SUNDAY RESOURCES
CATHOLIC SOURCES
Please note that this page has not be updated to new format. It does not have any video homilies on it. You will also find reflections on this page.
The Octave of Christmas: The Holy Family
by Father Andrew Ricci
2016 Podcast—The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph helps us see how God works through each of our families. We face our struggles, make sacrifices, support each other, and receive blessings with gratitude…and through it all we grow in grace.
The human struggle with sexual energy
by Ron Rolheiser
The church has always struggled with sex, but so have everyone else. There aren’t any cultures, religious or secular, pre-modern or modern, post-modern or post-religious, that exhibit a truly healthy sexual ethos. Every church and every culture struggles with integrating sexual energy, if not in its creed about sex, at least in the living out of that creed.
SOURCE: The Sunday Website at Saint Louis University
Saving family
by Scott Hahn
Underlying the wisdom offered in today’s Liturgy is the mystery of the family in God’s divine plan. Our families are to radiate the perfect love that binds us to Christ in the Church. As we approach the altar on this feast, let us renew our commitment to our God-given duties as spouses, children and parents. Mindful of the promises of today’s First Reading, let us offer our quiet performance of these duties for the atonement of our sins.
SOURCE: St Paul Center
The scrapbook of faith
by Larry Broding
Holy ground
by John Kavanaugh, SJ
A tendency found in many religions is to escape, sometimes even negate, the ordinary… But the heart of Christianity is a transformation of the ordinary, not a flight from it. After all. Incarnation, the central mystery we embrace, affirms that the eternal Word becomes flesh, not flees it… It is all here, in our homes, in the pews of our churches, in our friends, in our families. Here is the holy ground. Here is the face of God…
SOURCE: The Sunday Website at Saint Louis University
We are meant to treat one another as family—not subordinates
by Jaime L. Waters
Today’s readings, celebrating the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, elucidate aspects of familial relationships and human values. The first and second readings address the parent-child relationship; the Gospel provides an example of parental protection. The second reading also describes marital relationships and presents us with the challenge of interpreting texts that reflect a patriarchal society and have been used to advocate for injustice.
SOURCE: America—The Jesuit Review
The Holy Family as a model for all human families
BE WITH THE WORD PODCAST
by Dr. Gerry and Dr. Peter
CATHOLIC—Join Dr. Gerry and Dr. Peter on this week’s episode as they discuss the Holy Family as the model for all human families. Although many family systems struggle today, learn how to make step-by-step improvements that can result in a positive ripple effect in your own family system.
SOURCE: Souls and Hearts
The great ‘gift’ of the Child of Bethlehem
“He brings us a spiritual energy, an energy which helps us not to despair in our struggle, in our hopelessness, in our sadness, for it is an energy that warms and transforms the heart. Indeed, the birth of Jesus brings us the good news that we are loved immensely and uniquely by God, and he not only enables us to know this love, he also gives it to us, he communicates it to us!” (2013-Christmas Homily)
More Reflections
NOTE: The following reflections are from non-Catholic sources.
Is God hidden or hiding?
by by Celeste Kennel-Shank
2016—The little sneak got away is my first thought after reading this story of the flight into Egypt. Jesus got away. All those other boy babies didn’t…
I can come to terms with a God who respects our free will, even if that means not saving the babies. I don’t really expect Jesus to be some kind of baby superhero who shoots Herod with flaming darts out of his eyes and vanquishes Herod’s army to a triumphant musical score. What troubles me is that in Jesus, God runs away. God abandons all those other babies. God acts to save one baby, and in some way beyond what I can really grasp, that baby is God. God saves his own skin and escapes unscathed.
It’s not God’s vulnerability that is difficult, but rather God’s self-protection. And not just from the swords of Herod’s army. Where is God when all those parents are weeping? Is God hidden or hiding?
SOURCE: Living by the Word—The Christian Century
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