A homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 3, 2021
Gn 2:18-24, Heb 2:9-11, Mk 10:2-16
We’ve all heard the old saw “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” And history has proven that true time and again.
But what about “The bigger they are, the more humble they become”?
Doesn’t sound familiar.
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 homily for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 29, 2021
Dt 4:1-2, 6-8, Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27, Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
When we think of gifts, we usually imagine big boxes wrapped in colorful paper tied up with shiny ribbons and a big bow. And as we tear into them, first ripping through the wrapping and then digging through the tissue paper to find the surprises inside, we try to imagine what toys we’ve been dreaming of could be inside.
Unless, of course, the gift is a pony. Then we just try to figure out how Mom and Dad got it into the box.
Regardless of the occasion — birthday, Christmas, First Holy Communion — we expect any gift we receive to be fun, or pretty, or at least something to keep our feet warm in the winter.
We don’t expect gifts to be stone tablets that tell us “No!”
A homily for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 22, 2021
Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b, Eph 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32, Jn 6:60-69
As we break open today’s Gospel, we can be tempted to consider The Rock’s reply to Jesus’s question to be rhetorical:
“Master, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
To whom, indeed.
The answer seems to be such a “Well, yeah, of course,” quip that it does seem rhetorical.
But this was a make-or-break situation for Simon Peter and the rest of The Twelve. There was nothing rhetorical about their reply.
A homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 8, 2021
1 Kgs 19:4-8, Eph 4:30—5:2, Jn 6:41-51
My dad owned a few copies of “The Imitation of Christ,” by Thomas à Kempis, a guide to living in the footsteps of Jesus that, according to Wikipedia, was composed in Medieval Latin circa 1418–1427. That’s way back there.
I first noticed a copy prominently displayed on the bookcase in our living room about 530 years after its publication, when I had learned to read chapter books with big words and, as a good Catholic school second- or third-grader, when I was in desperate fear and hatred of the Antichrist.
You see, my vocabulary at that time grasped big words but not nuances, and I thought the book was about a fake messiah, the way imitation vanilla was fake and tasted fake. I wanted nothing to do with an imitation Christ. I wanted The Real Jesus.
I didn’t realize the title meant how to imitate Christ. So it was years before I attempted to open the book and take in its message.
Ah, youth.
A homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 1, 2021
Ex 16:2-4, 12-15, Eph 4:17, 20-24, Jn 6:24-35
If ever there were a time to be grateful, it’s now.
Even amid the ongoing-and-reviving pandemic, climate crises, unemployment, and civil and racial strife, we have much to be thankful for.
We are alive; we’ve lived to see another day. God’s Creation is beautiful (what we humans haven’t trashed, that is). Someone in Heaven loves us. Someone here on Earth does, too, even if we don’t know that person or persons personally.
And we are saved.
A homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 25, 2021
2 Kgs 4:42-44, Eph 4:1-6, Jn 6:1-15
Why, in Heaven’s name, would Jesus not want to be acclaimed as King of the Jews?
Probably because it would not have been in Heaven’s name.
A homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 18, 2021
Jer 23:1-6, Eph 2:13-18, Mk 6:30-34
In the movie “Hacksaw Ridge” — the brutal, bloody retelling of a critical battle in World War II’s Pacific Theater — Army medic Desmond Doss drags one wounded soldier after another to safety while flames and bullets rage around him.
Doss, a conscientious objector who volunteered to save lives on the front lines, prays for strength as he continues his mission all night.
“Just one more, Lord; just one more.”
It’s a true story.
A homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 4, 2021
Ez 2:2-5, 2 Cor 12:7-10, Mk 6:1-6
In the fall of 1976, as the Jesus Movement — or “Jesus Freak” movement — was winding down, my then-girlfriend and I attended an outdoor concert in New York City. As we exited onto Central Park South in the twilight, she squeezed my arm and said, “I think that man is going to mug us,” motioning to someone shuffling toward me on the left.
For reasons I still don’t completely understand, I pried loose from her and strode briskly toward the suspicious person, reaching into my jacket pocket for the program from the show.
Wild-eyed and staring him in the face, waving the paper, I enthusiastically and energetically said, “Do you know Jesus? Jesus is your personal Lord and Savior! I have a tract right here that…”
He took off like a shot, and I rejoined my friend unmolested.
