Tag: Epistle

Well, well, well

A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent (Scrutinies), March 3, 2024

Ex 17:3-7, Rom 5:1-2, 5-8, Jn 4:5-42

The fable of the city mouse and the country mouse has a few different versions with differing details — cats, porcupines, skunks, more cats — but the moral they share is always the same: Don’t be a snob.

Well, not precisely; it’s a bit more like we all live our own lives the way we want to, the way we know best. Each of us deals with our own challenges and celebrates our own joys, and what fits one of us may be the wrong size for someone else. And we all should respect that.

But we don’t. When someone thinks they’re better than someone else because of their respective ways of living, then, yeah, that’s snobbery.

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Revealed

A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2024

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

We all know about Clark Kent, right? Mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Planet, who wanted a job someplace where he could hear about emergencies or disasters anywhere in the world.

And why was he so interested in hot topics? Was he some sort of news junkie?

No.

As we all know, every time he took off his glasses and otherwise changed his outfit, he was duty-bound to go and help people in trouble. Whenever he arrived to save the day, everyone around him saw his true self, his true identity, the identity he kept secret the rest of the time.

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Shhh…

A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2024

Gn 9:8-15, 1 Pt 3:18-22, Mk 1:12-15

I’m pretty sure I have a bad case of FOMO. Or I’m just plain nosy.

Then again, I’m legitimately extremely curious, and with better-than-average peripheral vision and much-better-than-average hearing — even in my dotage — I’m easily attracted and distracted by interesting things and events.

Such as God’s Creation, and the various activities of my fellow children of God. In other words, Life.

I always have been.

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Essential

A homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 11, 2024

Lv 13:1-2, 44-46, 1 Cor 10:31—11:1, Mk 1:40-45

In the classic 1982 film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” the little sister played by Drew Barrymore dresses the tiny alien botanist in a gown and wig and costume jewelry, which startles her brother Elliott. “You should give him his dignity,” Elliott demands of Gertie. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dignity was what Jesus gave to the lepers he cleansed, perhaps even more than their restored health and an end to their physical pain. Jesus ended their emotional and spiritual torment as well.

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Employment

A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 4, 2024

Jb 7:1-4, 6-7, 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23, Mk 1:29-39

In my first job as a professional journalist, at the now-defunct Daily and Sunday Register in Shrewsbury (better known as the Red Bank Register), I was obliged to do a lot of typing. Sports scores and statistics, mostly. Long, long lists of stats and records. Much of it was on a tweaked IBM Selectric typewriter, modified so my words on legal-size paper could be scanned into a rudimentary computerized typesetting system. 

This was 1978, after all.

I also had the task of tapping the keyboard of a hand-me-down phototypesetting system, sent from The Register’s absentee owners in Toledo. Yes, the hometown of Max Klinger from M*A*S*H. Into that “tube,” I transcribed the wit and wisdom of George Sheehan, The Running Doctor, as well as the results of the thoroughbred races at Monmouth Park.

It was tedious, what a colleague years later would refer to as “chimping.”

A different colleague, though, had a more sanguine outlook: “That’s why they call it ‘work.'”

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Caught

A homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 21, 2024

Jon 3:1-5, 10, 1 Cor 7:29-31, Mk 1:14-20

In a “Hägar the Horrible” comic strip, the red-bearded Viking’s son, Hamlet, asks Hägar if he has any words to live by. Yes, his father replies, there are three things to always remember.

“Never apologize.”

“Never explain.” 

Then Hägar pauses and leans closer to Hamlet, who asks, “What’s the third?”

“Don’t get caught!”

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Handoff

A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 14, 2024

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

Back in 2000, when Haley Joel Osment was younger and cuter, he starred in “Pay It Forward,” a movie based on the novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde. It’s a change-the-world story based on the notion that, after someone does you a good deed you couldn’t have done for yourself, you must do a similarly large favor for three people, preferably strangers. And, in doing so, you must explain to the mitzvahs’ recipients that they are now obliged to pay it forward as well.

This, in theory if not in practice, would add up to an exponential growth in kindness and justice that could overspread the world.

And even though the movie received mixed-to-negative reviews, the notion — and the phrase — etched a place in our social consciousness.

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Countdown

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 24, 2023

2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16, Rom 16:25-27, Lk 1:26-38

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Next exit

A homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023

Is 61:1-2A, 10-11, 1 Thes 5:16-24, Jn 1:6-8, 19-28

From 1959 until 1976, I lived in a split-level development house whose backyard butted up against a berm that shielded us from the Garden State Parkway. The yard, in fact, was more hill than flat, which is why my brothers and I spent more time climbing trees than playing some sort of ball sport.

Any time Dad drove us anywhere besides beautiful downtown Lincroft or La Côte Rouge, he usually opted to take the Parkway. These were the days of Stay Alive on Route 35, and back then, Dad almost didn’t. The 25-cent toll was a pittance to pay.

Besides safety and speed, the Parkway provided one other advantage: signage. By watching for the magic number of 109, my brothers and I knew all by ourselves that we were almost home. 

No need for any “Are we there yet?” whines.

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Inching forward

A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2023

Is 40:1-5, 9-11, 2 Pt 3:8-14, Mk 1:1-8

I’m spoiled, and on this particular subject, doubly so.

Having lived at the Jersey Shore essentially all my life, I’ve rarely sat in the kind of summer weekend traffic that transforms the Garden State Parkway into the Garden State Parking Lot. And our family weekend getaways in the summers of my youth were to the Kittatinny Mountains in Northwest Jersey (yes, both are real…), so we traveled opposite the Shore traffic both ways, 5 mph over the speed limit while they motored at about 6 mph. As in only 6 mph.

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