Father Richard Simon again preaches without any associated video. Recorded directly off the sound system with no video, Fr. Simon talks about the beginning of Romans 12. Yet, he has a strong and powerful message about the method of transformation “into the image of Christ to be adopted by God. ” He makes an effective message citing the nature of life being a time of transformation into sons and daughters of God.

Some of the effective use of words he uses is to point out that our salvation is more than Heaven, but to be adopted into God’s family.

He makes some interesting comments for example “the only thing we have in common is death”

Had you seen Jesus and Mary in Nazareth they were so ordinary you would not have been able to pick them out from a group of 4.

Fr. Carmel Polidano like Fr. Simon preaches on the second reading. He does so repeating his style as before, camera from the congregation recording his homily. Yet, this week, unlike before, he speaks more often to the camera making the video audience part of the whole congregation.  Fr.Carmel also preaches in the style of calling people away from sin, so by default he focuses on naming sinful behavior and leading people to change from it. He focuses on the need to be charitable and the danger of being self focuses.

One of the memorable quotes is that he reminds people mass schedules should not fit one person’s schedule but focus on serving the common good of the parish.

Our life in the Church is a life for service.

Both Fr. Simon and Fr. Carmel focus on Jesus’ role of being a slave at some point in their homilies. Fr. Simon defines how a slave has no rights and Fr. Carmel focuses on Jesus choice to be a slave.

Fr. Joshua Wagner uses a the concept of a futon as the beginning illustration of his homily. He uses a signficant part of his homily on this illustration. He focuses on the futon not doing either thing as couch or bed well. He then uses this to address being Catholic. “if we say one thing and do another our lives will be destroyed.” He uses this illustration to call Catholics to be Catholic at all times. That we cannot be Catholic at mass and something else the rest of the week. Hence he calls us not to be a futon, but to be either a couch or a bed or better yet, to be one, which is to be a Catholic all the time. His ultimate message is to be people of integrity in Christ.

Fr. Regis Farmer takes the opportunity of the gospel to preach integrity in communication. He therefore is calling people to “say yes when we mean yes, and no when we mean no.” He also indicates that a Catholic who does not go to church or pray and or live the faith is like the man who says one thing and does another. He too follows the style of not using video of the preacher, but pictures. Unlike Fr. Wagner and like Fr. Simon, he uses one picture  as the video. He also takes the sound off the sound system.

Fr. Stevensonrf does a short produced homily where he also talks about living in the integrity of doing the will of God in our lives. Like me he does his in front of a green screen and he has a good sense of production values. He has the chromakey effect down better than I do, but he also uses a different software. His message is simple as his video is short, calling us to do the will of God. He also leaves us with a mystery probably accidentally. If you look at his video you will see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He then says he has to go and walks off the set. Just as the video ends, the background changes, but the video ends almost the same time, so it is easy to miss. Does Fr. have to leave the set before the background changes or is this some form minor blooper. It is a technical issue that adds a slight bit of mystery to his production values. As usual Fr. does a good job in producing his videos for his online congregation.

I would suggest that if possible, he uses the private public feature when posting his videos. That way he can keep a video private if he uploads one several weeks in advance and then turn it up public during the appropriate week. That might make it easier to find his videos. Aside from that, he always does a good presentation and takes great pains to treat his audience well.