Homilies

29th Sunday Ordinary Time – Homily (Fr. Smith)

| St. Charles Borromeo

Rich Romans placed seats at the front gates of their town houses for their clients. Clients were people dependent upon a patron for their jobs and intervening for them with higher authorities. When the patron went to the market or to court, his clients walked behind him to show his importance. There were literally his followers. The patron will in turn have been the client of someone greater and would have followed him to the Senate or another place of great importance. Mark’s gospel was written by and for Roman Christians and Mark seized on today’s story to show that Christians are not Jesus’ clients but his disciples and that disciples do not have clients but sisters and brothers. It is a hard lesson to learn, and one needed to be relearned in every generation, especially ours. 

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Events, Videos

Community Mass – 29th Sunday Ordinary Time

| St. Charles Borromeo


Please celebrate with us on Sunday, October 17, 2021 in person or online.

Our current Mass times are:

  • 9 AM EDT – Morning Mass – in person
  • 11:15 AM EDT – Community Mass – in person and streamed online
  • 7 PM EDT – Evening Mass – in person

    Watch the video live or on replay via YouTube Live by clicking in the window above.

Entrance: The Summons – 790
Responsorial Psalm & Readings – 1176
Offertory: Open My Eyes – 651
Communion: Christ, Be Our Light – 590
Closing: Blest Be the Lord – 686

The Gather 3rd Edition Hymnal/Missals are available for use in the church – pick one up as you enter and return it after Mass. Instructions on how to use the hymnal missal are available here: https://www.stcharlesbklyn.org/hymnal-missal/ .

Today’s readings are also available to read online at the USCCB website https://bible.usccb.org .

Scriptual Commentary

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Our Way to the Father’s Presence

| Fr. William Smith

Trinity Church, Boston – Interior, from Art in the Christian
Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
(Mark 10:43–45)

Fr. Smith’s Commentary on the Second Reading
Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Hebrews 4:14-16
October 17, 2021

Today we begin a new section of the Letter to the Hebrews and examine in, what to us may seem excessive detail, Jesus as High Priest. In two verses, the author provides an overture for the several chapters that follow and introduces themes he will take up and develop later. To understand any of them we must step back and look at covenant and the priesthood that it requires.

The Israelites identified as a people who had a unique relationship with the God they referred to as “the Lord.” They did not have a contract with him for goods and services but a covenant sharing his very life. In their world, a covenant made a common family. Jews intrigued by Christianity would never jeopardize this relationship and would only convert if they thought this was a way of being even closer to the Lord. The author of Hebrews is concerned that some of the members of his community, most likely a “Jewish Christian” church in Rome, have had second thoughts and were considering a return to Judaism. He is therefore talking to them as a Jew to other Jews and we must master some basic ideas to follow him. Continue reading “29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Our Way to the Father’s Presence” →

Homilies

28th Sunday Ordinary Time – Homily (Fr. Smith)

| St. Charles Borromeo

Let us do a thought experiment:

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back-to-back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you,” To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it’s only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment and can safely be unplugged from you.”

Continue reading “28th Sunday Ordinary Time – Homily (Fr. Smith)” →
Events, Videos

Community Mass – 28th Sunday Ordinary Time

| St. Charles Borromeo


Please join us to celebrate the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time on Sunday, October 10, 2021.

Our current Mass times are:

  • 9 AM EDT – Morning Mass – in person
  • 11:15 AM EDT – Community Mass – in person and streamed online
  • 7 PM EDT – Evening Mass – in person

    Watch the video live or on replay via YouTube Live by clicking in the window above.

Entrance: Gather Your People – 837
Responsorial Psalm & Readings – 1173
Offertory: The Cry of the Poor – 47
Communion: Lord, When You Came – 781
Closing: Blest Are They – 735

The Gather 3rd Edition Hymnal/Missals are now available for use in the church – pick one up as you enter and return it after Mass. Instructions on how to use the hymnal missal are available here: https://www.stcharlesbklyn.org/hymnal-missal/ .

Today’s readings are also available to read online at the USCCB website https://bible.usccb.org .