A brief thought for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, June 15, 2025
Proverbs 8:22-31, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15
Our belief that the almighty, omniscient, omnipresent deity we call “God” is one Supreme Being in three distinct Persons usually makes our brains hurt.
Makes them explode.
Makes us do that thing when we flip the sides of our index fingers against our lips to make that wubba-bubba sound to indicate we’ve gone crackers.
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 Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 25, 2025
Acts 15:1-2, 22-29, Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20, John 17:20-26
(proclaiming the second reading and Gospel from the Seventh Sunday of Easter)
Irish poet William Butler Yeats said, “There are no strangers here, only friends you haven’t yet met.”
And dozens, maybe thousands, of notable people have said the same thing, sometimes adding their own little twists to it.
If I may be so bold, here’s my little variation:
There are no strangers, only sisters and brothers we haven’t met yet.
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 Second Sunday of Lent, March 16, 2025
Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18, Philippians 3:17—4:1, Luke 9:28b-36
In James Cameron’s “Avatar” movies, the tall blue Na’vi people greet each other, and especially greet their loved ones, with “I see you.”
To the fictional Na’vi, “I see you” means a wide variety of things: “I see into you,” “I understand you,” “I respect you,” or “I love you.”
All of which intersect at “I know who you truly are.”
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 for the Baptism of the Lord, January 12, 2025
Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7, Acts 10:34-38, Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
— Groucho Marx
The world of entertainment lends us a cornucopia of perspectives on the Baptism of the Lord, over and above the guidance from today’s Scripture passages that we always should do what is right so that God will remain happy with us.
