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…
A homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost, June 8, 2025
Acts 2:1-11, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13, John 14:15-16, 23b-26
Back when I was a sophomore at Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft, I was struggling to learn French. (I didn’t do much better in the years that followed, but that’s a story for another day.) My accent was horrendous, my memory of numbers was awful, and I failed miserably at determining which person, place or thing was a le and which was a la.
But one night as she was doing bed checks, Mom heard me talking in my sleep, in what she swore was flawless Français. I scoffed. So the next time she thought I was doing my best Maurice Chevalier, she recorded it, to play back in the morning.
I sounded more like the “pardon my French” you might hear on a golf course but never in church.
A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 18, 2025
Acts 14:21-27, Revelation 21:1-5a, John 13:31-33a, 34-35
None of us can love ice cream, no matter how vigorously or energetically foot-stompingly any of us insists we absolutely do.
Not vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. Not cookie dough or coconut or fudge ripple or key lime pie. Not even chocolate chip mint!
None of us can love ice cream, though any and all of us can really, really like it.
We can’t love ice cream because ice cream can’t love us back.
A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 11, 2025
Acts 13:14, 43-52, Revelation 7:9, 14b-17, John 10:27-30
In the incredibly long-running BBC science fiction show “Doctor Who,” The Doctor’s space- and time-travel vessel is bigger on the inside than on the outside.
Yes, that’s a key plot point.
Today’s passage from John’s Gospel has that same characteristic. Its messages — and there are several — are far larger than the 62 words proclaimed. It’s bigger on the inside than on the outside. No alien technology required.
A homily for Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord, April 13, 2025
Luke 19:28-40, Isaiah 50:4-7, Philippians 2:6-11, Luke 22:14—23:56
I grew up in a Ford family. Over the years, we had more Country Squires than three seasons of “Bridgerton.” And a couple of Mustangs, of course.
At one point, we added a Volkswagen Bug, and we owned our share of VeeDubs, but they were always The Second Car. The big Ford V-8 was the vehicle of choice.
Yet when it was time for me to take out a loan, sign on the dotted line and drive away in my own wheels, I opted for a, yes, sexy VW Scirocco. And don’t you know, I felt some guilt pangs for betraying the Blue Oval.
A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, March 9, 2025
Deuteronomy 26:4-10, Romans 10:8-13, Luke 4:1-13
From the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, my family and I were blessed to be members of the Stephen’s Point Fishing Club and the owners of a roughly 1930s-vintage cabin overlooking the Walpack Bend of the Delaware River in Flatbrookville, New Jersey.
The sign on westbound Interstate 80 pointing to Flatbrookville, by the way, is almost bigger than the historic hamlet itself.
And even though we lived (still live) at the Jersey Shore, and in those days headed to a beach club in Sea Bright almost every weekday in the summer, we spent many summer weekends up in the Kittatinny Mountains.
A homily for the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, March 2, 2025
Sirach 27:4-7, 1 Corinthians 15:54-58, Luke 6:39-45
One of the most important things an actor learns is not to play the end of a scene.
What that means is, even though actors know how the scene will end, because they have read and learned the script, they can’t display any inappropriate emotions or in any other way show they know what’s going to happen next. They can’t do or say anything — no matter how small — that telegraphs the ending. That would ruin the scene.
It’s a difficult skill to master.
A homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 23, 2025
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23, 1 Corinthians 15:45-49, Luke 6:27-38
A few days ago, 80 people miraculously survived a plane crash in Toronto. As the jetliner was landing, it suddenly tipped over onto its right side, snapped off its wing, and rolled onto its roof, skidding down the runway.
CNN reported:
After the aircraft came to a standstill, “we were upside down hanging like bats,” passenger Peter Koukov said. He was able to unbuckle himself and stand upright on the ceiling of the plane, but some people needed help getting down from their seats.
Their world had turned upside down.
A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 9, 2025
Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11
Anyone among us who is or used to be a child knows all too well the reason we’re given for doing something that seems utterly absurd to us:
“Because I Said So.”
In the great arsenal of weapons … uh, tools … uh, gifts … every parent receives when their children draw their first breaths, “Because I Said So” is the last line of defense, the “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” reason.
Even though we parents whip it out of its holster as our first (and only) option all too often.
A homily — or perhaps a sermon — for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 26, 2025
Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10, 1 Corinthians 12:12-30, Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
Many of us grew up when Catholics weren’t supposed to read the Bible. We heard passages from Scripture at Mass, and the priest — always a priest in those days — would share some insights and his learned interpretations, and we’d be enlightened by the Word of God.
‘Nuff said.
Most, if not all, of us had Bibles at home, but those stayed on the shelf, pretty much. If that Bible was a family heirloom, its inner front and back covers held the kind of birth and baptism and marriage and death information that Ancestry.com would drool over.
The pages in between, though … those didn’t get much of a looky-see. Sad to say, some of those family Bibles wound up being used as door stops or tools for pressing dried flowers.
