Sermons of Fr Paul Robinson SSPX Fr Paul Robinson

The four sets of Ember Days are a beautiful part of our Catholic heritage. According to Pope Leo the Great, the Ember Days go all the way back to the Apostles. Think about the millions of Catholics for whom the practicing of fast and abstinence on the seasonal Ember Days was just part and parcel of their Catholic life.Despite their age-old practice, they were done away with in 1966 by Pope Paul VI and most Catholics today do not even know what they are.Let us hold on to these important practices so that we can love God more and live our faith better.

The book of Job tells us that “the life of man upon earth is a warfare”. We are in a battle over our own souls. We are besieged by the cares of this world, by our daily grind, by the relentlessness of life.In this battle, sometimes we need to attack life head-on; at other times, we need to retreat, in order to recuperate our spiritual forces and renew ourselves for the battle. Sometimes, it is by retreating that we are able to gain a victory that otherwise was not possible.The faithful may ask themselves: why do priests, monks, and nuns need to go on retreat? They are doing holy things all of the time. It is clear that the Church thinks it very important for those who have dedicated their lives to God to take this time once a year, in order to maintain their spiritual stamina in the battle for souls.If priests and nuns need this time, how much more do the faithful need it, when they do not have as strong a spiritual life?There are several reasons why retreats are needed for everyone: priests, religious and layfolk.

This feast represents the first stage of God’s great plan to save mankind from death. It is a mystery of life.We know that one of the most horrible scenes that can be imagined in this life is for children to be slaughtered in front of their parents.This is what happens daily before the face of God. He sees everything that happens in this world. In so many cases, what is happening is that souls are dying before Him because of sin.Sin kills the life of God in our souls and it makes us insensible to spiritual things. We become numb in our souls through sin; we become like spiritual zombies.God the Father cannot stand to see His children dying in this world, and then dying eternally in the next. He wants them to live! And so He decides on a plan to give them life.God decided that He would restore the souls of His children to life through a woman, an extra-ordinary woman. It belongs to women to give life. They bear life in their wombs and they bring it forth into this world.Eve was the first woman to do this. She was meant to be the mother of all the living. But she put her soul to death and then led her husband to the death of sin.This did not make God abandon His plan to have life come into this world through women. No, He decided to bring another woman into the world through whom eternal life would be communicated. Because He wanted her to be able to give life, He made her alive.The Immaculate Conception is about Our Lady being full of life so that she could give life to others. God made it such that, the very first moment of her existence, she should be full of His eternal life. Her soul had physical life and divine life at that moment.

God is at the origin of two orders in creation, the natural and the supernatural.The natural order concerns God’s material reality and the things of this earth. The supernatural order concerns God’s spiritual reality, the things of Heaven.These two realms are very distant from one another. When we speak of two things being very far from one another, we say it is like the distance between heaven and earth.At the same time, they are connected. God does not separate them into two completely separate realms but He makes there to be an interaction between them. We ourselves are natural creatures but God has elevated us to the supernatural level.Many of the realities that we experience in our everyday natural level also exist on the supernatural level, only they are more elevated and sublime.I want to take one example of this today: that of motherhood. Let us look at the motherhood that God has created in our natural world and then look at supernatural motherhood.

If you want to listen to the message of Fatima, and you believe that it provides a roadmap for salvation in our difficult times, there are two things you must do to honor Our Lady: recite the Rosary daily and make reparation on the first Saturdays of the month.Our Lady of Fatima asked for the daily recitation of the Rosary each of the six times that she appeared there. She stresses the daily Rosary so much because God has willed to communicate so much power and grace to the Rosary.Pope Leo XIII said, “The rosary is the most excellent form of prayer and the most efficacious means of attaining eternal life. It is the remedy for all our evils, the root of all our blessings.”

In 1978, four businessmen pooled their resources to found the home improvement chain Home Depot. The point of the store was to provide a place where homeowners could go to buy tools and parts to renovate or repair their house. One of the slogans over the years was, “You can do it. We can help.”Home Depot represents something of the American spirit. We have a go-getter, do it yourself attitude. Why hire someone when you can just figure things out, buy the parts and do it on your own. Doesn’t that save a lot of trouble?What I want to point out in this sermon is that such a spirit is not proper in the realm of religion; it must not be translated to the religious sphere such that we become Home Depot Catholics, such that we pursue a do it yourself salvation.What do I mean by a Home Depot Catholicism or a Do It Yourself Catholicism?Home Depot Catholics come to church merely to acquire the material parts they need to keep their souls going and so attain salvation. Get Mass. Get confession. Get Communion. Throw some money in the collection basket. Go home. Save my soul.This is not the way that Our Lord established His religion, His Mystical Body. He established it in such a way that the members of the Catholic faith are not only united with Him, but they are also united with one another through Him. They all live the same life; they form one body together. And they are meant to live that reality by associating themselves with one another.