Sermons of Fr Paul Robinson SSPX

June is the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.The devotion to the Sacred Heart is a devotion to the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ for us, especially His love for us as manifested in the Holy Eucharist.This devotion to Our Lord’s physical heart, as a symbol of His love for us, existed during the Middle Ages, but in the 1600s, Our Lord Himself came down on earth to explicitly ask for Catholics to practice this devotion and for this feast to be instituted.The timing and place was important. Our Lord appeared in France at a time when the heresy of Jansenism was rampant in the Catholic world. This heresy made the hearts of Catholics cold towards God and so, a few decades after its appearance, Our Lord reminded the world of His great love for us and of our duty to love Him in return.If we fast forward to 2026, we find that we as Catholics and even as traditional Catholics very much struggle to love Our Lord as He deserves to be loved. This is why it is important for us to have a devotion to Our Lord’s Sacred Heart. This helps us to love Our Lord.We must remember what our catechism teaches us, namely, that we are made to know, love and serve God in this life. We are made to love God. Loving God is to fulfill the very meaning for our existence, to accomplish the purpose for which we exist.There are two pieces of knowledge that are very important for us to possess in order for us to love God: one is an understanding of sin and the other is an understanding of God’s love.These two things are mentioned in the beautiful Collect of the Mass of the Sacred Heart: “O God, Who in the Heart of Your Son, wounded by our sins, mercifully lavish upon us the infinite riches of love”.There are two great truths there: a) our sins wound Our Lord; b) Our Lord lavishes His love on us. Both of these truths are attacked today by two great illusions.One is the illusion that our sins do not hurt God. This is one of the reasons why sin is not taken seriously today. People do not worry about sin; they do not worry by saying to themselves, “If I engage in sinful behavior, I will offend God and He will send me to Hell”.This is particularly true of the sin of heresy. Heresy has always been considered to be one of the greatest sins because it is a willful rejection of what God has taught us. Our Lord came on earth, He taught us the truths that we are to believe about Him and which we need to get to Heaven. And the heretic says, “I refuse to believe; I choose not to believe” Offensive!But this is also true with sins against the moral law. Many people have the idea today, including many Catholics, that no matter how you live your life, God is still pleased with you. If you have a homosexual lifestyle, God blesses you; if you divorce and remarry, God blesses you; if you contracept your children, God blesses you.It is a hallmark of love that you seek to avoid anything that might displease the one that you love. But today’s mentality is that nothing that I do can displease God, whether it be in thought, word or deed.This idea is false; it is sinful. Liberalism is a sin.The other blind spot we have today is not seeing how much God loves us, only understanding God’s love in a minimalist way.

#catholic #sspxOn this Second Sunday after Epiphany, it is customary to speak about the sacrament of matrimony, because of the Gospel about the wedding feast at Cana.Today, however, I would like to speak about a different kind of marriage, the union that exists between Christ and His Spouses in the religious life.We have this incredible blessing here at St. Isidore’s that the Consoling Sisters are planning to build a novitiate. This will be a place where young women will be prepared to become spouses of Christ.They will be prepared to enter into a way of life that has existed from the earliest days of the Church, wherein young ladies forego marrying and having a family in order to give their lives completely to Christ.There are three stages at every novitiate:first is the postulancy, which is the period of time when the young lady comes to the novitiate and adjusts to the life there. This usually lasts for six months.Second is the novitiate. It is started by the young lady taking the religious habit and receiving a religious name. The novitiate is a time for her to practice in earnest the three religious vows and for her to be trained in the religious life by the mistress of novices. The novitiate typically lasts for two years.The third stage is the taking of vows, also known as the first profession. That is the day when the young lady approaches the altar and binds herself to the three vows of religion for the first time. She takes the vow of poverty, whereby she can only use material things under the direction of her superior; the vow of chastity, whereby she does not seek any earthly love but only the love of Christ; and the vow of obedience, whereby she submits her will to the will of her superiors. She makes these three vows in order to give herself to Christ in the most perfect way possible. This is why she typically receives a ring on the day of her first profession. From that point, she officially lives the religious life and is given some assignment by her order. She leaves the novitiate and joins a community of sisters somewhere else.This special way of life, this beautiful way of life, is a treasure of the Catholic Church. The fact that the Catholic Church, and pretty much the Catholic Church alone, has promoted and fostered this way of life throughout her entire history is a sign of her holiness. The fact that millions of women have lived this way of life in the past 2000 years is a sign that the Catholic Church is truly a divine institution.This way of life is also a great gift to the world, because the nun is a very special kind of woman. She is a woman who is a bride of Christ, living a supernatural life and possessing a special kind of love that she brings to everything that she does. Her life of sacrifice and her intense love of Christ make her able to do great things for God in this world, that no one else can do.

