9 - 2024 - Unpaid Bill

Necessities and niceties

A homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 29, 2024

Nm 11:25-29, Jas 5:1-6, Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

The other day, I stumbled across a pack of Magic Birthday Candles. You know, the ones that relight themselves every time you blow them out. I actually was looking for the gizmo that helps me open the jar of bread-and-butter pickles, but I found the three magic candles first.

I of course was rooting around in the kitchen junk drawer. It’s right next to the dishwasher in our house, and it holds a big screwdriver, a set of those tiny jeweler’s screwdrivers, scissors, pliers, measuring tapes — big and little — Scotch tapes, double-sticky-stuff, a Ziploc of glitter, and birthday candles, mostly half-burned.

All that and much more. Much, much more. Including three lonely little magic candles.

And everything in that drawer — which nobody in my family can close fully — everything in that drawer is absolutely essential for us to live a complete and meaningful life.

So is everything in our basement.

Absolutely essential.

Yours too, I bet.

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Hand up

A homily for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 22, 2024

Wis 2:12, 17-20, Jas 3:16—4:3, Mk 9:30-37

When our daughter was first breaking into the entertainment business, she did as many of her fellow performers did: She waited tables and worked other jobs at restaurants and bars.

She often covered the Early Bird shifts when she was working at Macaroni Grill. Early Birds … we all know what that means, right? Gaggles of Golden Agers.

Back then, Macaroni Grill was trying to shore up its bona fides as an Italian eatery by serving their pre-meal bread with seasoned olive oil, as legit ristorantes do. So Erin would bring out the crusty loaves and plunk them down alongside the olio d’oliva, and then head back to her station. She rarely was more than a step or two away before a patron would holler over to her: “Waitress, you forgot the butter for the bread.”

She learned quickly, really quickly, to carry a big stash of those little butter briquets in her apron.

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Re: action

A homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 15, 2024

Is 50:5-9a, Jas 2:14-18, Mk 8:27-35

Wise people have embraced the maxim that we may not be able to control certain situations, but we can control how we react to them.

Thank you to whoever said that first, and to everyone else who has spread the word. Truer words were never said (to coin a cliché).

And we all, all too frequently, can find ourselves in situations that are — or may seem — grossly unfair. Especially situations we consider to be insanely unfair to us.

What is it about these happenstances that bring out the 2- or 3-year-old in us? Why is our first impulse to flail about and whine and act mortally wounded?

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