A homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 29, 2023
Zep 2:3; 3:12-13, 1 Cor 1:26-31, Mt 5:1-12a
After 9/11, the phrase was everywhere. On bumper stickers and license plates. On flags and posters. On lapel pins and T-shirts. Spray-painted as graffiti.
United We Stand.
United.
We.
Stand.
Only we didn’t. We don’t.
A homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 22, 2023
Is 8:23—9:3, 1 Cor 1:10-13, 17, Mt 4:12-23
There are a couple of ways to go fishing, and each is vastly different from the other, but in the end, both catch fish.
One method, which the Apostles used in their day jobs, and which modern commercial fishermen still use, drags a net through the water, catching fish by the boatloads. The crew then usually dumps the entire catch onto the deck of the boat and culls out any unsuitable fish or trash. If it’s a responsible crew, they toss the undersized fish or unwanted species back into the water, and head for home with what they kept.
A mass catch.
Another method, pretty much the other main method, involves a rod and reel, bait or lures, and a skillful solo angler. The fisherman casts into what he hopes is a school of fish and reels them in one at a time. If he knows what he is doing, he’ll reel in only the type of fish he wants, at the right size. After a good day fishing, the angler takes home a freezer’s worth of bass.
A selective catch.
A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 15, 2023
Is 49:3, 5-6, 1 Cor 1:1-3, Jn 1:29-34
I’ve written and spoken before about my “unchurched” years in college and thereafter, about how I was not being nourished spiritually at the parish of my youth when all I could take away from my weekly 50 minutes in the pew was the knowledge that Group No. 2 was working bingo that Wednesday.
Incessant reminders about seat collections, collections for the parish administration and overdue grammar school tuition drove me away from organized religion after high school at Christian Brothers Academy.
What kept me away was the very thing some people were convinced attracted people to Christianity.
Proselytizing.
A homily for The Epiphany of the Lord, January 8, 2023
Is 60:1-6, Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6, Mt 2:1-12
These are the days of miracle and wonder…
… The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
In 1986, Paul Simon opened his “Graceland” album with the song “The Boy in the Bubble.” In it, his lyrics rattled off a list of technological marvels the world was only starting to learn about. Lasers in the jungle transmitting information. The baby with the baboon heart. The boy with no immune system who had to live in a germ-free bubble.
Fast-forward to now, and with the James Webb Space Telescope, we indeed are looking to distant constellations.
Miraculous.
Wonderful.
Amazing.
So what are we going to do about it?