#catholic #christmas #sermonWhen God Himself became incarnate in this world, when He assumed our human life, He decided that there would be two symbols that would be representative of His life.Those two symbols were the manger and the cross.Both of them are made of wood.On both of them, Our Lord lied down. Our Lady laid Him down in the manger, while the Roman soldiers laid Him down on the Cross.On both of them, Our Lord was bound and in a state of helplessness. In the manger, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, clothes that confine a baby in such a way that he cannot move. Likewise on the Cross, He could not move, because He was nailed to it.On both of them, Our Lord was in a state of poverty. He laid in a manger in a cave, a place that was not his house, a place that belonged to no one. On the Cross, He was naked and completely despoiled of all of His possessions.On both of them, Our Lord was in a state of humiliation. In the manger, He was a tiny, helpless child, born in extremely humble circumstances. On the Cross, He was being executed as a criminal in full view of hundreds of people.The Creche and the Cross are the two defining moments of Our Lord’s life; they are the two symbols that He chose to represent His life.We know that Our Lord chose the life that He would live, we know that He lived the most perfect life, and we know that His life is the model for our lives.This is why being a Catholic and living a Catholic life is always a great challenge, in every age. It is difficult to imitate Our Lord, because it is difficult to embrace poverty, humiliation and suffering.This is why Our Lord’s life has always been a scandal to the world. One of the many reasons why the world has always rejected Our Lord is that it does not want to be called to the excellence of Our Lord’s life. It finds His life far too demanding, far too difficult.As such, the world has always defined for its followers a different path. In place of poverty and humility, the world presents another “virtue” for everyone to practice. It is the “virtue” of mediocrity.

#catholic #sspx #sermonDoctors tell us that if we want our bodies to be healthy, we must exercise our bodies regularly. If our bodies are always at a state of rest, not moving, not straining, they will deteriorate over time.It is interesting to note that many exercises consist of pushing back against gravity. We have this force of gravity that is always being exercised upon us, which pulls us down. We find that, if we sometimes work against that force of gravity, if we strain our bodies against it, it is helpful for our bodies, rather than just letting gravity always pull us down.We can think about the exercises of pull ups, push ups, sit ups, and so on. There is a kettlebell exercise where you simply hold a weight above your head and walk with it.God has made our body in such a way that it needs periodic movement and strain in order for them to be in good health.Today, I want to speak to you about a spiritual exercise that is like the anti-gravity bodily exercises. It consists in pushing back against the weight of our fallen human nature that is always weighing down upon us.Our fallen nature works on our souls like the force of gravity works on our bodies. It is always pulling us down to earthly things. We can think of our souls as naturally being stooped over and always tending to look at ourselves, to want creature comforts, to be consumed with the things of this world.If we made a log of what we are always thinking about for one day, we might be surprised. We might find a lot of vanity, selfishness, and pride in our thoughts.Just as if we leave our bodies alone and do nothing with them, they fall apart, so too with our souls. If we let them live this way all the time, we will lose them. Our souls will be always consumed with the things of this earth and will end up falling into hell rather than rising up to Heaven.At the beginning of this season of Advent, we heard these words of Our Lord: “when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand.”We have to be continually be lifting our souls up to heavenly things. This is the spiritual exercise I would like to talk about. It consists in lifting our souls up to God throughout the day.Sometimes, you will hear this referred to as the “practice of the presence of God”. In other places, you will hear it referred to as the practice of recollection.

