A homily for the Feast of Pentecost, Sunday, May 31, 2020
Acts 2:1-11 , 1 Cor 12:3B-7, 12-13, Jn 20:19-23
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly.
Breathe deeply through your nose, yoga-style, then hold it for a count of 10.
Let it out slowly through your pursed lips, as if you were going to whistle. And whistle softly if you want; it’s optional.
Now let your breathing go back to automatic. It’s not that easy, is it? Not after doing controlled breathing exercises.
A homily for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, May 24, 2020
Acts 1:1-11, Eph 1:17-23, Mt 28:16-20
As they were looking on,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.
While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,
suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.
They said, “Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there looking at the sky?
This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven
will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
Let’s join the friends of Jesus as they stood together that day in the First Century A.D., and for a moment let’s assume we have the same knowledge of science and other academic disciplines that they did.
A homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2020
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17, 1 Pt 3:15-18, Jn 14:15-21
When it became clear, two or three months or so ago, that the novel coronavirus was becoming dangerous, then really dangerous, then life-threatening, most of us bugged out à la M*A*S*H from our places of work or school. Quickly. Messily.
Very quickly. Very messily.
We grabbed the essentials to continue as essential workers; we powered down everything else; we scooted out of wherever with barely a “See ya” or a “Take care.”
Unlike mobile Army surgical hospitals, we never had bug-out drills. We never practiced shutting it all down and setting it all up somewhere else. We exited without a playbook, making it up as we went along. Some things we got right. Too many things, we got wrong.
A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 10, 2020
Acts 6:1-7, 1 Pt 2:4-9, Jn 14:1-12
Reach inside yourself for a moment.
No, not metaphorically or metaphysically.
Open your mouth, reach in, and pull out your soul.
Can’t do it? How about through your nose or ears?
Your bellybutton, maybe?
No?
A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 3, 2020
Acts 2:14a, 36-41, 1 Pt 2:20b-25, Jn 10:1-10
We should start with a little history, my personal history. Nine years plus two weeks ago, the day after my ordination, I preached officially for the first time at my Mass of Thanksgiving, and it was this Gospel. Jesus as the Sheepgate. So it would be cheating — never a good thing for a man of the cloth — for me to dredge up that homily and post it today, hoping that my beloved parishioners would (a) have forgotten it or (b) remember it yet forgive me for playing a greatest hit.
And I think — I hope — my preaching has matured a bit since that nervous first homily.
Besides, I couldn’t find it.
