It is my parish’s custom to celebrate Divine Service at an earlier hour on Christmas Eve, reserving the later hour for Lessons and Carols. I’ll be using the propers for Christmas Eve in LSB (Isaiah 7:10-14; 1 John 4:7-16; Matthew 1:18-25). There now follows an excerpt of a homily by St. Peter Damian for Christmas […]

I encourage you to read Fr. Weedon’s study found under “Advent 2”. Here are some additional quotes from various sources. Church Fathers And then shall appear the signs of the truth; first, the sign of the spreading out in heaven, then the sign of the sound of the trumpet, and the third, the resurrection of […]

The outward cure of the paralytic was both the image and the proof of the cure of his soul, which previously had been in a state of moral paralysis; but he himself represented another sufferer, i.e., the human race, which for ages had been a victim to the palsy of sin (Dom Prosper Gueranger, “The […]

Pius Parsch, “The Church’s Year of Grace” Humility is the liturgy’s principal lesson; humility, the signpost infallibly pointing the way to the kingdom of God…. “A proud saint is a devil, a humble sinner is a saint.” (4:107) The parable is a resume’ of the whole story of God’s dealing with men, and it also […]

Dr. Harold Buls writes that it was customary for the Church to read Josephus’ account of the destruction of Jerusalem on this Sunday. When the Missouri Synod spoke German, the account was in our hymnals. An original translation is at Rev. Dcn. David Muehlenbruch’s Lex Orandi website. You may access the translation here. I have […]