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02 Nov 2014 - Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

Penitential Act Invitation We pray to be with God now and at the hour of our death. Invocations We remember with love all who have come before us. Lord, have mercy. We hope to remain faithful in love and service all our lives. Christ, have mercy. We call on God be be merciful in our final hours. Lord, have mercy. Prayer of the Faithful The universal prayer As the days become shorter, we bring to mind those who have died and contemplate our own homecoming to God. Let us offer our prayers, with hope in God and in loving response to all who have ever prayed for us. For all the faithful departed. May those who have fallen asleep in the Lord find eternal life and be raised on the last day, especially those we now remember, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the salvation of the world. May the Lord who is our shepherd provide for all in need, guide and protect them, and bring them to a place where the wise and just will shine like the stars, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For all who gather at the table of the Lord. May the celebration of the Eucharist show that to live with Christ we must imitate his sacrifice of suffering love, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the church, the community of believers. May we experience communion with God, one another, the saints, and all who have gone before us in faith, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. God of eternal life, none who have faith in you are lost. Listen to our prayerful words of faith, and lead us to our own final glory, where we will dwell in you and with your Son and the Holy Spirit, forever.

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

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End of long winter of discontent for Richard III?

10 Feb 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” exclaims the prophet in this Sunday’s reading from the Book of Isaiah. This past Monday the world got a look at the remains of King Richard III after DNA tests confirmed that a skeleton found in a shallow, unmarked grave under a parking lot was indeed that of the long-disgraced English monarch, who died in 1485.The find has given new impetus to a move to rehabilitate the king's reputation. Richard III enthusiasts hope the new attention will inspire a reappraisal that will show the king to have been a man with a strong sympathy for the rights of the common man who was deeply wronged by his vengeful Tudor successors. Far from the villainous character memorialized in English histories, films, novels, and Shakespeare’s damning representation of him as the limping, withered, haunted murderer of his two princely nephews, Richard III can become the subject of a new age of scholarship and popular reappraisal, his supporters believe.“I think he wanted to be found, he was ready to be found, and we found him, and now we can begin to tell the true story of who he was,” said Philippa Langley, a writer who has been a longtime and fervent member of the Richard III Society, an organization that has worked for decades to bring what it sees as justice to an unjustly vilified man. “Now,” Langley added, “we can rebury him with honor, and we can rebury him as a king.”Alas, that reburial will not come without controversy of its own as the city of Leicester, where he was unceremoniously buried without a coffin, vies with York, a city 100 miles to the north that claims the late monarch as his own."The decision has already been made," said Leicester mayor Peter Soulsby. "All the permissions have been granted and the various authorities involved have agreed that the interment will take place in Leicester."Not so fast, said York, which is petitioning the government and Queen Elizabeth II, arguing that "one of the city's most famous and cherished sons"—who grew up in the region and was once known as Richard of York—should be buried in the northern city.Homily hint: While King Richard was no saint and his bones are not the relics of a martyr, the discovery of his skeletal remains reminds us of Christian beliefs about relics and how physical remains can evoke the memory and presence of a saint. Sources: Articles by John F. Burns for the New York Times and the Associated Press

richard iii philippa langley richard iii society leicester peter soulsby york

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Prayers

02 Nov 2008 - Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

The universal prayer As the days become shorter, we bring to mind those who have died and contemplate our own homecoming to God. Let us offer our prayers, with hope in God and in loving response to all who have ever prayed for us. For all the faithful departed. May those who have fallen asleep in the Lord find eternal life and be raised on the last day, especially those we now remember, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the salvation of the world. May the Lord who is our shepherd provide for all in need, guide and protect them, and bring them to a place where the wise and just will shine like the stars, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For all who gather at the table of the Lord. May the celebration of the Eucharist show that to live with Christ we must imitate his sacrifice of suffering love, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the church, the community of believers. May we experience communion with God, one another, the saints, and all who have gone before us in faith, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. God of eternal life, none who have faith in you are lost. Listen to our prayerful words of faith, and lead us to our own final glory, where we will dwell in you and with your Son and the Holy Spirit, forever.

