Month: July 2021

Merci beaucoup

A homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 1, 2021

Ex 16:2-4, 12-15, Eph 4:17, 20-24, Jn 6:24-35

If ever there were a time to be grateful, it’s now.

Even amid the ongoing-and-reviving pandemic, climate crises, unemployment, and civil and racial strife, we have much to be thankful for.

We are alive; we’ve lived to see another day. God’s Creation is beautiful (what we humans haven’t trashed, that is). Someone in Heaven loves us. Someone here on Earth does, too, even if we don’t know that person or persons personally.

And we are saved.

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Just one more, Lord

A homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 18, 2021

Jer 23:1-6, Eph 2:13-18, Mk 6:30-34

In the movie “Hacksaw Ridge” — the brutal, bloody retelling of a critical battle in World War II’s Pacific Theater — Army medic Desmond Doss drags one wounded soldier after another to safety while flames and bullets rage around him.

Doss, a conscientious objector who volunteered to save lives on the front lines, prays for strength as he continues his mission all night.

“Just one more, Lord; just one more.”

It’s a true story.

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Oh, yeah: That guy

A homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 4, 2021

Ez 2:2-5, 2 Cor 12:7-10, Mk 6:1-6

In the fall of 1976, as the Jesus Movement — or “Jesus Freak” movement — was winding down, my then-girlfriend and I attended an outdoor concert in New York City. As we exited onto Central Park South in the twilight, she squeezed my arm and said, “I think that man is going to mug us,” motioning to someone shuffling toward me on the left.

For reasons I still don’t completely understand, I pried loose from her and strode briskly toward the suspicious person, reaching into my jacket pocket for the program from the show.

Wild-eyed and staring him in the face, waving the paper, I enthusiastically and energetically said, “Do you know Jesus? Jesus is your personal Lord and Savior! I have a tract right here that…”

He took off like a shot, and I rejoined my friend unmolested.

Continue reading Oh, yeah: That guy