The teaching mass is available under the Sacraments heading on the Parish website: http://stpatrickswareham.org/wp-content/uploads/Explanatory-Mass-Script-3.pdf.

Fr. Ron’s homilies as always are available at: http://vineyardopus.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/Fr.Ron.Floyd#!/AskAPriest?ref=ts

Fr. Ron

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A. The symbolism of the mother pelican feeding her little baby pelicans is rooted in an ancient legend which preceded Christianity. The legend was that in time of famine, the mother pelican wounded herself, striking her breast with the beak to feed her young with her blood to prevent starvation. Another version of the legend was that the mother fed her dying young with her blood to revive them from death, but in turn lost her own life.

Read on at: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0682.html

This video is a perfect answer to the question:

Priests wear their clerics as a sign of their authority as well as their scholarship, and the death to this world that requires.  Most importantly clerics advertise that a priest is “in service,” available to anyone who needs a priest.  Although clerics are the normal dress for priests, a priest is a priest forever, and the clothing doesn’t make or break the priest.   When a priest engages in sports or relaxing on ones day off with family or friends priest often wear secular clothing.

Thus, in 1246, Bishop Robert de Thorete of the Belgina diocese of Liège, at the suggestion of St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon (also in Belgium), convened a synod and instituted the celebration of the feast. From Liège, the celebration began to spread, and, on September 8, 1264, Pope Urban IV issued the papal bull “Transiturus,” which established the Feast of Corpus Christi as a universal feast of the Church, to be celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday.

At the request of Pope Urban IV, St. Thomas Aquinas composed the office (the official prayers of the Church) for the feast. This office is widely considered one of the most beautiful in the traditional Roman Breviary (the official prayer book of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours), and it is the source of the famous Eucharistic hymns “Pange Lingua Gloriosi” and “Tantum Ergo Sacramentum.”

For centuries after the celebration was extended to the universal Church, the feast was also celebrated with a eucharistic procession, in which the Sacred Host was carried throughout the town, accompanied by hymns and litanies. The faithful would venerate the Body of Christ as the procession passed by. In recent years, this practice has almost disappeared, though some parishes still hold a brief procession around the outside of the parish church.

Answer: The great thing about the topic of homosexuality is that it forces us to consider what the Church teaches about human sexuality, which is that human sexuality is an awesome good when we use it as God plans. Usually if people reject the Church’s teaching on Homosexuality its because they reject God’s teaching on Human Sexuality in general. The topic of sex is present at the very beginning of the Bible in the first Chapter of Genisis where God creates Man, in His image and likeness, man and woman, and He declares that it is GOOD. We all have sex because we are all meant to love as men or as women, in two different ways that tell us something about the image of God. All people are sexual, meaning they are men and women, and that their sexuality is the God given way they love as men or as women. The church is so concerned about sexual morality precisely because our sexuality is the foundation of our ability to love, which is the ultimate purpose of our life.

The Church teaches essentially:

A) that intercourse, the marital act, or what society calls “sex” is meant to be an expression of love given only in the context of marriage–having sex should send a message that I love you and want to spend my life with you, to have children with your, to grow old with you, and die with/for you–having sex without both partners seriously meaning these things (and publicly vowing these things in marriage) cheapens the act of love making and can damage our ability to love in the future.

B) that any use of our sexual organs solely for the sake of pleasure demeans not just our own sexuality but all the other people that we have, are, or will be intimate with, because we are ultimately seeking our own pleasure and not the other persons good, thus any act homo- or hetero- sexual outside of marriage including masturbation is a sin against God and your future spouse/family, because it damages your ability to love;

C) as regards homosexuality, the Church teaches that this inclination is a disorder, not a sin–like cancer or schizophrenia, homosexuality need not be willfully chosen, and could even be “natural” (like a cancer) but is not good because it leads to a false love. Homosexuality intercourse can never lead to true love because true love always seeks the good of the other. Homosexuality insofar as it leads two men or two women to try to make love intimately like a married man and woman, always distorts love because it can never transcend the pleasuring of one or both “partners,” a type of mutual masturbation, which honestly speaking can also be the case in heterosexual relationships but is always the case in homosexual gentital relations. The good of every man and woman is to grow beyond emotional, physical, and erotic love and learn to love without reward thus all true love must be both unitive (bringing two people together) and procreative (allowing for the possibility of new life), because homosexual intercourse can never be procreative it can never be truly unitive, and can never result in true love. The church realizes that this places homosexuals in a difficult situation their appetites and passions are telling them to desire a person of the same sex as a sexual partner, which God’s law, the Church, and their intellect tells them that these desires are not good. Many people suffer in a similar way with other types of abnormal sexuality, alcohol, drugs, pornography, etc. in most of these cases society tells people what the Church suggests with homosexuality : try to use self-control and don’t indulge a inclination that is going to cause you unhappiness. The Church asks homosexuals to try to love in all the ways that are available to them without sinning, this means that they can of course have good friendships, even with other homosexuals, but that these relationships must be kept chaste.

Answer from Wiki: the Mass of the Presanctified (Latin: missa præsanctificatorum, Greek: leitourgia ton proegiasmenon) is a Christian liturgy traditionally celebrated on Good Friday in which the Sacrifice of Calvary is not re-presented, and in which Holy Communion is given from an oblation consecrated at a previous Mass which had been reserved. It had developed by the time of the Quinisext Council (Second Trullan Synod, 692). In the Latin Rites it is used only on Good Friday, and in some Old Catholic Rites, it is used on both Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is used in the Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Greek Rite on the weekdays (Monday through Friday) of Great Lent, and on Monday through Wednesday of Holy Week. At each of these Presanctified Liturgies, the Sacred Mysteries (Reserved Sacrament) would have been consecrated the previous Sunday.