Colorado Springs

Thanks for being a part of the workshops for laity and clergy over the past couple of days in Colorado Springs.  It was a joy bring with you.  To download a Quicktime video file of the slides from my presentations to the laity, please click here.  The clergy presentations are available for download by clicking here.

Also, here are some of the links I referred to with additional materials:

The Roman Missal Study Text from Vox Clara

A New Translation for a New Roman Missal DVD

USCCB Roman Missal Resources 

Order of Mass (approved and confirmed)

General Instruction of the Roman Missal

Videos of Saint John’s Seminary Seminar on the new Roman Missal

The Mass Explained: A Popular Guide

The Beautiful Coast of Maine!

It was great fun being with the Priests, Deacons, and lay ministers of the Diocese of Portland.  To download the slides I used in my presentations as a Quicktime video file, please click here.

Also, here are some links to the resources which I discussed in my presentations:

The Roman Missal Study Text from Vox Clara

A New Translation for a New Roman Missal DVD

USCCB Roman Missal Resources 

Order of Mass (approved and confirmed)

General Instruction of the Roman Missal

Videos of Saint John’s Seminary Seminar on the new Roman Missal

The Mass Explained: A Popular Guide

Thanks to the Priests of Atlanta and Erie

In the past few days I was privileged to spend time with the Priests of Atlanta and Erie.  Thank you, my brothers, for your dedication to an effective implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal.

While some helpful links may be accessed at the end of this posting, to download the slides from ATLANTA, please click here.  To access the slides from ERIE, please click here.


The Roman Missal Study Text from Vox Clara

A New Translation for a New Roman Missal DVD

USCCB Roman Missal Resources 

Order of Mass (approved and confirmed)

General Instruction of the Roman Missal

Videos of Saint John’s Seminary Seminar on the new Roman Missal

The Mass Explained: A Popular Guide

They Only Knew Him in the Breaking of the Bread

A Homily 

For the Third Sunday of Easter

He thought he knew God.  He and his minions thought they knew God as the planes crashed into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and the fields of Shanksville. He thought he knew God, as in bloody Jihad he plotted revenge and the death of the infidel.  Allah Achbah, praised be God, he shouted.  Osama Ben Laden thought he knew God.  But he was wrong.

And there's the young college student I know who thinks he knows God.  His life has become an incessant search for pleasure and a bigger party at every turn.  His promiscuous grabbing for all the gusto he can get has become his religion.  Even when he uses people, even when he hurts them and throws them away....it's all about getting the biggest bang for the buck for number one.  He thinks he knows what it's all about.  But he's wrong.

And then there's a classmate of mine from College. Like me, she's well past middle age.  And she thinks she's been walking with God for all these years too.  She's seen the signs of his approval, she once told me, in her success: the Gospel of Prosperity, she calls it.  And she's very successful.  One of the richest investment brokers I've ever met, her religion is the market, and she has burned incense at it's altars day and night for thirty plus years.

Its true she had reservations after her first divorce, and she finally gave up on having time for a family after the second...right around the time she decided church and praying and giving guilt offerings to the poor were just not worth the effort any more.  She thinks she knows God.  But she's wrong.

They're all wrong.

And they all started out so well.  There's a picture of Ben Laden in Time magazine this week at the age of 15, before he could even grow a beard.  He appears to be laughing, and his eyes are filled with hope and the unbridled giddiness of being 15.  I'm sure there are pictures like that of the young Hitler, or Genghis Kahn, or Stalin.

But something happens along the way.  The boy becomes a terrorist,  the collegian becomes a hedonistic.  And my classmate chooses money and power over love.

But what gets me is that is that none of them recognized him.  As Jesus walked right there beside them, trying to save them from themselves.  All  their lives he walked right there beside them, explaining the scriptures, telling them the truth about life, and they never recognized him.

We've been like them on so many roads, too, my dear brothers and sisters.  Refusing to hear him because we won't stop talking, refusing to love him in the poor and the broken and the forgotten, refusing to obey him when he tells us what's right or wrong, what's going to bring us joy and what will make us miserable.

But there's a secret in Saint John's account of the Road to Emmaus today that the self-deceivers of this world have not yet heard.  Did you hear it?  Did you notice that even his disciples, the ones who had walked with him for four years, even they did not recognize him on the road?  No.  It was only in the breaking of the bread that they came to know him.

He had told them about it before, but they never understood: he who eats my body and drinks my blood will live in me and I will live in him...as often as you do this, you do it in memory of me,

Take and eat...for this is my body,

Take and drink...for this is my blood.

I pray for Ben Laden, for I know the Lord who told us to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors. I pray all the time for my young friend in college and even my successful classmate, for the Lord I know is rich in mercy and never gives up on anyone,

But I pray for you and me, as well.  That we might never take for granted the Holy Communion in which we come to know him in the breaking of the bread....for here, in this Holy Mass is the source and the summit of the entire Christian life.  we could get all the rest of the lessons of life right, but if we don't come to this altar, we will never know him.

Blessed are they who are called to his supper.

Blessed are they who are called to the Supper of the Lamb.

Monsignor James P. Moroney

Exploring the Homily in Oakland

Dear friends,

I very much enjoyed our time together as we explored the Homily and the new Roman Missal.  In order to download the slides from my presentations as a Quicktime video please click this link. 

And here are a number of links which you might find helpful in preparations for the new Roman Missal:

The Roman Missal Study Text from Vox Clara

A New Translation for a New Roman Missal DVD

USCCB Roman Missal Resources 

Order of Mass (approved and confirmed)

General Instruction of the Roman Missal

Videos of Saint John’s Seminary Seminar on the new Roman Missal

The Mass Explained: A Popular Guide