy man of God. Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp, so that when he comes to us he can stay there.”...

June 27 2020 Saturday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Lam 2:2, 10-14, 18-19 The Lord has consumed without pity all the dwellings of Jacob; He has torn down in his anger the fortresses of daughter Judah; He has brought to the ground in dishonor her king and her princes.On the ground in silence sit the old men of daughter Zion; They strew dust on their heads and gird themselves with sackcloth; The maidens of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.Worn out from weeping are my eyes, within me all is in ferment; My gall...

June 26 2020 Friday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 12 Kgs 25:1-12 In the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his whole army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it, and built siege walls on every side. The siege of the city continued until the eleventh year of Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month, when famine had gripped the city, and the people had no more bread, the city walls were breached. Then the king and all the soldiers...

Posted on June 24, 2020June 24, 2020 by Msgr. Charles Pope No Other Options: Are you a Saint or an Ain’t ?? In today’s Gospel (Thursday of the 12th Week) we come face to face with the ultimate necessity of allowing the Lord to transform us. The Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount , is offering us a whole new life and we must choose to accept it and see our life change, based on it, or we will simply be unfit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.Our flesh hates these sort of “all or nothing” scenarios. We...