Our readings for the Seventh Sunday, Cycle A are here. But note below, this and the following are special entries prior to entering Lent.
I do not have any notes or poems for Fr Dennis homilies for the Sixth Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle A or C. In a moment of inspiration this morning (Thank you, God!), it made more sense to offer the notes and poems from the Seventh and Eighth Sundays of Ordinary Time, Cycle A rather than the Sixth Sunday, Cycle B.
The Roman Catholic (and many denominations’) date of Easter is derived each year from the observance date of Jewish Passover, because Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead three days after being crucified, following the Passover meal with his disciples, i.e., the Last Supper). Over millennia, this becomes a murky process with human biases and frailties built-in, on top of shifting and different calendars.
Catholic Answers (catholic.com) offered a succinct description of current calculation of the date of Easter and associated observances:
- On the Gregorian calendar (the one that we use), Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after March 21. Easter thus always falls between March 22 and April 25.
- Now, to find Palm Sunday (the sixth Sunday of Lent) you start with the date of Easter and back up one week: It is the Sunday before Easter Sunday.
- To find Ash Wednesday, you start with the date of Easter Sunday, back up six weeks (that gives you the first Sunday of Lent), and then back up four more days: Ash Wednesday is the Wednesday before the first Sunday of Lent.
As a result, it varies how far into the “single-digit” Sundays of Ordinary Time we go in any given year. This year, we will not observe the Seventh and Eighth Sundays of Ordinary Time prior to entering Lent. We celebrate Pentecost, and then at the end of May return to the observance of daily Mass in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time (with various memorials on different days).
On Sunday, June 14th, we will observe our first Sunday Mass in Ordinary Time, the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A. I have found this site of an online Ordo, created by a Jesuit, Dennis Smolarski, SJ, is very helpful to see the patterns of liturgy. The Ordo is the schedule that indicates which observance and guidelines for each day’s mass(es) are associated with each year’s calendar date.
Annnnd, all that leads us back to why I might not have notes from a particular combination of Ordinary Time and Cycle. 🙂
These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the Masses of
- February 23, 2020 8:30AM
- February 19, 2017
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The poems Fr Dennis references this year are:
- 2020 Homily — What I Learned From My Mother by Julia Kasdorf
- 2020 Homily — Family Vacation by John Kenney
- 2017 Homily — Perfection, Perfection by Kilian McDonnell (“I will walk the way of perfection.” Ps 101:2)
- 2017 Homily — Subway Psalm by Alden Nowland
In 2020, I did not take notes, but I do remember the rather loud appreciation for the Family Vacation poem, particularly from the fathers in the congregation that day.
In 2017, we reflected on —
- Gospel call us to love beyond what and who we know how to love; like God does (as described in the first reading and psalm).
- God = holy, and holy = kind and merciful.
- We are called to be like God, which is impossible. But we continue to practice this revolution and evolution of the heart to do good and be holy in our everyday lives.
The Surest Sign 