A homily for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Dn 7:13-14, Rv 1:5-8, Jn 18:33b-37
If human kings throughout history had been one scintilla of the kind of king Jesus is, we Americans would not cringe at the thought of following a crowned head of state, let alone revering one.
But they weren’t, and we rebelled 2½ centuries ago, and we’re still a rebellious bunch. Empty seats in church are only one sign of many to make that point.
A homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 14, 2021
Dn 12:1-3, Heb 10:11-14, 18, Mk 13:24-32
Judy Garland sang it:
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life
Today’s Scripture passages are none too sunny as we close out Ordinary Time and the year of Mark’s Gospel.
Frankly, “gloom and doom” only begin to categorize them.
So let’s look for the silver lining and the sunny side.
A homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 7, 2021
1 Kgs 17:10-16, Heb 9:24-28, Mk 12:38-44 or 12:41-44
Shortly after I started college, I turned my back on the church. Oh, I’d drop in occasionally to the Sunday evening everybody-sits-on-the-floor-around-the-guitarist Mass in the private dining rooms opposite the main cafeteria, but for the most part, I stopped being a church-goer.
I wasn’t being lazy, and I hadn’t lost my faith or sense of spirituality. (I wound up minoring in theology.) But I was annoyed at my home parish’s incredible preoccupation with money. Well, anyway, that’s how I perceived it.
A homily for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 31, 2021
Dt 6:2-6, Heb 7:23-28, Mk 12:28b-34
Let’s imagine for a minute that it’s Christmas, and we’re 10 years old.
Our favorite uncle has given us the bicycle we’ve been dreaming about — shiny, painted in a red-and-gold sunburst, custom seat and no training wheels.
We throw our arms around Uncle Joe and say, “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” about a hundred times.
We grab our coat, wheel our prized new bike out into the December chill — which we don’t feel at all — and pedal around the block a few times.
Just like Ralphie in the movie, this is the best present we ever got or would ever get.
A homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 24, 2021
Jer 31:7-9, Heb 5:1-6, Mk 10:46-52
What makes a good photo?
Composition, yes. Lighting, indeed. The right subject, absolutely.
Focus? Essential.
The same is true when we look. Look, and not merely see. Because the act of looking adds focus to all the visual inputs that can bombard us when we open our eyes.
A homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 17, 2021
Is 53:10-11, Heb 4:14-16, Mk 10:35-45
It’s such a cliché: “Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” The activity is supposed to give us a sense of what it’s like to be that person, or a person of that person’s ethnicity, or socioeconomic situation, or belief system, but it’s a fundamentally flawed exercise.
I am not, and never will be, anything but a white male human descended from Irish-Welsh-French-Alsatian-Croatian-Slovak stock, raised in the suburban dead center of New Jersey, educated at Catholic grammar and boys prep schools in that aforementioned Central Jersey and at a small, private liberal arts college in the rural dead center of Pennsylvania.
Put me in Manolo Blahnik shoes and I will not be a supermodel. Put me again in work boots atop a pile of hot asphalt and I may labor but I will not be a laborer. Put me in moccasins and — at best — I am guilty of cultural appropriation.
We may try, we may try with every fiber of our being, to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, but in the end, the most we can hope for is partial enlightenment.
A homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 10, 2021
Wis 7:7-11, Heb 4:12-13, Mk 10:17-30
It’s still possible to buy a needle threader, an incredibly brilliant yet simple tool that helps people with unsteady hands or so-so eyesight — or without the patience and tolerance for frustration — to pass a thread through the eye of a needle.
The fine wire goes through the eye first, and then the thread gets slipped through the lasso-like diamond on the other side.
A quick tug on the handle — or whatever it’s called — and the fine wire lasso hauls the thread through the eye.
Of course, you have to get the needle threader’s wire lasso through the eye first, but pound for pound that’s a far smaller challenge than jabbing a limp, frayed string through a tiny metal oval.
And, no, using a tool is not cheating.
A homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 26, 2021
Nm 11:25-29, Jas 5:1-6, Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
Let’s imagine a 3- or 4-year-old is playing in the yard some morning when firetrucks race by, lights flashing and sirens wailing. The child looks down the street, sees that the house where the emergency crews are headed is on fire, and then rushes inside to tell Mom or Dad what’s happening.
This child has become a prophet.
S/he sees the facts (firetrucks driving to the house that’s aflame), she understands the truth (a burning house is dangerous to life and property), she knows what must be done (douse the blaze) and she anticipates what the best result will be (fire extinguished, no one hurt, little damage).
This is not soothsaying or Nostradamus-like fortunetelling. Prophecy is extensive observation, critical thinking, action-planning and well-formed prediction, and we all can do it.
A homily for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 19, 2021
Wis 2:12, 17-20, Jas 3:16—4:3, Mk 9:30-37
The core of our faith — the core of our relationship with our Creator and all of Creation — is the Two Great Commandments: Love God and Love Neighbor.
So beautifully simple and pure that even a child can understand them, to paraphrase a slogan, which is part of why Jesus is so often chronicled as embracing children, who in his day were considered replaceable chattel the same way women were.
So we have two radical ideas: Love can be uncomplicated and children and women are people with worth in God’s eyes.
Now what?
A delayed and brief homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 12, 2021
Is 50:5-9a, Jas 2:14-18, Mk 8:27-35
Though we believe the Scriptures to be the inspired Word of God, not all of them are easily understood or digested. Not all of them have an immediately obvious application to modern life. Some can be serious head-scratchers.
Which is why we have homilies, among other reasons.
Occasionally, though, we hear a segment of Scripture that is perfectly simple and simply perfect.
And a long or tedious homily, as The Bard said in “King John,”
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily / To throw a perfume on the violet. . .. / Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
