Sermons of Fr Paul Robinson SSPX

On August 12, Fr. Robinson was interviewed live on the Protestant Radio Program Iron Sharpens Iron, by host Chris Arnzen. Here are the time stamps of what they spoke about:
1:30-7:00 Fr. Robinson’s story
7:00-17:55 Problems with the New Mass
17:55-20:10 Why Latin in the TLM?
20:10-23:45 Continuation of Fr. Robinson’s story
23:45-27:30 What is sedevacantism?
27:30-29:10 What is Feeneyism
29:10-30:10 Are Protestant baptisms valid?
30:50-38:00 Protestant commercials
38:00-52:10 Why does the SSPX exist? How was it founded?
52:10-1:12:00 Relationship of the SSPX with Rome over the years
1:12:00-1:22:00 Protestant commercials
1:22:00-1:25:00 Why isn’t Fr. Robinson sedevacantist?
1:25:00-1:34:10 Continuation of SSPX history and strained relationship with Rome, SSPX excommunications, why they are not valid
1:34:10-1:38:10 What is the Society of St. Pius V? The Nine and their Expulsion
1:38:10-1:49:25 How is the SSPX reacting to the excommunications?
1:49:25-1:54:30 Homosexuality in the Church
1:54:30-end How could a Pope lose his office?

Political conservatives often advocate for a meritocracy, that is, a system whereby people get pay and power based on their skills and hard work rather than on their connections or their social position.
It rarely works that way on this earth, for a number of reasons related to our human condition. But we Catholics believe that, in the next life, we will get exactly what we deserve for what we have done in this life.
On earth, it is often difficult for humans to know exactly what people deserve, according to their talent and work. But God knows us better than we know ourselves; He knows everything that we do and exactly how good or how evil our actions are.
On earth, it is hard for humans to be completely just in giving out rewards or meting out punishments. We often have biases that influence our attitude towards people. But God is perfectly just and will not be influenced in any way by any biases.
For that reason, after this life is over, we will receive a reward or punishment that is precisely fair because we will be receiving it from an all-knowing, all-perfect God.
On this feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, I want to focus on the question of heavenly merit. We know that, for each one of the actions that we perform in the state of grace and for a supernatural motive, we deserve a heavenly reward.
Basically, if we do a supernatural work, for something beyond this life, then we deserve a reward that is beyond this life. And that reward is greater or lesser based on how many supernatural acts we have performed and the intensity of the love of God with which we have done them.
If, in the next life, we all receive from God the reward that is due to us, what, we may ask, is the reward that Our Lady received after her death?
Well, since Our Lady’s actions in this life were the greatest of all human beings, next to her Son, her actions were the most meritorious. They deserved the greatest reward from God.
What was the reward that God assigned to her for actions? They are the rewards that we meditate upon in the fourth and fifth mysteries of the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary: Our Lady’s Assumption in Heaven and her Crowning as Queen of Heaven and earth.
We believe that Our Lady has been given the highest position in heaven, after her Son, because she merited more than anyone else.

Two men went up to the Temple to pray. One prayed well and the other did not. One prayed with many words, while another prayed with a few words said over and over. One stood with his eyes lifted up, while the other had his eyes cast down and kept striking his breast. One man went home justified, while the other did not.
The parable of the Pharisee and the publican is one of the most beautiful of all of Our Lord’s parable. It is clear that the purpose of the parable is to encourage us to practice the virtue of humility and to fight against pride.
But the parable also teaches us something else that is very important: it tells us how we ought to pray. When you think about all of the things that you do each day of your life, you must be convinced that praying is probably the most important thing that you do.
The reason for this is that prayer is the way in which we communicate with our Father in Heaven, the way that we spend time with Him, the way that we maintain our relationship with Him.
And if prayer is the most important of the things that we do each day, we must try to get better at prayer as time goes on. We must learn from Our Lord and the saints how we ought to pray, and try to imitate them in the time that we dedicate to prayer.
I particularly want to emphasize that word “dedicate” when talking about prayer today. One of the most important characteristics of good prayer is dedication. Another word for this is “devotion”. A prayer that is devout is one where we are devoted to what we are doing.
What do I mean by this? I mean that, while we are praying, we are focused on God rather than on ourselves. I mean that we actually use the time of prayer to pay attention to God and, even more than that, we try to focus our entire being on Him, as far as possible.
Have you ever tried doing this? Have you ever tried kneeling down, closing your eyes, and focusing yourself as much as you can on God and praying to Him with your whole heart? It is so important that you not just try this, but that you do it every day of your life.
One of the big differences between the prayer of the Pharisee and that of the publican is the question of devotion. The publican seems to be focused on God in his prayer because he is begging God for mercy. His prayer is clearly devout because his eyes are lowered, avoiding distraction; he is striking his breast over and over; and he is repeating the same thing over and over. There is a great focus and intensity to his prayer.
Whereas the Pharisee is not even asking God for anything. He is just talking to God about Himself and just saying whatever comes to his mind.

