Sermons of Fr Paul Robinson SSPX

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5 of 259

Our Lord's Triumph vs. Julius Caesar's Triumph
This is a day of great joy for us. There are few things in this life that make you so happy as to see someone rewarded for the good that they have done.Today is the day that Our Lord receives His reward for the great good that He did for the human race. At the Last Supper, Our Lord prayed to the Father, saying, “Father, the hour has come! Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You, even as You have given Him power over all flesh, in order that to all You have given Him He may give everlasting life.”Today is the day that His prayer is answered, when He receives the glory that the Father has prepared for Him.And it makes us very happy to see this triumph of Our Lord,because we love Him and we know so well how much He deserves it.It makes us happy because His triumph is a very wonderful thing.It makes us happy because it gives us a glimpse of the glory that we hope to receive one dayWe are familiar with ceremonies of triumph that take place on this earth. Ancient Rome was famous for its triumphal processions. Julius Caesar would come back from conquering a foreign nation that he had subjugated to the Empire.The people would line the streets. First would pass by them the treasures of the conquered nation, all of the spoils that were going to Rome. Then would come the people of the nation who were now going to be made slaves of Rome. Then the defeated king and defeated general who would soon be executed.Then the Roman senate. And finally Julius Caesar himself, the great hero who was responsible for the victory. The celebration was so overwhelming that they would have a slave stand by Caesar to whisper in his ear to remind him that he was going to die one day, that he was not a god.This is an example of one of the greatest triumphal celebrations in human history. If we tried to compare it to something closer to us, we can think about when the Denver Nuggets won their championship in 2023. Thousands of people lined the streets. They put the players in the top of a fire truck and drove them down the streets. They received the adulation and adoration of the crowds.These triumphs are nothing compared to the triumph of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the day of His Ascension. Our Lord took His followers to the Mount of Olives. He blessed them. Then, on His own power, using the glorified body that He earned through His death, He lifted Himself up to Heaven.When He reached Heaven, He opened its gates. All of the angels were assembled to receive Him. He went first into Heaven. Behind Him, He brought with Him His spoils. These were all of the souls in the history of the world who had died in the state of grace. Thousands upon thousands of souls followed Him into Heaven, from the first man and woman Adam and Eve to St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist.Our Lord took His place in Heaven on His throne seat, at the right hand of the heavenly Father. He assigned to everyone else their place in Heaven.A new song was sung in Our Lord’s honor, a more triumphal song than any we have ever heard on this earth.This triumph of Our Lord was greater than any triumph that we have ever seen here below, because it was more magnificent than anything that happens here on earth. It was a supernatural triumph, a celebration prepared by God Himself.
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12:56
Our Lady Help of Christians, Sermon by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX
Yesterday was an important feast day for our parish, the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians. Before St. Isidore’s existed, we had a chapel in Denver, on Winona Court and West 39th Avenue.The chapel was called Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel. When this church was built, it was decided that the church would be dedicated to St. Isidore the Farmer and that the school would be placed under the protection of Our Lady Help of Christians.It was in this way that we came to have two patrons, whereas in many SSPX parishes, the church and the school have the same patron.Today, I would like to help us get to know our patroness a bit better and remind us why we are dedicated to her. I think that it is especially appropriate to do that today, given that we are celebrating the results of our campaign and the faithful have been so generous contributing to the future of Our Lady Help of Christians Academy.The practice of referring to Our Lady as the “Help of Christians” goes all the way back to St. John Chrysostom.But the devotion to Our Lady under this title really started to take off in the 1500s. It was at that time that the Church was engaged in religious wars against the Muslims and the Protestants.We all know that Pope St. Pius V was asking the Christian world to pray the Rosary to Our Lady as the Catholic naval army was preparing to face off against the Muslims. But he was asking them to invoke Our Lady under the title of Help of Christians.After the victory at Lepanto, the invocation “Help of Christians” was added to the Litany of Our Lady, also known as the Litany of Loreto.But devotion to Our Lady Help of Christians really reached its high point in the 19th century. At the beginning of the century, Pope Pius VII was kidnapped by Napoleon and imprisoned by him at a place called Fontainebleau in France.Eventually, Napoleon fell from power and the Pope was able to return safely to Rome. Pius VII attributed his release to the intercession of Our Lady. As a way of thanking her, he added the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians to the calendar on May 24.This happened in 1815. It was in that same year that a great saint was born who was to be a promoter of devotion to Our Lady Help of Christians as well as a great educator.
