A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, February 26, 2023
Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7, Rom 5:12-19 , Mt 4:1-11
Out in the backyard of my boyhood home in Lincroft, my brothers and I built a treehouse. Not just any treehouse. This was a classic, enough to make the Swiss Family Robinson jealous.
A homily, sort of, for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 19, 2023
Lv 19:1-2, 17-18, 1 Cor 3:16-23, Mt 5:38-48
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily /
To throw a perfume on the violet …/
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
If you haven’t heard this week’s selections from Scripture proclaimed in a house of worship, or if you haven’t used the links above to read them, please do.
There’s absolutely nothing I can add to make them more understandable or clearer. There’s no call to action I can write or shout from the rooftops that these passages don’t deliver.
A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 5, 2023
Is 58:7-10, 1 Cor 2:1-5, Mt 5:13-16
There are three little bins on a shelf in our basement with batteries in them: double-A, triple-A, and some random C, D and 9-volt types. We go through the double-As fairly often, and I reload the bin whenever it gets low, whenever a couple of them leak, or whenever Costco puts the 40-pack on sale.
There’s another, smaller bin on a shelf built into my desk at home, and it has a bunch of rechargeable double-As and a four-battery charger. They’re collecting dust.
They shouldn’t be.
They are, however, symbolic.
A homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 29, 2023
Zep 2:3; 3:12-13, 1 Cor 1:26-31, Mt 5:1-12a
After 9/11, the phrase was everywhere. On bumper stickers and license plates. On flags and posters. On lapel pins and T-shirts. Spray-painted as graffiti.
United We Stand.
United.
We.
Stand.
Only we didn’t. We don’t.
A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 15, 2023
Is 49:3, 5-6, 1 Cor 1:1-3, Jn 1:29-34
I’ve written and spoken before about my “unchurched” years in college and thereafter, about how I was not being nourished spiritually at the parish of my youth when all I could take away from my weekly 50 minutes in the pew was the knowledge that Group No. 2 was working bingo that Wednesday.
Incessant reminders about seat collections, collections for the parish administration and overdue grammar school tuition drove me away from organized religion after high school at Christian Brothers Academy.
What kept me away was the very thing some people were convinced attracted people to Christianity.
Proselytizing.
A homily for The Epiphany of the Lord, January 8, 2023
Is 60:1-6, Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6, Mt 2:1-12
These are the days of miracle and wonder…
… The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
In 1986, Paul Simon opened his “Graceland” album with the song “The Boy in the Bubble.” In it, his lyrics rattled off a list of technological marvels the world was only starting to learn about. Lasers in the jungle transmitting information. The baby with the baboon heart. The boy with no immune system who had to live in a germ-free bubble.
Fast-forward to now, and with the James Webb Space Telescope, we indeed are looking to distant constellations.
Miraculous.
Wonderful.
Amazing.
So what are we going to do about it?
Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, January 1, 2023
Nm 6:22-27, Gal 4:4-7, Lk 2:16-21
“Oh, your poor mother!”
I can’t count the times I’ve heard that whenever I told someone I’m the oldest of the six male offspring of Dr. Bill and Nurse Julie Zapcic.
Six boys. No girls.
A new brother every year or so, with — sadly — a couple of pregnancies lost to miscarriages.
And an uncle — a bruncle — my dad’s then-teenage brother, whom my dad moved in with us for Richard’s last two years of high school, his four years of college and a bit longer for grad school and the early part of his career.
There was enough noise in our 1950s-era development split-level to drown out the roar of the cars on the Garden State Parkway behind the hill that ate half of our Lincroft backyard.
“Oh, your poor mother!” they say. And I — and all of my brothers and our uncle — simply reply, “She loved it!”
A homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 11, 2022
Is 35:1-6a, 10, Jas 5:7-10, Mt 11:2-11
Back in the 1970s, my brother Steve and I scored tickets to a dress rehearsal for “Saturday Night Live” in an attempt to impress two lady friends of his from college. They were visiting New York from Tennessee, and after the show, it became painfully clear they were impressed with everything except us.
But that’s a sad story for another day.
Meanwhile, I was unimpressed with that week’s show, except for the warmup. As I recall, I laughed until my ribs hurt. I was all ready to laugh my way until the closing theme, even though it turned out I didn’t.
Most TV shows with a live audience get a warmup before the taping or the live airing begins. If it’s a scripted sitcom or sketch comedy show, the warmup performer usually is a standup comedian. If the show is more serious, the warmup might be a member of the writing or production staff, or possibly the game show host or lead actor(s), answering questions about the show overall and perhaps hinting at what the audience will see in the episode about to unfold.
Even the opening act at a concert is a kind of warmup. A good opening band or some other performer sets the mood for the headliner coming next.
A homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 11, 2022
Ex 32:7-11, 13-14, 1 Tm 1:12-17, Lk 15:1-32
A news article about the cleanup of a toxic-waste dump quoted an environmental scientist about the contaminated soil.
It’s like a kitchen sponge, he said. You can rinse a sponge and squeeze it again and again, but you never get all the soap or dirt out of it, no matter how many times you try, no matter how hard you try.
You can get really close, but that’s it.
Which is exactly what happens when we seek forgiveness.
A homily for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 7, 2022
Wis 18:6-9, Heb 11:1-2, 8-19, Lk 12:32-48
Flo wants us to bundle our homeowners’ insurance with our other policies.
The Property Brothers say our burglar alarm system should be fully integrated with our electronic house-management system.
And the Geico Gecko … well, he/it does have that cute British-ish accent.
We spend a lot of money protecting the things we spent a lot of money on.
