Holy Spirit 2 - Unpaid Bill

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.

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Upside down

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.

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Rules and rules

A homily for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, February 2, 2025

Malachi 3:1-4, Hebrews 2:14-18, Luke 2:22-40 or 2:22-32

In the brilliant and sorely missed comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes,” the imp and his stuffed tiger who comes to life often play Calvinball.

There is only one permanent rule in Calvinball: players cannot play it the same way twice.

That either confirms or directly conflicts with a child psychologist’s observation that, quite often, kids spend so much time picking teams and hashing out the rules of whatever game they’re about to play that they wind up not having time to play it.

There’s no doubt, however, that we live in a world of rules and rulers. Humankind always has.

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Inventory

A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 19, 2025

Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, John 2:1-11

There’s a little door in our hallway that opens to something called a linen closet.

The closet hasn’t held linens in about 30 years.

In it are various cleaning supplies, paper goods, soaps and shampoos, dental-care items, COVID-19 tests, and prescription and over-the-counter medicines.

Definitely no sheets or towels.

And every year around this time, in the cold of mid-January, I’ll haul out the closet’s contents and keep what we’ll actually use in the coming 12 months and toss or find a home for the unneeded or expired stuff. (Expired! Expired! Expired!)

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Membership

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.

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Uniquely unique

A homily for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, November 24, 2024

Dn 7:13-14, Rv 1:5-8, Jn 18:33b-37

Way back in 1776, the British colonists in the New World decided they’d had enough of a bad king who was making their lives miserable. So they declared their independence from George and any other first son of a first son wearing a shiny tin hat. The Americans were done with jewel-encrusted dictators acting like spoiled brats sitting in highchairs.

Ever since then, our rugged individualism has made us turn a cold shoulder to monarchs, except when there’s a royal wedding or coronation or anything else on TV that involves Cinderella-style horse-drawn carriages.

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Work boots

A (belated) homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 20, 2024

Is 53:10-11, Heb 4:14-16, Mk 10:35-45 or 10:42-45

Twelve hours after I saw my Christian Brothers Academy mortarboard soar into the evening sky (against the orders of the assistant principal my classmates and I detested), I was standing in a pile of newly dumped asphalt, with a foreman hollering, “Let’s git it!”

In other words, shovel the smoking hot blacktop onto the end of a driveway that had been chopped up to widen a neighborhood street in Oceanport, New Jersey.

Within minutes on that June morning in 1973, I had sweated through my white T-shirt, and my new blue jeans were starting to droop near my butt crack.

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Instant messaging

A homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 7, 2024

Ez 2:2-5, 2 Cor 12:7-10, Mk 6:1-6

“That’s amazing.”

We’ve all probably seen the Consumer Cellular ad in which the lady in the kitchen is talking with the sales rep while the gentleman is jumping into a pool, doing little tricks.

Yet what amazes her, according to the ad, is not the man’s Olympic wannabe diving prowess but the mobile phone’s features and the company’s service.

Apparently proving, once again, that we 21st-century Americans love our high-tech flashy-sparkly-shiny things.

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Trio

A homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, May 26, 2024

Dt 4:32-34, 39-40, Rom 8:14-17, Mt 28:16-20

When I was in the seventh grade at St. Leo’s in Lincroft, I had it all figured out.

No, not the meaning of life, or how to avoid taxes, or even how to win the lottery.

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Unblocked

A homily for Pentecost, May 19, 2024

Mass During the Day: Acts 2:1-11, 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13, Jn 15:26-27; 16:12-15

I suffer from writer’s block about as often as I suffer from allergies. Sometimes the attacks of either are stay-in-bed level; other times, I can power through. But like most of us, I do not relish either.

I have eye drops and antihistamine pills for my allergies, so their flare-ups qualify as annoyances and inconveniences.

But there’s no pill I can pop or lotion I can drop to cure writer’s block, especially when I’m dealing with a religious or spiritual or scriptural topic. And I consider that far more than an annoyance or an inconvenience. Especially as Sunday approaches.

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