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17:39
Only Our Lord Will Raise You From the Dead, Sermon by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX
Each one of us has the experience of attending a funeral. We assist at the Mass for the deceased and pray for his soul. We accompany the body to the cemetery and see the final rites performed over the body. Then we walk away.That’s it. Nothing happens after that and we do not expect anything else to happen. We do not expect that the person buried in the ground is going to do anything. None of those who are at the cemetery do anything after they are buried. They do not move or get up. They all just stay in the ground.And the same will be true for us one day. We will also die; we will also be taken to the cemetery. We will be put in the ground, the people will walk away, and we will stay in the ground.The reason why we will stay in the ground and why everyone who is buried at the cemetery stays in the ground is that we do not have power over life and death.We are going to die when our soul will no longer be able to remain with our body and we will not be able to bring life back to our body. Neither will our loved ones. Neither will our friends.There is no one in this world that is able to restore life to a dead body. We have all of the body parts that we need. We have all kinds of technology and machines. But we cannot give life.In all of our experience, whatever dies remains dead and does not come back to life.Our Lord is the exceptionThe one exception to this, of course, is Our Lord Jesus Christ. Like everyone else, He was buried in a tomb. Like everyone else, those who buried Him walked away after His burial. Like everyone else, they thought that He would remain dead and would not come back to life.But that is not what happened. Our Lord did what no one else is capable of doing. He gave life back to Himself, He rose from the dead, and He came out of the tomb.How is it possible that He alone, of all the many people who have died in the history of the world, He alone was able to come back from the dead. It is because He is the only one who possesses the power necessary to do it. He alone has power over life and death. He alone is God.Our Lord promises He will raise us upThese two facts must be very clear in our mind: a) I am going to die one day and I will have no power to restore life to myself; b) Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only one Who has the power to restore life to someone who is dead.
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17:30
Our Lady and the Choice of Our State of Life, Sermon by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX
Paschal candle dedicated to Our Lady with images of her titles on it. Two of them refer to Our Lady as a star: Stella Matutinis and Stella MarisWe speak of Our Lady as a star because she is a guide for our life. Before we had modern means of navigation, sailors had to rely on the stars in order to set the course for their ships. The stars keep the same position in the heavens every night and so always point in the same direction.Our Lady is the star of the sea of our life to guide us. She is also the “morning star”, the brightest star in the sky: she is the clearest guide for our life.I want to speak today especially about Our Lady as a guide for our youth, as a guide for those of you who have not yet chosen your path in this life. It is like having your ship in the dock and you are getting out the map and charting your course, but you have not yet set out on your voyage. You have your life but you have not yet chosen what we call your state in life.Our Lady is a great guide for you because God her the ability to live different states of life all at the same time and to provide a perfect model for all of them. There are some guides who simply tell you where you need to go but do not walk on that path. There are other guides who show you the way to go by walking on that path themselves. That is what Our Lady has done.She says to our youth, “There are three different paths that you can choose in this life. I have walked on all of them in a certain way, but you will only be able to choose one of them. Each of these paths involves a gift of yourself. You are free to choose the path that you desire but you must seek to choose one of them rather than remain at the crossroads your whole life.”God has given us three states of life to choose from. Our Lady is a model for all of them.
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13:32
The Humility of God, Sermon by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. He shows us who God is.This is especially true at the end of Our Lord’s life. We reveal what we are particularly in a time of crisis. It is the time of Our Lord’s Passion that we see more clearly than ever before Who He is, Who God is.The Last Supper and the Passion make one thing very clear: our God is humble.Each event of the Last Supper and the Passion is a manifestation of Our Lord’s humility.There are many aspects of Our Lord’s humility that we could speak about. But I want to focus on one of them: Our Lord’s effort to lower Himself in order to do good to us.We could say that Our Lord has to make a choice between two things: love and justice. If He chooses justice, He maintains Himself strictly in His state of Godhood. If He chooses love, He lowers Himself so that He can stoop down to His miserable creatures and assist them.We see what Our Lord chooses. He chooses love, a love that works through humility. The love of God uses humility as the most effective way to express itself and achieve its goal of doing good to us.On this night of the Last Supper, Our Lord performs three great acts of humility that enable Him to do great good to the Apostles and also to us.
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15:36