A homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 26, 2020
1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12, Rom 8:28-30, Mt 13:44-52
Have you ever asked for something? Asked Mom or Dad or Uncle Mike or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?
Did you get it? After you got it, was it really what you wanted? And even if you thought it was, did you get tired of it after a while? Or, after a long while, did you realize that, no, it really wasn’t what you wanted after all?
A homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 19, 2020
Wis 12:13, 16-19, Rom 8:26-27, Mt 13:24-43
Crabgrass. Goosegrass. Chickweed. Dandelions. Clover. Those tall spiky things with the leaves every two inches up the stem: Whatever they are.
For those of us with lawns, keeping weeds under control can be a never-ending struggle. Because, at best, we control weeds. We never defeat them. They’re stubborn and invasive and pervasive.
One weed becomes two becomes four becomes 16 becomes 256 becomes a math problem and that’s less fun than the weeds themselves. If only we can rid our lawns of that first one, we’ll be spared the outbreak. But how often does that happen?
A homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 12, 2020
Is 55:10-11, Rom 8:18-23, Mt 13:1-23
Back in the days of “Children should be seen and not heard” and “Because I said so,” Mom always justified those neanderthal rules with so-called “biological math”:
“You have two eyes and two ears but only one mouth. Which do you think are more important?”
And she, like all mothers, made a good point. If we don’t see and hear, if we don’t watch and listen, we don’t learn. If we don’t learn, we live in the dark.
A homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 5, 2020
Zec 9:9-10, Rom 8:9, 11-13, Mt 11:25-30
There’s something to be said for bumper-sticker theology. Not a lot, mind you, but definitely something to be said, and it’s this:
Most of what Jesus preached does not need over-thinking.
Which means that much of what he preached — and what he expects us to incorporate into our lives every day — can fit on the back of a Chevy.
