Monsignor was supposed to celebrate this mass today, but this would be his fourth mass for the weekend.
And I got back early, so I volunteered to celebrate, but I did not prepare a homily.
And as and as you know, there is nothing more dangerous than an old man without a script.
You weren’t supposed to laugh at that, but I in a sense do have one.
I was up in Cooperstown this morning. a couple who attends mass at the seven – they used, they sit right over there when they’re here.
Nathan and Natasha got married at upstate in Cooperstown.
So I was I went up to do it.
I feel they come from the Upper West Side every week to come to mass here, I could at least go and join them for their wedding.
So but I did not know if I was going to get back in time here.
So I got up and trudged over to the local Catholic Church there to go to mass.
And so I – and obviously, you never know what you’re going to expect.
The church was not the shall we say, was not the most beautiful edifice I have ever been in.
And I was just at the local Episcopal Church the day before, which was, you know, drop dead gorgeous.
But OK, I go and I sit down. Priest gave a wonderful homily, and I’m going to steal to two pieces of it.
It was very well done, very well worked out. And he had a wonderful voice.
Now, to be perfectly clear, it was probably not a homily. A homily is you.
You begin with the scriptures and you don’t necessarily execute them about your comments come from that.
That’s what you normally get here at St. Charles.
Now, the sermon is a little different.
The sermon is usually a point of doctrine. So a number of years ago, Monsignor and I, instead of giving a homily during the Fall, we broke up Catholic social social teaching and preached on that one point a week. That’s a sermon.
But another thing you can do with the sermon is take a part of the mass and explain that and give comments on it.
That’s what he did today. For the first part of this, I love his sermon and he took what we talked about. I said, “Pray my brothers and sisters that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the almighty Father.”
And he was obviously a very learned man, and knew that reflected the theology of St. Augustine, and Augustine was not the only one. The church fathers who emphasized this but was the most famous reminded his listeners that what we offer is not bread and wine as much as ourselves.
We put ourselves on the platten and the wine.
That’s why the offertory, which I thought the presentation of the gifts, which we will be getting back to in the parish shortly, is kind of important because what we’re showing there is we’re bringing ourselves to the altar to be offered with Jesus.
We are part of the sacrifice. As he did.
The priest, again coming from St. Augustine, reminded us that when we are offered with the body of Christ, we become part of the body of Christ.
We become more of the Church, we become more who we are to be.
And that is judged by how we are, how we behave, how not only as individuals, but as a community.
What do we do the rest of the week?
He didn’t put it exactly the way I do, but I always ask the way and say the way you judge what you’ve done at seven p.m. on Sunday night is what you are doing at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning.
If Jesus came back last Wednesday at 10:00 a.m., would you be happy?
Let’s think about what you were doing or weren’t doing. And we can look at the parish the same way where we really doing anything worth worthwhile.
Are we part of that sacrifice?
We say that at every mass, we say my sacrifice, but also yours, when we say that at mass.
What are you willing to do to be part of that sacrifice to be formed by that sacrifice?
There’s another thing that he mentioned, which is really not my way of looking things, I think, but I liked it and figured that maybe you would too.
Is that he entered with he ended with April eight and was satisfied.
And when they left over, fragments were picked up. They filled 12 baskets at his suggestion was Look at your life.
And ask, what are the scattered pieces of your life?
Good things, the bad things.
He was very humorous in in adding them and them up and all the parts of your life that sometimes just don’t fit because you’re a bit scattered.
And sometimes they’re really good things you like to talk to, can keep them, to bring them out more.
Sometimes they’re not so good things and you would like to dispose of them.
So think about that. Think about that and bring them to mass the next time you eat and the next Sunday and when and when we are seeing one, when we do see the wine and the and the bread brought up.
And we do say the prayers of the presentation, I think about what you want to offer.
Think about, particularly the things that don’t quite fit in your life and ask the Lord what he wants you to do with them.
So this was my act of theft for the week.
I wish I remember the priest’s name because I would have sent him a thank you card.
So remember, Eucharist means to give thanks and let us offer the following again, the same as in August. And remember that we mostly we give thanks to God, to Jesus, by giving by first giving thanks for each other.