Five Minute Sermons, Volume II. / For Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year by Priests of the Congregation of St. Paul

Repeated and urgent requests from both clergy and laity have induced the publication of this second volume of Five-Minute Sermons. They have all been preached in the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, New York, and published weekly in the Catholic Review . Choice has been made of such as are really little sermons, since there are many excellent manuals from which purely doctrinal instructions may be prepared. Yet they all contain, it is hoped, a solid basis of doctrine plainly put and appropriately illustrated. The main object is, however, to edify, to quicken the moral perceptions, and to move in a reasonable degree the religious emotions.
Nearly all of these sermons may serve as skeletons for discourses of greater length; a fuller treatment of the topics, by means of familiar illustrations and more copious extracts from Scripture, will fit them for use at High Mass, or on Sunday evenings.



Epistle. Romans xiii. 11-14, Brethren: Know that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light; let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Gospel. St. Luke xxi. 25-33. At that time Jesus said to his disciples: There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves, men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven shall be moved: and then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty. But when these things begin to come to pass look up and lift up your heads: because your redemption is at hand. And he spoke to them a similitude. See the fig-tree, and all the trees: when they now shoot forth their fruit, you know that summer is nigh; so you also when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen I say to you, this generation shall not pass away, till all things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.