#advent #catholic #sspxAdvent is a holy season of waiting. We learn how to wait for God.Waiting well is an important spiritual skill, because God often moves slowly. When we look at the history of the world and of the human race, we see that God is never in a hurry.God is outside of time. All of time is like a single moment for Him. He sees all of human history from the highest perspective.When we interact with God, we have to be willing for Him to act slowly. We have to be willing to wait. “Show, O Lord, thy ways to me. Teach me thy paths”, we say in today’s Introit. His ways are slow.Abraham: God first appears to him when he is 75 years old, and promises that he will make a great nation of him. But his wife is not able to have any children. After 25 years, God appears to Abraham, when he is 100 years old, and promises that he will have a child by Sara, who is 90 years old. She has Isaac and the whole race of the Chosen People comes from him.Moses: the Israelites are being oppressed by the Pharaoh. He is telling the midwives to put their male children to death. Moses is saved from the water and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter in the Egyptian court. When he is 40 years old, he flees to the desert. Only after 40 years more does God appear to Moses and ask him to go back to Egypt to deliver the Israelite people. They had been in slavery for 80 years at that point.Coming of Our Lord: God waits a number of centuries after Adam. When Our Lord comes onto this earth, He is not rushed. Rather, He spends 30 years living a hidden and unknown life. Only then does He come out into the public.Bottom line: God often waits a long time before acting. (same will be true of end of world!)We find this characteristic of our God difficult because we are naturally impatient as human beings. We are willful and we want control. We want things to happen when we want them to happen. We find it humbling to be forced to wait.

On July 13, 1917, Our Lady appeared for the second time to the three children of Fatima. She promised to work a miracle on October 13, so that everyone would believe. Then, she asked the children to sacrifice themselves for sinners and to pray the following prayer when doing so: “O Jesus, it is for love of you, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”These three young children were already familiar with the conception of praying and making sacrifices in order to make up for sin.God had sent an angel to them the year before, to prepare them for the apparitions of Our Lady. This guardian angel of Portugal taught the children about their mission: it was for them to do prayer and penance for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for sin, to stop sin from being committed in the future and to repair for sin already committed in the past.Later, Our Lady came to ask for the practice of the five first Saturdays devotion. This is a devotion of reparation for the offenses committed against Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. There are five first Saturdays because there are five types of blasphemies that are committed against Our Lady.The fourth type is the “blasphemies of those who seek openly to foster in the hearts of children indifference or contempt for this Immaculate Mother.”These facts about the message of Fatima show us that Heaven takes very seriously the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady would not come down on earth, speak to the three children, and work incredible miracles for no reason.Another thing that we learn is that the work of reparation is very important. Every sin is a crime against God, an injustice. Every sin deserves a punishment to make up for the injustice.There are many sins being committed around the world all the time. God looks for souls who are willing to pay for the sins of mankind. Our Lord and Our Lady, of course, paid a great price for the sins of the world, enough to wipe them all away.However, God did not want to leave us with nothing to do in the supernatural order. Rather, God asks that we unite with the work of Our Lord and Our Lady to do something to pay for sin ourselves. He asks for the work of “reparation”, making up for sin by prayer and sacrifice.This is what the Sacred Heart asked of St. Margaret Mary and us. This is what the Immaculate Heart asked of the three children of Fatima and us.Doing this work is part of living a Catholic life.The most important sins for us to make reparation for are sins of blasphemy. St. Thomas says that blasphemy is “the disparagement of some surpassing goodness, especially that of God”.What Fr. Pagliarani and Fr. Fullerton are asking us to do is to make reparation for a sort of blasphemy against the Mother of God in the form of the document Mater Populi Fidelis of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith.This document disparages a surpassing goodness, namely, the roles of Our Lady as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces.