The Weekly Francis

The Weekly Francis – Volume 514

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller
pope-francis2-300x187

The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc., which I also cross-post on Jimmy Akin’s blog.

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 24 June 2024 to 10 July 2024.

Apostolic Letter

Messages

Speeches

Papal Instagram

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TL;DH (Too Long;Didn’t Hear)
Parody

TL;DH (Too Long;Didn’t Hear)

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Pope Francis recently appealed once again about the length of homilies.

And the homily, that comment by the celebrant, must help to transfer the Word of God from the book to life. But for this, the homily must be brief: an image, a thought and a sentiment. The homily must not go on for more than eight minutes, because after that, with time attention is lost and the people fall asleep, and they are right. A homily must be like that. And I want to say this to priests, who talk a lot, very often, and one does not understand what they are talking about. A brief homily: a thought, a sentiment and a cue for action, for what to do. No more than eight minutes. Because the homily must help transfer the Word of God from the book to life. General Audience, 12 June 2024

If your parish is looking for maximum parish engagement, we here are Homilelectrics have a range of devices to reign in long homilies and people falling asleep. This is more than a problem where people lose interest. It is also a public danger, as St. Paul found out.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.  But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” (Acts 20:7–10)

Introducing Collar ID

Our Collar ID models identify and synchronize with the priest wearing it.

Key Features:

  • Integrated LED Lights: Multiple LED lights are not just for aesthetics; they serve a crucial function in maintaining the ideal length of your homily. Color of LED lights can be set to automatically follow the color of the days liturgical celebration.
  • Homily Duration Warning: The Collar ID is equipped with a subtle yet effective warning system. If your homily extends beyond the optimal time, the LED lights will gently pulse and vibrate, providing a discreet cue to yourself and those in the pew that you need to wrap up your homily.
  • Analytics and Phone Integration: Track homily content metrics over time tied to biometrics devices to help increase engagement/bore ratios.
  • Sustainable Battery Technology: The Collar ID is recharged with our USB-Cleric adapter that uses beeswax or a range of vegetable oils, including the traditional olive oil as the power source.
  • Enhanced Homily Interrogation: Parishes can also opt for an enhanced model to help priests who just can’t break the “too long homily” problem. A shock collar option can provide a series of increased training modes. 40 training levels include beep (1–8), vibration (1–12), shock (1–20).

Phone App

The Collar Id App is available for iPhone and Android.

Features

  • Gives parishioners maximum ability for feedback along with seeing other’s feedback. Just because the homily wasn’t helpful to you on this occasion does not mean that this was true for others.
  • Provides real-time Cleric Caption (CC) to help translate too unnecessarily erudite or overly simplified homilies.
  • Log the impactful portions of the homily that got through to you. Just because you heard something a 100 times, does not mean you actually heard the message.
  • Access biometric indicators such as heart rate and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR).
    • Was the introduction joke really as funny or necessary as the priest thought it was?
    • Measure engagement of an aggregate of the congregation with data integrity, removing anomalous results.
    • How many times did the parishioner look at their watch or phone to see what time it is?
    • Was the parishioner developing pew sores because of the homily’s length?
  • Anonymized data analysis to be used by clerics to help with their homiletic skills. End-to-end-encryption is used to ensure the privacy of feedback made. Although a data leak can occur when a well-known complainer about everything is deduced.

Included are community building features just for fun!

  • For Laetare and Gaudete Sunday, rate the color of the rose vestments used.
    • Access camera to identify matches against the rose color palette.
  • On Trinity Sunday test your knowledge of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon definitions and how many heretical analogies were used in the homily.
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The Weekly Francis

The Weekly Francis – Volume 513

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller
pope-francis2-300x187

The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc., which I also cross-post on Jimmy Akin’s blog.

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 21 June 2024 to 30 June 2024.

Angelus

Apostolic Letter

Homilies

Speeches

Papal Instagram

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A Shop Mark Would Like
HumorScripture

A Shop Mark Would Like

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Considering today’s Gospel, if I had an investor, I would create this business.

