Tag: Apostles

To life

A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 26, 2023

Ez 37:12-14, Rom 8:8-11, Jn 11:1-45

In one of the big production numbers in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye the milkman and wedding guests get rowdy and sing l’chaim — to life!

To life, to life, l’chaim.
L’chaim, l’chaim, to life.
Life has a way of confusing us,
Blessing and bruising us.
Drink, l’chaim, to life!

Every day, most of us raise a glass of something — wine, coffee, Gatorade, water — to life.

We’re grateful for a new day, another day, and we’re grateful for the people, places and things in our lives. Grateful to be sharing the day with them.

We’re grateful to be on this side of the daisies, as the sassy expression goes.

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Embossed

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 19, 2023

1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Eph 5:8-14, Jn 9:1-41

Every place I’ve ever lived had shelves full of books, sometimes to the point of making the floorboards creak or sag.

When my Uncle Richard lived with us, my dad bought him a set of paperbacks that Time-Life considered to be the essential modern literature. I remember one being the “Ox-Box Incident,” which even to this day I have yet to read. The other essentials? Long forgotten. Shame on me.

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Divine smiles

A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, March 5, 2023

Gn 12:1-4a, 2 Tm 1:8b-10, Mt 17:1-9

Years ago, when I was on a religious retreat, our main speaker became deeply theological and clearly logical on the significance of the voice from the clouds as chronicled in today’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew.

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Alone time

A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, February 26, 2023

Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7, Rom 5:12-19 , Mt 4:1-11

Out in the backyard of my boyhood home in Lincroft, my brothers and I built a treehouse. Not just any treehouse. This was a classic, enough to make the Swiss Family Robinson jealous.

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Gilt-free

A homily, sort of, for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 19, 2023

Lv 19:1-2, 17-18, 1 Cor 3:16-23, Mt 5:38-48

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily /
To throw a perfume on the violet …/
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

If you haven’t heard this week’s selections from Scripture proclaimed in a house of worship, or if you haven’t used the links above to read them, please do.

There’s absolutely nothing I can add to make them more understandable or clearer. There’s no call to action I can write or shout from the rooftops that these passages don’t deliver.

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Rechargeable

A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 5, 2023

Is 58:7-10, 1 Cor 2:1-5, Mt 5:13-16

There are three little bins on a shelf in our basement with batteries in them: double-A, triple-A, and some random C, D and 9-volt types. We go through the double-As fairly often, and I reload the bin whenever it gets low, whenever a couple of them leak, or whenever Costco puts the 40-pack on sale.

There’s another, smaller bin on a shelf built into my desk at home, and it has a bunch of rechargeable double-As and a four-battery charger. They’re collecting dust.

They shouldn’t be.

They are, however, symbolic.

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Solo? No.

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.

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The right angle

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.

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Shine on

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.

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Doing the right thing

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2022

Is 7:10-14, Rom 1:1-7, Mt 1:18-24

Let’s imagine for a minute that it’s 3:15 in the morning and we’re driving home after work. We pulled a double shift at the hospital and “exhausted” doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how we feel.

It’s a quiet night on the highway, compared with the absolute chaos in the emergency department, and we’re forcing our dog-tired selves not to nod off as we ease the car onto the ramp off the highway that leads to our street.

And then: You’ve got to be kidding! Red light. Not tonight … uh … this morning! This light takes forever, especially when there’s no line of cars for its radar to detect. This light takes forever, and our warm, cozy bed is calling our name.

We look right, then left, then right again, and try to decide: Do we run the light?

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