Twenty-Sixth Sunday of the Year (Year A)
September 22, 2011
1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1803 A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. “The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.” (St Gregory of Nyssa)
2. Morality: The Catholic View, Servais Pinckaers, O.P., p. 67-68, 70
[There are] two distinct conceptions of freedom that have engendered two types of morality: the freedom of indifference, which is the source of moralities of obligation, and freedom for excellence, which inspires moralities of happiness and the virtues. …[Freedom for excellence] is easily open to an encounter with Christian revelation.
3. Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas, IIIa, q. 85, a. 5
[Penance] is necessary for the sinner’s salvation that sin be taken away from him; which cannot be done without the sacrament of Penance, wherein the power of Christ’s Passion operates through the priest’s absolution and the acts of the penitent, who co-operates with grace unto the destruction of his sin.
4. Meditations for Lay Folk, Bede Jarrett, O.P., p. 55
Here, then, surely I shall get to feel that there can be no real loneliness; that I am not solitary in any sense, for about me always are there prayers of the saints, whether here on earth or there in heaven. I am not left alone to fight out my battle, for there are countless hosts who watch me, interested in my welfare and applauding my efforts.
Sunday Preacher’s Resource: Twenty-Sixth Sunday of the Year (Year A)
Readings for Twenty-Sixth Sunday of the Year (Year A)
Additional Preaching Resources
- Fr. Francis Martin Website
- Biblius Clerus, a resource of the Congregation for the Clergy
- The Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P., for the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
