A homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 27, 2025
Genesis 18:20-32, Colossians 2:12-14, Luke 11:1-13
Back at the peak — or was it the depths? — of the COVID pandemic, many of us took up new hobbies to pass the time while we were in lockdown.
Some of us finally read the books collecting dust on our shelves, those assigned readings we faked our way through to write term papers.
It turns out, some of them were actually interesting. Who knew?
A homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 20, 2025
Genesis 18:1-10a, Colossians 1:24-28, Luke 10:38-42
Most of us have compiled or received (or both) a honey-do list, a tally of all the stuff that needs to be done around the house. The list challenges us (nags us?) to get off our duffs and wash the windows, schedule the car maintenance, call the exterminator and, oh yeah, give Rover a long-overdue bath.
Without making the house smell like wet dog.
Quite often, the lists grow more like zucchini in a New Jersey summer than basketball-size green melons. In fact, mine qualifies as a watermelon list.
A homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 13, 2025
Deuteronomy 30:10-14, Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 10:25-37
It’s something of an urban legend that Amazon delivery drivers go undetected by Ring doorbell cameras. They place packages on our doorsteps, photograph them and email those photos to us as confirmation of safe deliveries.
Invisibly, somehow.
A homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 6, 2025
Isaiah 66:10-14c, Galatians 6:14-18, Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
This steamy, sultry time of the year, two things are clear (even if thunderstorm-laden skies are not):
Shorter homilies are preferable, depending on the nearest HVAC system, and we pay more attention to summertime events and holidays than to theology. Especially those of us who live in tourist-y locales.
So how ’bout we try mixing church and state briefly but sincerely…
