A homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 8, 2023
Is 5:1-7, Phil 4:6-9, Mt 21:33-43
John Steinbeck’s prizewinning book, The Grapes of Wrath, has come to symbolize everything that was — still is — wrong with tenant farming in the United States and elsewhere. Even the book’s title sparks passionate feelings in anyone who hears it, even if they have never read the novel or seen the movie or listened to Bruce Springsteen.
A homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 1, 2023
Ez 18:25-28, Phil 2:1-11, Mt 21:28-32
There’s a TV commercial for a company that makes promotional items, the “for certain” people, and in it a woman driving a car filled with tchotchkes for a client is taken on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride over hill and dale and rail and through a cornfield until she comes face-to-face with a Holstein cow. The sadly mistaken GPS tells her she’s arrived at her destination.
Uh, not quite.
A homily for the Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 24, 2023
Is 55:6-9, Phil 1:20c-24, 27a, Mt 20:1-16a
You’ve probably heard a rumor that I enjoy an occasional cup of coffee every now and then. I’d like to set the record straight.
I drink many cups of coffee almost constantly, and I’ve done so for decades.
In fact, I even subscribe to a service that sends me enough recyclable and compostable pods to make 90 cups a month. Which I supplement with, yes, trips to Wawa, where they know my face if not my name.
A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 5, 2023
Is 58:7-10, 1 Cor 2:1-5, Mt 5:13-16
There are three little bins on a shelf in our basement with batteries in them: double-A, triple-A, and some random C, D and 9-volt types. We go through the double-As fairly often, and I reload the bin whenever it gets low, whenever a couple of them leak, or whenever Costco puts the 40-pack on sale.
There’s another, smaller bin on a shelf built into my desk at home, and it has a bunch of rechargeable double-As and a four-battery charger. They’re collecting dust.
They shouldn’t be.
They are, however, symbolic.
A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2022
Is 2:1-5, Rom 13:11-14, Mt 24:37-44
Long before 9/11, long before we all were told that if we see something we must say something, people in the armed forces had a profound call-and-response:
Stay alert!
Stay alive!
Because, of course, sleepwalking through the day can lead to disastrous consequences.
A homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sir 35:12-14, 16-18, 2 Tm 4:6-8, 16-18, Lk 18:9-14
When we hear about a natural disaster or a manmade tragedy (and, yes, dammit, they’re made mostly by men), how do we react? How do we act?
Probably the first thing we do is consider how much loose change we have, or whether we’re willing to skip a pumpkin spice latte this week, so we can send a few bucks to whatever charitable organization is taking the lead on relief efforts.
And with the ability to donate online, we can make a tiny bit of difference without getting off the couch. Website or app, click here, card information already stored, type in the CVV afresh, submit.
And for less than a dollar a day…
Yeah, we all know those commercials, don’t we?
A homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 10, 2022
Dt 30:10-14, Col1:15-20, Lk 10:25-37
What’s in your pocket?
If this were a TV commercial, you’d answer one way.
If this were “Let’s Make A Deal,” you’d answer another.
If you were being frisked, your answer would be something else entirely.
But this is none of those situations.
What’s in your pocket?
A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare), Cycle C, March 27, 2022
Jos 5:9a, 10-12, 2 Cor 5:17-21, Lk 15:1-3, 11-32
The well-known parable of the Prodigal Son is a story of gifts, but not necessarily the ones we’re fully conversant in.
There’s the fattened calf (I prefer the old-school “fatted calf,” but this is the current translation, sigh) and the welcome-home party for the repentant son, plus the ring on his finger and the hug from his father, who greets this ne’er-do-well as if he had risen from the grave.
And we recognize the gift of God’s eternal mercy toward everyone who repents, as echoed by the actions of the young man’s father. That, in fact, is the traditional and simplest Occam’s Razor interpretation of this sizable passage from Luke’s Gospel. And it’s a totally valid understanding of the passage: Jesus intended the forgiving father in the parable to represent The Forgiving Father of All Creation.
But wait, there’s more:
A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, March 20, 2022, Cycle C
Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15, 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12, Lk 13:1-9
If patience is a virtue, then a whole lotta Americans are far from virtuous. Especially New Jerseyans.
We proudly list the dozens — hundreds, even — of things we jam into every day, and at the (actual) end of the day, we mourn what we didn’t do rather than celebrate what we did.
Yeah, we’re a little warped that way.
A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 5, 2021
Bar 5:1-9, Phil 1:4-6, 8-11, Lk 3:1-6
Sometimes a twisty road is the one to take.
A twisty road might hug a riverbank or an ocean shoreline. It might wrap around the side of a mountain or follow the contours of a valley. It may be twisty because it’s zig-zag terraced up the side of a hill, and that was the safest way to get the path to the other side.
More simply put, a road with plentiful curves often hews to the reality that nature — and God — laid out.
