Tag: Epistle

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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Waiting room

A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023

Is 63:16B-17, 19B; 64:2-7, 1 Cor 1:3-9, Mk 13:33-37

During the 50-some-odd years Dad practiced as a family physician, his office hours started at 8:30 a.m. and ended in the evening when his waiting room was empty. Mom never knew exactly when to put dinner on the table, but Dad’s patients always felt cared for.

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(T)rusty

A homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 19, 2023

Prv 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31, 1 Thes 5:1-6, Mt 25:14-30

A while ago, I was doing one of my occasional (rare!) sort-out, clean-out, throw-out, organize visits to the basement when I stumbled on a couple of tools I bought back in my college days, way back when I built theatrical sets. I realized I’ve owned this hammer and adjustable wrench for three times as long as I didn’t — the better part of 50 years.

And like their owner, a half-century later, they were rusty.

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25 or 6 to 4

A homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 6:12-16, 1 Thes 4:13-18, Mt 25:1-13

We recently needed to have some work done around the house. 

The kitchen faucet leaked, so it needed replacing. The water that leaked made the laminate floor buckle, so it needed replacing. 

Which meant we had to make appointments with skilled tradesmen.

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Long view

A homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 29, 2023

Ex 22:20-26, 1 Thes 1:5c-10, Mt 22:34-40

The long and the short of it — literally and figuratively — is that how we live our lives depends on our perspectives.

Every one of us is different, even identical siblings. Each of us was born at a different time, in a different place (even if your mom and mine were side-by-side in the maternity ward). We have different body types, in every way that can be possible. 

And through the sheer laws of physics, none of us can see and experience precisely what another of us sees and hears and feels because none of us can exist in the same space as somebody else simultaneously.

Eight billion of us today. Billions who came before us. And, God willing, billions and trillions yet to come after us.

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Capital

A homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 22, 2023

Is 45:1, 4-6, 1 Thes 1:1-5b, Mt 22:15-21

“What’s in your wallet?”

Every time I hear Samuel L. Jackson ask that in the credit card commercial, I actually stop and think and try to remember what’s in my wallet.

For the record, none of what I carry is that particular card.

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Acidic

A homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 8, 2023

Is 5:1-7, Phil 4:6-9, Mt 21:33-43

John Steinbeck’s prizewinning book, The Grapes of Wrath, has come to symbolize everything that was — still is — wrong with tenant farming in the United States and elsewhere. Even the book’s title sparks passionate feelings in anyone who hears it, even if they have never read the novel or seen the movie or listened to Bruce Springsteen.

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