Month: February 2024

Revealed

A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2024

Gn 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18, Rom 8:31b-34, Mk 9:2-10

We all know about Clark Kent, right? Mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Planet, who wanted a job someplace where he could hear about emergencies or disasters anywhere in the world.

And why was he so interested in hot topics? Was he some sort of news junkie?

No.

As we all know, every time he took off his glasses and otherwise changed his outfit, he was duty-bound to go and help people in trouble. Whenever he arrived to save the day, everyone around him saw his true self, his true identity, the identity he kept secret the rest of the time.

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Shhh…

A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2024

Gn 9:8-15, 1 Pt 3:18-22, Mk 1:12-15

I’m pretty sure I have a bad case of FOMO. Or I’m just plain nosy.

Then again, I’m legitimately extremely curious, and with better-than-average peripheral vision and much-better-than-average hearing — even in my dotage — I’m easily attracted and distracted by interesting things and events.

Such as God’s Creation, and the various activities of my fellow children of God. In other words, Life.

I always have been.

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Essential

A homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 11, 2024

Lv 13:1-2, 44-46, 1 Cor 10:31—11:1, Mk 1:40-45

In the classic 1982 film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” the little sister played by Drew Barrymore dresses the tiny alien botanist in a gown and wig and costume jewelry, which startles her brother Elliott. “You should give him his dignity,” Elliott demands of Gertie. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dignity was what Jesus gave to the lepers he cleansed, perhaps even more than their restored health and an end to their physical pain. Jesus ended their emotional and spiritual torment as well.

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Employment

A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 4, 2024

Jb 7:1-4, 6-7, 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23, Mk 1:29-39

In my first job as a professional journalist, at the now-defunct Daily and Sunday Register in Shrewsbury (better known as the Red Bank Register), I was obliged to do a lot of typing. Sports scores and statistics, mostly. Long, long lists of stats and records. Much of it was on a tweaked IBM Selectric typewriter, modified so my words on legal-size paper could be scanned into a rudimentary computerized typesetting system. 

This was 1978, after all.

I also had the task of tapping the keyboard of a hand-me-down phototypesetting system, sent from The Register’s absentee owners in Toledo. Yes, the hometown of Max Klinger from M*A*S*H. Into that “tube,” I transcribed the wit and wisdom of George Sheehan, The Running Doctor, as well as the results of the thoroughbred races at Monmouth Park.

It was tedious, what a colleague years later would refer to as “chimping.”

A different colleague, though, had a more sanguine outlook: “That’s why they call it ‘work.'”

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