Censings

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 15, 2018 Saint Miriam Pro-Cathedral, Flourtown, Pennsylvania Rev. David Justin Lynch, Guest Preacher Amos 7:12-15 | Psalm 85 9-14 Ephesians 1:3-14 | Mark 6:7-13        + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        One of the larger challenges facing the independent Catholic movement in many places is building up a congregation. I speak from experience as a church-planter in Palm Springs, California, where three years ago, my wife, Deacon Sharon, and I, started Saint Cecilia Catholic Community in the lobby of my former law firm with four people.  We now get twelve to fifteen on a typical Sunday, and we sometimes fill the church on days we have baptisms. Many of our protestant sisters and brothers are very good at what’s known as evangelism, which is the fancy word the church uses to describe its sales and marketing efforts.  Many of them have full churches every week to show for their efforts.

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Saint Cecilia Catholic Community July 01, 2018 – 10:30 AM Rev. David Justin Lynch Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:22-24 | Psalm 30:2;4-6;11-13 2 Corinthians 8:7,9;13-15 | Mark 5:21-24;35B-43        + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        One of the more difficult challenges committed Christians face in the world that lies beyond the walls of the church are the stories in the Bible that have a supernatural element, like that found in today’s Gospel reading, where Jesus takes the hand of an ostensibly dead girl and bids her to awaken, whereupon she gets up and walks around the room. Our atheist and agnostic sisters and brothers would brand today’s Gospel as an untruthful myth, something that never did happen, and never could happen, just like the scriptural account of the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus Himself.  Secular people repeatedly use the supernatural stories that are part of religi