Month: August 2024

W, X…

A homily for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 1, 2024

Dt 4:1-2, 6-8, Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27, Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

The Sisters of St. Francis from the Glen Riddle, PA, mother house who taught us at St. Leo the Great School in the 1960s were an enlightened bunch. They clarified the difference between nationalism and patriotism, framing the former as potentially sinful. They instructed us in single-gender classes about sex and love and how both are gifts from God, with only minimal blushing. (Yes, I know the joke.)

And they believed in buy-in. They knew that people older than 3 deserved to know “why” for them to follow rules. So the sisters took the time to explain, for example, why we were forbidden to talk during a fire drill (the person in front of us might turn around to listen, might trip, and then everyone would tumble over them, disastrously).

Rules, we learned, were for our well-being. Even the annoying ones … which weren’t as annoying once we understood the “why” they were built on.

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Trussed

A homily for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 25, 2024

Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b, Eph 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32, Jn 6:60-69

Many of us who worked in a corporate environment at one time or another probably remember team-building exercises.

A group of folks who work together — or who were going to work together — would trot off to a conference room and play Trivial Pursuit or some variation of Bingo to learn things about each other.

Or maybe we’d scoot over to a local park and have a three-legged race or scatter in twos in a scavenger hunt.

Then there was Do You Trust Me.

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No onions

A homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 18, 2024

Prv 9:1-6, Eph 5:15-20, Jn 6:51-58

Here’s a story about how dense I can be sometimes.

The first time I heard the phrase “six-foot sub,” I wasn’t sure if the speaker was talking about a new Navy vessel or a second-string basketball player coming off the bench.

Yes, I knew what a submarine sandwich was (and is); Dad treated my brothers and me to No. 2s from Elsie’s, and later, from Joyce’s, at the start and end of every semester from first grade through high school graduation.

But those ham-and-capicola subs were one-person two-fisted concoctions at six inches, not crowd-feeders at six feet. I just couldn’t see it.

Besides, where would somebody get a roll that big, anyway? That’s a whole lotta bread.

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Smorgas

A homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 4, 2024

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

All-you-can-eat buffets are among the most popular topics for cartoonists, animators and stand-up comedians. There probably are a thousand jokes for every item on the line at Golden Corral or China Palace (though I don’t think Red Lobster’s bankruptcy lawyers were laughing at the TikTokers who videoed themselves tossing back 100-plus “unlimited” shrimp).

Usually, the punch line is a variation on a Copious Consumer being shown the door while complaining, “But it says ‘All You Can Eat’!” and the proprietor replying, “That’s right. And I say you’ve eaten all you can eat.”

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