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

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Homily themes

10 Apr 2011 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit . . . . Like many people in the ancient world, Paul believed human beings were made up of three parts: the physical body, the soul, and the spirit. Flesh referred to human nature, the body and the soul, not only the body. So, Paul's talk of the flesh and the spirit does not represent a simple opposition of body and spirit, the material and immaterial, the earthly and the divine. When Paul criticizes life in the flesh, he means human life closed in on itself, exclusive of God. For those who believe in the risen Christ, however, his Spirit transforms the flesh and raises it to life in God, both now and forever. As Easter and the celebration of Christ's resurrection draw closer, the church moves with its Lord to new life. Homily points The Hail Mary contains a curious plea for help in two vital moments of the human story. These moments have more in common than we imagine. The kingdom of heaven is at hand in the final hour, but we train for that freedom in every hour. Restorations come in all sizes, from renewed life to outright resurrection. Christian faith means we believe this, profess this, and live as if we mean it. If we answer the call to "come forth" from every circumstance of sin and death, the final call will not catch us by surprise.

paul soul spirit flesh hail mary Freedom

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Exploring the word

23 Nov 2008 - Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Cycle A

IF, AS A SHEPHERD OF SOULS, you could change one thing about the minds and hearts of your parishioners, what would it be? After listening to people pour out their stories for 30 years, I know what I would choose: to wipe out the spirit of judgment that festers in all of us. The care of souls often seems like attending to one long litany of broken family relationships that centers on one person’s immutable condemnation of another. Whether you are the one passing judgment or the one excoriated makes no difference to the amount of damage suffered. The decision to pass judgment inflicts harm like a double-edged sword, and the entire community is affected by the results. You don’t have to be in this business very long to hear the confessions of spouses who have hardened their hearts against each other. Parents defend their decision to cut off their disappointing children, and children refuse to forgive their parents for what they did or failed to do. Brothers and sisters don’t speak for years because of some offense in the distant past. Each group in society also finds another it can saddle with the blame for the problems faced by the whole. Meanwhile, the Bible is very clear about the sole proprietor of the authority to judge. Ezekiel tells us that God alone distinguishes between victims and perpetrators, using weakness and strength as the criteria for assessing innocence or blame. We who live in a powerful land ought to meditate on that idea for a while. The psalms and the prophets are constant in their claim that divine judgment will come to the nations and God reserves the right to separate sheep from goats. Paul neatly summarizes the teachings of Israel with the oracle: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay” (Romans 12:19). Those who lament that forgiveness lets the guilty off the hook should find consolation here. The church affirms scripture’s guarantee that human culpability has the most excellent Judge as its final administrator of justice. On the last day the guilty will get what’s coming to them, just as the innocent will get their promised reward. On that we can rely. Yet the gospels are equally adamant that we ourselves are forbidden to take judgment into our hearts, much less into our own hands. “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” Jesus warns (Matthew 7:1). “Stop condemning and you will not be condemned,” he repeats more emphatically in Luke (6:37). If we dare to infringe on divine sovereignty by taking the spirit of judgment into our hearts and passing judgment over others, we are endangering our own salvation. It’s that serious. “Forgive,” Jesus further declares, “and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). God will surely judge. We must forgive. Related scripture links Human freedom: Gen. 1:26 Making choices: Deut. 11:26–28; 30:15-19 Judgment: Matt. 10:11–15; 10:40-42; 12:36-37 Awareness of end times: Rom. 13:11-14 Catechism links Love Command: 782, 1822-1829, 1970, 2822, 2842 Corporal works of mercy: 2447-2449 Theological virtues: 1812-1832

Authors Alice Camille

judgment soul relationships condemnation blame reward

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