Tag: Creation

Take care

A homily for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 31, 2021

Dt 6:2-6, Heb 7:23-28, Mk 12:28b-34

Let’s imagine for a minute that it’s Christmas, and we’re 10 years old.

Our favorite uncle has given us the bicycle we’ve been dreaming about — shiny, painted in a red-and-gold sunburst, custom seat and no training wheels.

We throw our arms around Uncle Joe and say, “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” about a hundred times.

We grab our coat, wheel our prized new bike out into the December chill — which we don’t feel at all — and pedal around the block a few times.

Just like Ralphie in the movie, this is the best present we ever got or would ever get.

Continue reading Take care

All this and then some

A homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 20, 2021

Jb 38:1, 8-11, 2 Cor 5:14-17, Mk 4:35-41

This is a great time of the year to be awed by God.

And it’s so easy.

After the sun goes down, lean back wherever you are and look at the starry sky. If you’re privileged to live near a body of water or, better yet, the ocean, spread out your blanket on the shoreline and gaze at the splendor of the constellations while listening to the water gently lapping or crashing in waves.

God created it. All of it. The stars. The breeze. The relentless seas. The life-giving water.

God gave it to us.

Thank you, God!

Continue reading All this and then some

Socks off

A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, Feb. 28, 2021

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

When was the last time you let yourself be wowed, be amazed, to have your socks knocked off?

We’ve all been in some degree of lockdown for about a year now, and there haven’t been a lot of opportunities or reasons for our jaws to drop. We do have Zoom, and we do have our small joys, but all in all, many of our lives these days are more humdrum than historic.

So:

When was the last time you let yourself be wowed, be amazed, to have your socks knocked off by Jesus?

Continue reading Socks off

What’s in your … toolkit?

A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jan. 17, 2021

1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19, 1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20, Jn 1:35-42

In Matthew 22:14 — not among today’s selections from Scripture but relevant — Jesus ends a parable with

Many are invited, but few are chosen.

A more familiar translation is “Many are called, but few are chosen,” but “invited” does make it clearer that an outstretched hand is welcoming the many to a Big Event.

Today, our first reading and our Gospel interweave Choice and Call: of the prophet and of the first Apostles. And of us.

Continue reading What’s in your … toolkit?

Wrapped up in our lives

A homily for The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas), Dec. 25, 2020

Is 9:1-6, Ti 2:11-14, Lk 2:1-14

This time of year, a couple of cable channels run a holiday favorite film nonstop for 24 hours. You know the one. 

And even though “A Christmas Story” pales in significance when compared with The Christmas Story, the movie ends with a remembrance that could be scriptural:

The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive.

That’s the core of The Christmas Story, the story we retell today and every December 25 and, we hope, every day of the year in words and actions as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, Our Newborn King.

Continue reading Wrapped up in our lives

The ultimate relationship

A homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, June 7, 2020

Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9, 2 Cor 13:11-13, Jn 3:16-18

We bless ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

And then we lock it in with a solid “Amen.” “It is so.” “Truly.”

We baptize this way. Confirm this way. The Trinitarian way.

Continue reading The ultimate relationship

Up, down and all around

A homily for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, May 24, 2020

Acts 1:1-11, Eph 1:17-23, Mt 28:16-20

As they were looking on,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.
While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,
suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.
They said, “Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there looking at the sky?
This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven
will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

Let’s join the friends of Jesus as they stood together that day in the First Century A.D., and for a moment let’s assume we have the same knowledge of science and other academic disciplines that they did.

Continue reading Up, down and all around