Videos from selected homilists; Transcript excerpts from Fr. Hawkswell, Fr. Fleming, Fr. Chama, Msgr. Pellegrino, Fr. Sigma, Fr. Kavanaugh’s homilies; Bishop Barron podcasts; Life Issues; Doctrinal Homily Outlines
By Kevin Aldrich
Overview of
Doctrinal Homily
Outlines
Kevin Aldrich
EXCERPT: If you can see the signs of the times, we are now entering a new time of special adversity for all who want to practice the faith. Every one of us will need more doctrine, more virtue, and above all, more faith so as not to be like the terrified disciples in the boat.
This is not to say we are to be walking billboards, but if we really believe in God it should naturally show through.
EXCERPT: We can have outward visual signs of our faith in our home (like a picture of the Sacred Heart), in our car (like a little statue of Our Lady), on our desk at work (like a small crucifix), on our electronic devices (like a decal), even on our clothing (like a “tiny feet” pin). We can also witness our faith by saying grace in a restaurant if we are alone or if the person we are with is Catholic and agrees. We can also witness by slightly bowing our head when we hear the name “Jesus.”
“The following paragraphs from the Catechism of the Catholic Church resonate with the biblical readings for this Sunday. They were chosen either because they cite or allude to the specific readings, or because they treat topics found in the readings.” —Homiletic Directory
CCC 423, 464-469: Jesus, true God and true Man
CCC 1814-1816: faith as gift of God, and human response
CCC 671-672: maintaining faith in adversity
Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.”CCC 605 At the end of the parable of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God’s love excludes no one: “So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”1 He affirms that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many”; this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us.2 The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”3
CCC 616 It is love “to the end”4 that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life.5 Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.”6 No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses and embraces all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.
1 Mt 18:14.
2 Mt 20:28; cf. Rom 5:18-19.
3 Council of Quiercy (853): DS 624; cf. 2 Cor 5:15; I Jn 2:2.
4 Jn 13:1.
5 Cf. Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2, 25.
6 2 Cor 5:14.
7 I Cor 15:20-22.
8 Heb 6:5.
9 2 Cor 5:15; cf. Col 3:1-3.
10 2 Cor 5:14; cf. AA 6; RMiss 11.
11 1 Tim 2:4.
CCC 1265 Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,”13 member of Christ and co-heir with him,14 and a temple of the Holy Spirit.15
CCC 1269 Having become a member of the Church, the person baptized belongs no longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us.16 From now on, he is called to be subject to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church, and to “obey and submit” to the Church’s leaders,17 holding them in respect and affection.18 Just as Baptism is the source of responsibilities and duties, the baptized person also enjoys rights within the Church: to receive the sacraments, to be nourished with the Word of God and to be sustained by the other spiritual helps of the Church.19
CCC 1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:20
Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.21
12 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Cf. Rom 6:34; Col 2:12.
13 2 Cor 5:17; 2 Pet 1:4; cf. Gal 4:5-7.
14 Cf. l Cor 6:15; 12:27; Rom 8:17.
15 Cf. l Cor 6:19.
16 Cf. 1 Cor 6:19; 2 Cor 5:15.
17 Heb 13:17.
18 Cf. Eph 5:21; 1 Cor 16:15-16; 1 Thess 5:12-13; Jn 13:12-15.
19 Cf. LG 37; CIC, cann. 208 223; CCEO, can. 675:2.
20 Cf. Jn 4:14; 7:38-39.
21 2 Cor 5:17-18.
by David Cloutier
EXCERPT: To grow up in Chicago is to be related to a body of water simply known as “the Lake.” I have found that the words “the Lake” do not have their intended effects on people from the coasts. They mean something you can see across. But for Chicagoans, that’s exactly what “the Lake” is not. The Lake is where the city abruptly stops. Just the water, spreading out endlessly, as far as the eye can see.
We know the Lake is not in fact infinitely large – indeed, our knowledge of the globe probably makes it hard to enter the mindset of ancient listeners of the scriptural passages. For them, the sea really did seem to go on into an unknown infinity. And more importantly, it was an infinity that held enormous dangers for frail humans. Elsewhere in Job, God is said to have Leviathan as a plaything, and given the experience of the vastness of the sea, it is no wonder that legends about sea creatures came to be. If it wasn’t the creatures, it was the violence of the storms the sea kicked up. This we still know all too well.
