Mass Appeal

For most of my intermittent church-going life, the thought of sitting and listening to a 16-minute homily would have been repellent. And a candidate for JB's list of most annoying things about Mass.

However, as of late, the scales have fallen from my ears. Now, the feeling generated by a 16-minute homily is disappointment that it wasn't 17 minutes or more. I'd like to credit this renewed appreciation of spiritual rhetoric to my increased wisdom alone, but I must admit the messenger has something to do with it too. And that is Fr. Thomas Dufner at Holy Family Catholic Church in St. Louis Park.

Now, through the miracle of technology, you too can easily enjoy these remarkable exercises in conservative Catholic rhetoric and moral guidance. Yes his homilies are available via podcasting. Now you to can get the Truth, without having to go to Mass. You'll never have to get up before noon on Sunday again!

All right, that's not the point of this at all. (And that promotion of sloth may be something I have to repent for, we're checking). It, of course, would still behoove you all to get to Mass every Sunday. And if you're in the western suburbs (or even all the way out in St. Paul, like me), there's no better place than Holy Family where there are truly some extraordinary things going on.

But, if you ever need a spiritual refresher, the permalink to Fr. Dufner homilies are on the blog roll on the left hand side of this fine Internet site. Listen to all of them in the archives, they're all well worth the time investment. For your opening serving, I'd recommend the sermon from January 22 (the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time). There's just something about exhortations to hone the sword of truth and go out into the world to confront it on its own terms that appeals to a right wing blogger.