Tag: Faith

A cup of sugar

A homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Aug. 16, 2020

Is 56:1, 6-7, Rom 11:13-15, 29-32 , Mt 15:21-28

When we embrace The Way that Jesus blazed, we recognize that almost everything he preached was countercultural. Then and now.

Dining and bunking in with tax collectors and prostitutes, and forgiving their sins when they repented and promised to go and sin no more: Jesus was able to reconcile these dregs of society with the God of mercy, even if First Century Hebrew society left them at the margins.

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Tougher than the SAT

A homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Aug. 9, 2020

1 Kgs 19:9A, 11-13A, Rom 9: 1-5,  Mt 14:22-33

Like St. Peter’s, our faith is being tested right now.

Now, to be clear, I don’t believe the coronavirus is a punishment from God or an act of the devil. It’s not caused by demonic possession or the wrath of the Almighty for some transgression by our parents or grandparents. We’re long past those notions as a community of believers, or at least we should be.

Yes, COVID is testing our faith right now.

And it’s a hard test.

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Got it, got it, need it, need it

A homily for the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Aug. 2, 2020

Is 55:1-3, Rom 8:35, 37-39, Mt 14:13-21

On many Sundays, of our three Scripture passages, only the first reading and the Gospel are actually related. Often, if the first reading is from one of the prophets, our Gospel passage proclaims how Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy. In those cases, the prophet foreshadows the work and message of Jesus, not precisely in a fortune-telling way, but in a way the recognizes how the people of God B.C. were not quite following his rules and spiritual guidance. And the Gospel makes clear how Jesus came to complete the Law, not destroy it.

On those Sundays, the second reading — usually a letter from St. Paul — gently or firmly steers a group of believers back onto The Way of Christ. We humans do slip back into bad habits sometimes. The letters were written to Christian flocks in far-off places, and they were written to us. Hence their value.

Today, all three readings center around receiving and paying forward, and that blesses every one of us mightily.

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I I U R, I I U B

A homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 26, 2020

1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12, Rom 8:28-30, Mt 13:44-52

Have you ever asked for something? Asked Mom or Dad or Uncle Mike or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?

Did you get it? After you got it, was it really what you wanted? And even if you thought it was, did you get tired of it after a while? Or, after a long while, did you realize that, no, it really wasn’t what you wanted after all?

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Speak truth to …

A homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 12, 2020

Is 55:10-11, Rom 8:18-23, Mt 13:1-23

Back in the days of “Children should be seen and not heard” and “Because I said so,” Mom always justified those neanderthal rules with so-called “biological math”: 

“You have two eyes and two ears but only one mouth. Which do you think are more important?”

And she, like all mothers, made a good point. If we don’t see and hear, if we don’t watch and listen, we don’t learn. If we don’t learn, we live in the dark.

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The mouths of babes

A homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 5, 2020

Zec 9:9-10, Rom 8:9, 11-13, Mt 11:25-30

There’s something to be said for bumper-sticker theology. Not a lot, mind you, but definitely something to be said, and it’s this:

Most of what Jesus preached does not need over-thinking.

Which means that much of what he preached — and what he expects us to incorporate into our lives every day — can fit on the back of a Chevy.

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Soul and divinity

A homily for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, June 14, 2020

Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a, 1 Cor 10:16-17, Jn 6:51-58

Our solemnity today of the Body and Blood of Christ — Corpus Christi, in popular parlance — is a profound veneration of God’s gift of the Son to humanity as our Savior. Jesus gave us his literal body and blood as a sacrifice for our sins — those already committed and those yet to be committed — and he gave us his body and blood in the Eucharist so that we could do likewise in memory of him.

Now, if he were here with us today, and told us we had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and we’d never heard that before, would we freak out as much as the Jews did in today’s Gospel?

Probably.

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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.

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Can’t live without it

A homily for the Feast of Pentecost, Sunday, May 31, 2020

Acts 2:1-11 , 1 Cor 12:3B-7, 12-13,  Jn 20:19-23

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly.

Breathe deeply through your nose, yoga-style, then hold it for a count of 10.

Let it out slowly through your pursed lips, as if you were going to whistle. And whistle softly if you want; it’s optional.

Now let your breathing go back to automatic. It’s not that easy, is it? Not after doing controlled breathing exercises.

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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.

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