3 - 2022 - Unpaid Bill

Empty nests

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare), Cycle C, March 27, 2022

Jos 5:9a, 10-12, 2 Cor 5:17-21, Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

The well-known parable of the Prodigal Son is a story of gifts, but not necessarily the ones we’re fully conversant in.

There’s the fattened calf (I prefer the old-school “fatted calf,” but this is the current translation, sigh) and the welcome-home party for the repentant son, plus the ring on his finger and the hug from his father, who greets this ne’er-do-well as if he had risen from the grave.

And we recognize the gift of God’s eternal mercy toward everyone who repents, as echoed by the actions of the young man’s father. That, in fact, is the traditional and simplest Occam’s Razor interpretation of this sizable passage from Luke’s Gospel. And it’s a totally valid understanding of the passage: Jesus intended the forgiving father in the parable to represent The Forgiving Father of All Creation.

But wait, there’s more:

Continue reading Empty nests

Outlook

A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, March 20, 2022, Cycle C

Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15, 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12, Lk 13:1-9

If patience is a virtue, then a whole lotta Americans are far from virtuous. Especially New Jerseyans.

We proudly list the dozens — hundreds, even — of things we jam into every day, and at the (actual) end of the day, we mourn what we didn’t do rather than celebrate what we did.

Yeah, we’re a little warped that way.

Continue reading Outlook

Fame unfortunately

A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, March 13, 2022

Gn 15:5-12, 17-18, Phil 3:17—4:1, Lk 9:28b-36

Celebrity is a strange concept, especially how it’s practiced today.

We have the self-declared so-called Influencers, who use TikTok and other social media du jour to dictate what their followers must say, think and do. Influencers actively promote themselves incessantly and shamelessly. They preen so that they can be seen. And they attract millions of disciples.

We have the Reality Stars, who broadcast and stream from their Los Angeles Kompounds and from their Real Houses all over the world and from the Jersey Shore, and whose lives and loves and fun and faults are laid bare, similarly shamelessly. And millions more kan’t take their eyes off them.

We have Traditional Stars, who mesmerize us on massive movie screens (remember those?) and in our home theaters. Off-screen, they project a public persona that mirrors or dovetails with the characters they play, but they work equally as hard to shield their true private lives from the public’s prying eyes. They, too, have millions in their thrall.

Why, then, would Jesus not want to be in any of those groups? Think what he could have done with all those beliebers.

Continue reading Fame unfortunately

Who are you?

A sermon* for the First Sunday of Lent, March 6, 2022

Dt 26:4-10, Rom 10:8-13, Lk 4:1-13

It’s easy to give up chocolate for Lent if you don’t like chocolate or if it gives you zits.

It’s easy to abstain from meat on Fridays if you love Chilean sea bass.

It’s easy to be kind to other people if you don’t come in contact with anyone while isolating because of COVID.

But is Lent supposed to be easy?

Continue reading Who are you?

Ash Wednesday, a reflection

Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.

Each Ash Wednesday during my eight years at St. Leo the Great School, we were marched up the center aisle of church, class by class, a single file of boys alongside a single file of girls, to be reminded of our mortality.

For the first four or five years, we knelt on the red velvet cushion at the Communion altar rail; after Vatican II dictated the rail’s removal, we inched forward in that same center aisle in those same single-file lines.

It was years before I realized the black schmutz that was being absolutely mashed into my forehead with that scary prayer was supposed to be in the shape of a cross, not merely the pastor’s thumbprint, and that the blessed ashes came from the burning of the previous year’s palms, not what we emptied out of the pencil sharpener.

It was years before I understood why we were being reminded that life is short:

We have only so much time to do good, to care for each other and to care for all of Creation as a sign of God’s Spirit within us. So get cracking!

It was even longer before I fully understood that this prayer leaves out the best part:

Through his painful crucifixion and glorious Resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and death and made a home for us in Heaven.

When to dust our mortal bodies return, to our loving Almighty Creator our immortal souls return.

May this Lent offer us all 40 days of quiet times and thin places to meet our loving God.