Homily

Bodily Movement: The movement within the service was smoothly done. I will acknowledge that there was a great deal happening during the service that required movement. The children’s dance set the tone for the movement to come. I did appreciate that the Rev. Kletzing entered via the center aisle rather from somewhere in the back of the church. The passing of the peace is always a nice opportunity for the people to greet one another. I am of two minds though, is it a nice break for the parishioners partially through the service or a distraction from the tone of worship? I think I would lean toward the former. The same could be said about having the announcements twenty-eight minutes into the service. I suppose I am particularly interested in this step as I am considering reordering the position of announcements in my own service. Rev. Kletzing preached primarily from the pulpit. I am a proponent of this as it enhances the authority of the words from the pastor. However, in the Lord’s Supper service he spent very little time in the pulpit and instead was among the people. I am a proponent of this as it enhances the community. Notice a dichotomy there? I believe it depends on the gathering and the occasion as to this particular topic of movement within the service. The most disjointed movement was that of the choir both entering the choir loft and even more so as they exited just prior to the sermon. I understand that this is created by the space constraints. The…

The homily written by Rev. William J. Reese was preached in Minnesota in April of 2012. It is based off of the passage John 3:16. “God so loved the world that he gave his only son begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This homily focuses on many aspects, however, the most important messages being God’s never ending love and the importance of continuous faith/belief. Living an eternal life with God is the end result after receiving His grace. …

Melito of Sardis is thought to have penned a homily called “A Homily on the Passover,” or Peri Pascha. This piece elucidates a christology with several important facets. First, Melito centers Christ as both fully human and fully divine. He writes at length that Jesus, in his christological role, was both temporal and atemporal, finite and infinite, the embodiment of the Father [sic] and the Son [sic]. Further, Jesus, as the Christ, is understood to be a mold-breaker. The mold was the Law to…

Hierarchy of Creatures and the Environment Homily I have been listening to recorded lectures of a biblical scholar. In one lecture, he comments on the last portion of today’s gospel passage. The reason he commented on this passage is that an environmentalist asked the biblical scholar what Jesus taught on our relationship to animals. The scripture scholar could only find two specific references: one to sparrows, from today’s gospel passage, and the other to sheep (Matthew 11: 9-14). In both…

present such as having one main Priest to there were many here involving women as well. Second, another thing that challenged the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church that I learned and being present at All-Saints Episcopal Church is hearing the homily from a women which I have not experienced before to it was fifteen minutes long. As talking about the homily, I believe the message was that to help others, care for each other, and finding your necessary thing in life. This relates to Christian…

prodigal son, and many other texts. He also teaches us to forgive by giving himself on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and our salvation from eternal death. Finally, he teaches us the Our Father, which includes a line about forgiveness. Later in the New Testament, the apostle Paul reflects on the forgiveness he has obtained from God, who called him to be one of his followers, instead of one of his persecutors. Forgiveness is also a very important topic in the tradition of the Church.…

Growing up in a traditional, Catholic family, I have attended Catholic school all my life, gone to church every Sunday, and attended youth groups and Christian camps during the summers. However, like many Catholic children, I was easily bored by the ritualistic, seemingly uninteresting traditions that made up the mass and the religion itself. Yet in the homily of one specific Sunday mass, the priest spoke about something that would change the path of my life profoundly. A missionary priest…

Many times the preacher’s homily was centered around humility. I vividly remember first learning about humility during Father Brian’s homily; I was about five years old sitting between my parents and my baby sister on a Sunday. He was talking about John, who was a very humble person. I remember that Father Brian would break his homily down so people could understand God’s message for us that weekend and then relate it to their personal lives and finally to the Bible. “Humility isn’t me before…

the Church itself and in fact was taken from the practice of the Jewish synagogue. It is interested to read about this new information. 4- Then, Edward talked about The Gospel. I believe in the Gospel, simply put, Gospel means good news, happy message. In the time of Christ and the Apostles, the Gospel is the good news of universal Redemption contained in the preaching of Christ. Also, the word (Injil) is used in my Holy Book the Quran, and early Muslim documents to refer specifically to the…

Origen, who is arguably the greatest biblical scholar, was a great teacher, leader, and apologist for Christianity. Although Origen was a great biblical scholar, like all people, he was flawed. Origen often denied the history of the Scripture. He believed in universalism, which is the idea that all people would eventually be saved. Origen also believed in the preexistence of the soul, rather than creationism, and he often overlooked the literal truths of the bible. While Origen had many…