Tag: Insight

Gaudete, y’all

A homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, Dec. 13, 2020

Is 62:1-2A, 10-11, 1 Thes 5:16-24, Jn 1:6-8, 19-28

Once upon a time, there was a brilliant priest who grew up in Dallas, influenced by the spirit and enthusiasm of the Protestant Christian brothers and sisters who lived all around him. The kind of folks who, bless ’em, will gladly drop an “Amen” on you regularly.

He also was possessed of a Texas twang — not really a drawl, not really not — so when he pronounced his Latin … well, let’s just say that Caesar himself would have had a little trouble understanding him.

My priest friend, in particular, liked to greet folks on the Third Sunday of Advent with a hearty and heartfelt “guh-Dowty,” the Lone Star way of saying “Gaudete.” 

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Milling and paving

A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Dec. 6, 2020

Is. 40:1-5, 9-11, 2 Pt 3:8-14, Mk 1:1-8

If you live in New Jersey or nearby, you know about highways and highway construction. Except in the coldest and snowiest months, a road somewhere in New Jersey is being built from scratch or rehabilitated.

We in New Jersey like our roads. We like them wide, we like them smooth, and we like them fast.

(The only thing we would like better than our roads is a “Star Trek” transporter to get us from Point A to Point B almost instantaneously, and that’s not happening in this lifetime, as far as I know.)

So the notion of “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” is right up our alley. 

Or is it?

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It’s a virtue

A homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Nov. 8, 2020

Wis 6:12-16, 1 Thes 4:13-18, Mt 25:1-13

Imagine, if you will, that you’re standing at the train station waiting for the 5:14 to New York, and it’s 5:12 p.m. Where are you looking? At your watch or smartphone? Randomly, all around?

Maybe.

But the odds are good that you’re looking up the tracks in the direction your train will be coming from. You want to see the train coming. You want to be ready when it arrives … as if you weren’t already ready to climb aboard.

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Fork in the road? Take it

A homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Oct. 18, 2020

Is 45:1, 4-6, 1 Thes 1:1-5B, Mt 22:15-21

Today’s Gospel is well-known, most likely among the Top 5 for people of faith to cite when they list WWJD.

And because of its familiarity, this passage is usually interpreted as an either-or.

Choose the things of the world or choose the Ways of God.

But that arguably barely scrapes the surface.

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Fair’s fair

A homily for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sept. 20, 2020

Is 55:6-9, Phil 1:20C-24, 27A, Mt 20:1-16A

For some people steeped in timeclocks, hourly wages, collective bargaining and labor law, this Gospel has always been a head-scratcher.

If the worker who was employed from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. gets, let’s say, 75 bucks but then the worker who started at 6 a.m. also gets 75 bucks, how is that remotely fair? The late-starter is getting $75 an hour while the guy from the Dawn Patrol is getting $6.25. What should the hourly rate be? Shouldn’t it be the same for everybody?

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Better than new

A homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sept. 13, 2020

Sir 27:30 – 28:7, Rom 14:7-9. Mt 18:21-35

My late father used to say, “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget.”

He wasn’t the only person I ever heard say that. In fact, he ran with quite a big crowd on that sentiment.

“I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget.”

I never understood that. I still don’t.

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Seasonally affected

A little over 45 years ago, I stood in the living room of my college advisor, a beautifully wild man with wild hair and a creative spirit that had lit a fire in me and under me.

I was helping him pack.

He had not been granted tenure, and his contract was up, so he and his young family were heading out to his wife’s family home to work on their next steps.

It was, I recall him saying, the first time in 32 years that he would not be going back to school on Labor Day.

Back to school.

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I I U R, I I U B

A homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 26, 2020

1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12, Rom 8:28-30, Mt 13:44-52

Have you ever asked for something? Asked Mom or Dad or Uncle Mike or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?

Did you get it? After you got it, was it really what you wanted? And even if you thought it was, did you get tired of it after a while? Or, after a long while, did you realize that, no, it really wasn’t what you wanted after all?

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