Tag: Gospel

Infamy

A homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 30, 2022

Jer 1:4-5, 17-19, 1 Cor 12:31—13:13, Lk 4:21-30

The Rock and Roll and Country Music halls of fame. New Jersey Hall of Fame. Halls of fame for every sport imaginable, at every level conceivable: pro, college, amateur and more.

In fact, there probably are halls of fame for every endeavor in which more than three people participate.

And if an inductee is somebody local, then every family member and every neighbor and every teacher and preacher and the mayor and fire chief and three marching bands parade down Main Street to hail the Hometown Hero.

So why did Jesus have to slip away from his home village to avoid being run out of town on a rail?

Didn’t he qualify as a Hometown Hero? 

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Balloons and piñatas

A homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 23, 2022

Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10, 1 Cor 12:12-14, 27, Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21

I was in high school at the end of The Sixties. Christian Brothers Academy, Lincroft, New Jersey, Class of 1973. Yes, I’m that old.

Times back then were tumultuous: The war in Vietnam. Oppressed minority citizens rioting in our cities for their God-given civil rights. The slaughter at Kent State. Watergate.  

Many Catholic clergymen refusing to breathe in the fresh air from windows thrown open by Vatican II. 

And no one over 30 could be trusted.

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Good stuff

A homily for the Baptism of the Lord, January 9, 2022

Is 42:1-4, 6-7, Ti 2:11-14; 3:4-7, Lk 3:15-16, 21-22

So: God in Heaven is well pleased with Jesus.

Duh.

Could anyone expect anything else?

Even though his ministry was still in its infancy, Jesus was living the right way, working the right way, teaching the right way and following the Law and the Prophets as any observant Jew of his age should.

Simply put, he was doing everything that a man of his time and place believed would please God.

And God literally said as much.

Jesus, son of God, got high praise.

So where does that leave us?

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Star gazers

A homily for the Feast of the Epiphany, January 2, 2022

Is 60:1-6, Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6, Mt 2:1-12

The calendar of events for seniors in a Central Jersey local newspaper, now defunct, used to occasionally include a listing for a “mystery trip.” The Old Age Club — yes, that’s what they called themselves back in the 1980s — would rent a bus and sell tickets, and the participants would find out where they were going once they were underway.

These trips were so popular that every one of them had a waiting list. Obviously, the Old Age Clubbers were the adventurous sort and, obviously, they were pleased with how their adventure turned out, or they wouldn’t have gone again. And again.

Obviously, the participants had faith in the organizers.

As did the Magi.

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Where the heart is

A homily for the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, December 26, 2021

Sir 3:2-6, 12-14, Col 3:12-21, Lk 2:41-52

A little girl is watching one of the dozens of rerun channels on TV and asks her parents, “When you were my age, were you in black and white?”

Because, of course, before Adam West appeared IN COLOR twice a week at the same bat-time on the same bat-channel, everything indeed was black and white.

Maybe not visually, but definitely in society.

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J K M N O P

A homily for The Nativity of the Lord — Christmas, December 25, 2021

Readings from the Mass at Night: Is 9:1-6, Ti 2:11-14, Lk 2:1-14

‘Tis better to give than receive.

Every child knows that. Every adult says that.

Every person of faith, justice and charity tries to live up to that.

So what’s the best gift to give today and every day?

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Hope springs

A homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 12, 2021

Zep 3:14-18a, Phil 4:4-7, Lk 3:10-18

They go together like Snap, Crackle and Pop:

Faith, Hope and Charity (or Love).

And they’re both the best way to start the day, every day.

Of course, one of these indispensable triads is a lot holier than the other.

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Switchbacks

A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 5, 2021

Bar 5:1-9, Phil 1:4-6, 8-11, Lk 3:1-6

Sometimes a twisty road is the one to take.

A twisty road might hug a riverbank or an ocean shoreline. It might wrap around the side of a mountain or follow the contours of a valley. It may be twisty because it’s zig-zag terraced up the side of a hill, and that was the safest way to get the path to the other side.

More simply put, a road with plentiful curves often hews to the reality that nature — and God — laid out.

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Where you are

A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2021

Jer 33:14-16, 1 Thes 3:12—4:2, Lk 21:25-28, 34-36

In 1965, John McPhee’s book profiling Bill Bradley, “A Sense of Where You Are,” hit the shelves.  In it, the then-student athlete at Princeton University explained how he was able to accurately fire a basketball through the hoop by maintaining, literally, a sense of where he was on the court.

Bradley, who distinguished himself as an Olympian, a New York Knick, a U.S. senator from New Jersey and a true statesman — among innumerable accomplishments — has kept that sense of where he is not only physically but emotionally, psychologically and spiritually throughout his life and career.

Advent challenges us to do the same.

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