The readings today indicate a simple thing: God is more powerful than even the sea. In the Gospel, then, we have manifest a kind of theophany. As we read in other biblical books, the disciples of Jesus were able to carry out many of the same deeds of power that Jesus did. We read about them healing those with sickness and driving out demons (not always successfully). But it’s interesting that we never hear a story of the disciples calming a storm at sea, and the one attempt by Peter to walk on water ends poorly. Thus, when we read the disturbed astonishment of his disciples in today’s Gospel, we can see in it some of the same mixture of admiration and terror that we get in the story of the Transfiguration.
50 lessons recorded in 1965 by Archbishop Fulton J Sheen about the teachings of the Catholic Church.
In order to live a natural life we have to be born to it. In order to live a super natural or divine life we must be born to it and that is the Sacrament of Baptism which is the subject of this lesson.
Baptism is the sacrament that incorporates us into the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, and is therefore called the door of the Church. **
There is just a faint parallel to be drawn between the Church and the nation – in this sense.
How Baptism  incorporates us into the Mystical Body of Christ:
But you may ask, “What difference does the pouring of a little water make?”
Well as regards to the water itself, it probably makes very little difference. That is to say the water alone.
Take the water in the steam engine you might ask “What difference does a little water make?” When you combine it with a mind and the spirit of an engineer, it can drive a steam engine from one end of the country to the other
We should not be surprised at this after all we cannot live a human life unless we are born of the flesh and we cannot live a divine life unless we are born of God. Now we are capable of that. We are, as some philosophers have said “capax Dei ”  We are capable of God.
Nature is full of examples of such capacities.
The caterpillar has already a life of its own with which, no doubt, it is well content, but enclosed in its nature is a creeping thing it has a capacity of becoming something higher and different.  It may become a moth or a butterfly but in most the capacity is never developed. They die before they reach that end. Circumstances do not favor their development.
There must be the efficient touch of the Holy Spirit.
In the beginning, God’s power created this world out of nothing. The two sources of revelation, sacred Scripture and Tradition, attest that the purpose of this creation is to show forth the glory of God. Saint Bonaventure (d. 1274) clarifies that God created all things “not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it” (BonLibIISent) because God has no other reason for fashioning this world than because of God’s love and goodness (CCC 293).
Yet this good and loving God reigns justly throughout salvation history. Thus, the power of this just God also caused a flood to destroy evil and sin while sustaining a faithful remnant. The power of God sent plagues upon Egypt to deliver Israel out of bondage and also guided that chosen people as they wandered in the desert for forty years. The power of God finally established them in the promised land. When the people wandered from God, the Almighty intervened once again, for we believe this same divine power is fully manifested in Jesus Christ who came to save all people. Jesus is the light of the world, the Risen Lord, a light no darkness or death can extinguish.
But if God is the ultimate potency that creates and redeems us, why was not a perfect world brought forth by the Almighty? Why is there not such a perfect created world that no evil could exist in it?
Catholics maintain that there is no quick answer to this troubling and perplexing question. In fact, only the entirety of Christian faith can provide a response to this question (CCC 309). Our belief is summed up in an amazing litany consisting of many parts. We believe in the goodness of creation, the drama of sin, the patient love of God who is revealed to us by his covenants, the redemptive incarnation of the Son, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gathering of the Church in God’s name, the life-giving capacity of the sacraments, and God’s call to beatitude to which we are invited, but from which, by a terrible mystery, we can also freely turn away. No one part of this Christian message contains the whole answer to the question of evil.
With infinite power God could have created a world so perfect that no evil exists. But our Catholic belief relies on the infinite wisdom and goodness of a divine plan that freely willed to create the world in a state of journeying toward ultimate perfection. In other words, the foundation of the created world is a process of becoming that involves the appearance and disappearance of certain beings, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, and both constructive and destructive forces of nature.
Believers acclaim the goodness and the power of God and at the same time decry the storms that toss us, threatening destruction, precisely because we hold that all creation is “on the journey.” Thus, along with physical good there is physical evil—as long as creation has not yet reached perfection (CCC 310). With this in mind, Saint Augustine (d. 430) proclaimed, “For almighty God…because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself” (AugEnch).