Every meal in this sandwich shop would cost $12. Exception would be a free meal for those who had spent all their money on physicians.

There would also be the Talitha cumi special, which you couldn’t tell anybody about.

Plus, all sandwiches would be delivered “immediately.”

If you are unfamiliar with the term “Markan sandwich.”

Mark’s ordering of the events may be chronological. However, Mark also has a special way of ordering material, which scholars call the “Markan sandwich.” A sandwich occurs when Mark interrupts one story with another before returning to the first. This allows Mark to contrast the two stories so that they shed light on each other. Jimmy Akin

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The Weekly Francis

The Weekly Francis – Volume 511

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller
pope-francis2-300x187

The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc., which I also cross-post on Jimmy Akin’s blog.

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 14 June 2024 to 20 June 2024.

Angelus

General Audiences

Speeches

Papal Instagram

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
The Weekly Francis

The Weekly Francis – Volume 510

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller
pope-francis2-300x187

The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc., which I also cross-post on Jimmy Akin’s blog.

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 5 April 2024 to 13 June 2024.

Angelus

General Audiences

Letters

Messages

Speeches

Papal Instagram

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A statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Chambly, Quebec, Canada.
conversion

The Narrow Way Through the Sacred Heart of Jesus

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

From the pierced Heart of Christ, symbol of the love which immolated Him on the Cross for us, came forth the Sacraments, represented by the water and the Blood flowing from the wound, and it is through these Sacraments that we receive the life of grace. Yes, it is eminently true to say that the Heart of Jesus was opened to bring us into life. Jesus once said, “Narrow is the gate… that leadeth to life” (Mt 7,14); but if we understand this gate to be the wound in His Heart, we can say that no gate could open to us with greater welcome. (Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., “Divine Intimacy”)

I like this metaphor of following the narrow way into Jesus’ heart. An image that shifts the focus from the narrowness and implied difficulty of the path to what we are created for. Teleology has fallen out of fashion, in part, to let us define for ourselves the meaning of all aspects of our life. In seeking to shed limits, we impose heavier limits on who we are and our call to holiness.

I know my concupiscent heart desires both to be drawn to Jesus’s heart and to the stone heart of the world in materialistic pleasures. In avoiding the narrowness of the path, I become more narrow by not expanding my trust. Jesus speaks of a narrowness that implies a focus, and not the narrowness of pride collapsed in on itself.

If you make “Temporary Promise” as a Secular Discalced Carmelite, you are supposed to take on a religious name used occasionally within the community. When I did so, my motive was initially to pick something super pious and impressive. Maybe something long to make it even more pious. Obviously, I have a long way to go regarding my motives. I finally settled on the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a personal focus of his love for us. I am not drawn too much of the imagery of the Sacred Heart in Catholic art, as it is does not fully conform to the beauty I sense in this image. More kitsch as in sentimental, than my mental tenuous grasp of the deeper meaning of this.

The name I ended up with was “St Thomas of the Sacred Heart.” The St. Thomas is two-fold. The Apostle St. Thomas who demanded empirical knowledge as I did in my days as an atheist. Along with the St. Thomas as in Aquinas who replied _Domine, non nisi Te_—that is, “Lord, nothing except you.” in answer to Jesus’ question to him for what reward he desires for his labour.

Getting back to Father Gabriel’s point that “we can say that no gate could open to us with greater welcome.”

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt 11:29–30)

I often struggle with this and think of it as counterintuitive. Knowing that this is true, while once again trying to do something apart from him. Avoiding commitment and inconvenience in dumb hope to coast towards Christ, I find more difficulty and pain. My avoidance of suffering has only led to more suffering.

Grace constantly gives us the opportunity to accept it. To reduce the discrepancy between knowing a truth and living conformed to that truth.

Joe Heschmeyer recently wrote about the establishment of The Feast of the Sacred Heart.