St. Paul tells us that “the wages of sin is death”, meaning that sin leads you to die. We know that sin leads to the death of the soul; that is why mortal sin has its name. It causes a mortal blow to our soul such that the life of God dies in the soul. The soul becomes dead to God.
But sin also is a cause of physical death. This is obviously true for the sin of murder, but it is true at a more basic level in that physical death came into this world because of sin. And, quite simply, the disorders of sin are not good for our health.
The bottom line with sin is that it causes the death of our bodies, it causes the death of our souls and it leads to the eternal death of Hell after this life is over.
This reality makes sin the greatest evil and even the only evil. We as Catholics believe that this is true. However, are we as careful about sin as we should be? Do we treat sin as a perilous danger to be avoided at all costs?
It all depends on the state of our conscience. Our conscience acts like the immune system of our body, in that it is our soul’s natural defense against sin.If we have a delicate conscience, then our conscience flares up whenever we are in the presence of an occasion of sin.
If we have a lax conscience, then we are not very troubled when we are in the occasion of sin or commit sin. The lax conscience is like the body of someone who has been numbed to pain because of injuries. A person burns his hand and loses sensation in his hand. When his hand is injured the next time, he does not feel anything.

This perspective on conscience shows us how our conscience can change over time, just like the immune system of our body. Good food and drink, and proper rest, help you maintain your immune system. Whereas staying up late and getting up early, not getting any exercise, binging on junk food, and so on, makes you vulnerable to sickness.
Similarly, in our spiritual life, if we pray our daily Rosary, avoid occasions of sin, do spiritual reading, go to confession and Communion regularly, we will maintain our soul in good health. We will be sensitive to sin, pray more easily and be able to live our faith.
Whereas, if we regularly consume worldly entertainment, hardly pray, don’t go to confession, and so on, then our soul starts to become used to sin and numb to spiritual realities. It becomes harder and harder to live the Catholic faith and be a Catholic.
At the end of the day, as long as we are in this life, we are in a state of flux. We are either becoming better Catholics or worse Catholics, as time goes by. We are very capable of changing from what we are today, either for the better or for the worse.
We all know people who used to be fervent Catholics and now have left the faith. We also know people who have undergone conversions and are today much holier than they were in the past.
The reason I mention this is that both today’s epistle and Gospel provide for us examples of the bad path: the slippery slope into mortal sin and apostasy, the numbing of the soul over time by a progressive desensitization to sin.
Let us look at these two examples to understand how sin truly leads to death.

In this life, we find ourselves at a midway point between earth and Heaven. We are some years away from the first moment of our existence and we are likewise some years away from our eternal home.
As Catholics, we know that, while we are on the journey of this life, we must live it, in some way, like the life to come. Our life on earth now must resemble what our life in Heaven will be for us to be able to enter into Heaven when we die. “As the tree casts its shadow, so does it fall”
The essence of what Heaven will be is that we will delight in God. We will be filled with immense joy and happiness by being in the presence of God.
Thus, it would seem to mean that we are meant to possess a certain joy and happiness, through God, on this earth. We know that this is one of the characteristics of the lives of the saints. Though they suffered much, they yet possessed in their souls a continual joy.
In the Hail Holy Queen, we call this earth a “valley of tears”. We call ourselves “banished children of Eve”. We say that we come to Our Lady “sinful and sorrowful”. We say that we send up our sighs to her “mourning and weeping”.
The trials of this life are very real. But they must be also be accompanied by a real joy.
I want to consider what I believe is the main problem we face in striving to have supernatural joy, as well as the resources that we have, as Catholics, to maintain that joy, so that our joy on earth may be a preparation for our joy in Heaven.
St. Thomas says that joy is caused by love: either by us being in the presence of the thing that we love or because the thing that we love is in good shape.
This shows us that any joy in our life has to come from us loving the things that we have. Do we have blessings in our lives that are able to provide us a constant joy? Yes, we do. If we are not joyful, it is because we do not love them sufficiently.
Just to take some examples. We believe that, when we receive Holy Communion, we receive Our Lord Himself into our souls. This is an incredible gift and blessing. Some souls are comforted and strengthened when receiving Our Lord; they delight in dwelling with Him. This is what the Communion verse of today’s Mass tells us: “Taste and see how good the Lord is; happy the man who takes refuge in Him.” Others receive Our Lord and it has little or no impact on them.
Or think about the fact that we have a Father in Heaven who dwells in happiness and loves us and bestows all manner of goodness upon us. We know this gives great joy to the Church because she expresses it in the Mass, especially at the Gloria: “We praise Thee. We bless Thee. We adore Thee. We glorify Thee. We give Thee thanks for Thy great glory.” What sort of joy does the existence of God give us on a regular basis?
Sometimes, traditional Catholics allow the situation in the Church to put a damper on their joy. This is especially true when we are receiving these terrible condemnations from Rome.
But there have always been crises in the Church and we must not let the current crisis be an obstacle from us drawing joy from our faith. When I talk to people who are new traditional Catholics, I always tell them: “make sure you do not become obsessed with the crisis. Rather, profit from the traditional Mass and the traditional devotions that you have found. Make them the center of your life, not these Church controversies”.