Tag: Paul

No Smileys

A homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, 2025

Numbers 21:4b-9, Philippians 2:6-11, John 3:13-17

A symbol is defined as “a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.”

Our lives are chock-full of symbols. The American flag, and flags of all the other nations on Earth. Stick-figure women and men on restroom doors. Stick-figure people in wheelchairs. Smiley faces.

Crosses and crucifixes.

And the simpler and clearer the symbol may be, the more complicated our understanding of it and our relationship with it becomes.

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Seedlings

A homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 10, 2025

Wisdom 18:6-9, Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19, Luke 12:32-48

As it turns out, most of the stories about Johnny Appleseed were true, and only mildly embellished.

Here are a couple of salient paragraphs from the Wikipedia entry on this American folk hero:

Johnny Appleseed (born John Chapman; September 26, 1774 – March 18, 1845) was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced trees grown with apple seeds (as opposed to trees grown with grafting) to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario, as well as the northern counties of West Virginia. He became an American icon while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance that he attributed to apples. …

The popular image is of Johnny Appleseed spreading apple seeds randomly everywhere he went. In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock and wildlife, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. … Continue reading Seedlings

Prioritizing

A homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 20, 2025

Genesis 18:1-10a, Colossians 1:24-28, Luke 10:38-42

Most of us have compiled or received (or both) a honey-do list, a tally of all the stuff that needs to be done around the house. The list challenges us (nags us?) to get off our duffs and wash the windows, schedule the car maintenance, call the exterminator and, oh yeah, give Rover a long-overdue bath.

Without making the house smell like wet dog.

Quite often, the lists grow more like zucchini in a New Jersey summer than basketball-size green melons. In fact, mine qualifies as a watermelon list.

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Heavy lift

A homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles, June 29, 2025

Readings from the Mass During the Day: Acts 12:1-11, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18, Matthew 16:13-19

Anyone who’s ever been laid off or received a buyout from a company — especially after a long period of service — knows the flood of emotions the pink slip or fat envelope brings.

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