… we find devotion to the Sacred Heart throughout the Middle Ages, but it goes from being a personal devotion to a liturgical feast in no small part in response to the heresy of Jansenism. In the words of Pope Pius XI, “the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.”

There is so much that I find important and consoling in what Joe Heschmeyer wrote, that I want to quote extensively from it, but please read it yourselves.

“even now, in a wondrous yet true manner, we can and ought to console that most Sacred Heart which is continually wounded by the sins of thankless men.” (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas)

The cure for my thanklessness is to be thankful.

Our grounds for gratitude are really far greater than our powers of being grateful. (G. K. Chesterton, “Negative and Positive Morality”)

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The Weekly Francis

The Weekly Francis – Volume 509

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller
pope-francis2-300x187

The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc., which I also cross-post on Jimmy Akin’s blog.

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 14 April 2024 to 6 June 2024.

Angelus

General Audiences

Homilies

Messages

Speeches

Papal Instagram

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
The Weekly Francis

The Weekly Francis – Volume 508

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller
pope-francis2-300x187

The Weekly Francis is a compilation of the Holy Father’s writings, speeches, etc., which I also cross-post on Jimmy Akin’s blog.

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 24 April 2024 to 23 May 2024.

Apostolic Letter

General Audiences

Homilies

Messages

Regina Caeli

Speeches

Papal Instagram

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Time Travel and Fixing Up Our Past
Other

Time Travel and Fixing Up Our Past

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Recently I have been dipping into two series that both involved time travel and it got me thinking about the large number of books, series, and movies that involve time travel directly, alternate timelines, or time loops. Stories often have a mixture of these when they change the past, whether accidental or intentional.

You can see some of these elements in Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Groundhog’s Day”, “Back to the Future” series, “12 Monkeys”, “The Terminator,” series, etc. What I was thinking about specifically is why the subject is so interesting and what draws us most to these stories?

There are varied reasons that these plotlines, when done well, can be so compelling. For one, there is a fragility of events in our lives that could have gone otherwise. We have the intuition that we are not just acting out a scripted existence and so many details could have gone otherwise.

“Men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been.” (G. K. Chesterton, “Orthodoxy”, “IV The Ethics of Elfland”)

It is also intellectually fun to play with time travel paradoxes, although why your poor grandfather might be the target of such paradoxes is another story.

For me, the fascination with such plots is the idea of going back in time to prevent myself from taking trouble-filled paths in my life. I have day-dreamed about being able to tell my 18-year-old (or younger) self that most things I believed were false. Such a tempting daydream to remove all the wrinkles out of your lived experienced and thinking you would come out of this the person you want to be. This daydream would be endlessly recursive because there are things I would argue with my previous self just six months back in time.

The problem is you can end up in a recrimination time loop, always revisiting and lamenting your past actions. Even worse, if you are constantly blaming others, and that everything would be perfect otherwise. There is wisdom in knowing yourself, and even more reason when you realize how little you know yourself.

The other factor is discovering how our woundedness and the woundedness of others have shaped us. The meaning and role of suffering in our lives. As Peter Kreeft likes to note, “Rabbi Abraham Heschel says, ‘The man who has never suffered—what could he possibly know, anyway?’” I recently read Joseph Pearce’s revised authorized biography of Solzhenitsyn, and this was something Solzhenitsyn came to realize and that his time in the gulag was transformative for him. He became thankful for this suffering as he reflected on how he had previously ignored the surrounding problems to prefer an ideology over the effects of that ideology.

“But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Time travel related stories give us an “if only” to do a past patch up. Much harder is living in the present moment and learning from our past sins. As Catholics, to accept the forgiveness of our sins in the Sacrament of Confession. To spend too much time regretting the past and fretting the future gets us nowhere. We are called to love right now!

“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.” (G. K. Chesterton, “The Advantages of Having One Leg,” Tremendous Trifles)

Another factor for me in this was today’s First Reading at Mass:

13  Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—14  yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15  Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16  As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17  So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.  (James 4:13–17)

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