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.
A homily for the Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete), December 15, 2024
Zep 3:14-18a, Phil 4:4-7, Lk 3:10-18
One winter holiday evening about 30 years ago, our extended family decided to go out light-peeping. As my sister-in-law suggested a few nearby places to check out, her son asked, “Can we go see The Hinges?”
The Hinges?
Kathy laughed and explained that, when she first saw how one house was decorated, she said it was lit up like the Hinges of Hell.
A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2024
Bar 5:1-9, Phil 1:4-6, 8-11, Lk 3:1-6
It’s been said that God doesn’t create in straight lines, and anyone who’s ever taken more than a second to look at the shapes of ocean beaches, lakefronts, leaves and flowers and trees and and and … realizes that.
Even the wind gets the twisties.
So what’s the big deal with straightening roads and flattening the landscape? If God created this world all curvy-hilly-bumpy, why do the prophets make such a big deal about paving some sort of interstate highway system over God’s handiwork?
What’s wrong with leaving it as is?
Continue reading Linear
A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2024
Gn 9:8-15, 1 Pt 3:18-22, Mk 1:12-15
I’m pretty sure I have a bad case of FOMO. Or I’m just plain nosy.
Then again, I’m legitimately extremely curious, and with better-than-average peripheral vision and much-better-than-average hearing — even in my dotage — I’m easily attracted and distracted by interesting things and events.
Such as God’s Creation, and the various activities of my fellow children of God. In other words, Life.
I always have been.
A homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023
Is 61:1-2A, 10-11, 1 Thes 5:16-24, Jn 1:6-8, 19-28
From 1959 until 1976, I lived in a split-level development house whose backyard butted up against a berm that shielded us from the Garden State Parkway. The yard, in fact, was more hill than flat, which is why my brothers and I spent more time climbing trees than playing some sort of ball sport.
Any time Dad drove us anywhere besides beautiful downtown Lincroft or La Côte Rouge, he usually opted to take the Parkway. These were the days of Stay Alive on Route 35, and back then, Dad almost didn’t. The 25-cent toll was a pittance to pay.
Besides safety and speed, the Parkway provided one other advantage: signage. By watching for the magic number of 109, my brothers and I knew all by ourselves that we were almost home.
No need for any “Are we there yet?” whines.
A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2023
Is 40:1-5, 9-11, 2 Pt 3:8-14, Mk 1:1-8
I’m spoiled, and on this particular subject, doubly so.
Having lived at the Jersey Shore essentially all my life, I’ve rarely sat in the kind of summer weekend traffic that transforms the Garden State Parkway into the Garden State Parking Lot. And our family weekend getaways in the summers of my youth were to the Kittatinny Mountains in Northwest Jersey (yes, both are real…), so we traveled opposite the Shore traffic both ways, 5 mph over the speed limit while they motored at about 6 mph. As in only 6 mph.
