A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 21, 2025
Isaiah 7:10-14, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-24
We imperfect humans ask a lot of questions about our perfect Deity.
Many of them compare God’s persons and unlimited … everything … to our own limitations.
Nope; God is unnnnn-limited
A revisited homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, Dec. 14, 2025
Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11
As of this belated writing, medium-size snowflakes are falling steadily but gently here at the Jersey Shore, piling up on cars and railings and bannisters and tree branches so heavily that mourning doves can’t grab the wood with their pink feet. It’s Nature’s insistence that we pause and rest.
And, today, to rejoice.
The other night, spending time with eighth-graders prepping for their Confirmation, I introduced the vast majority of them to the notion of Gaudete. And I remembered this homily from 2020, which I republish with some tiny updating and an apology to folks who don’t fancy reruns.
A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 7, 2025
Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-9, Matthew 3:1-12
Dictionary.com recently made a lot of people shake their heads in disbelief when the organization chose a number as the Word of the Year for 2025. Not even a number, really; it’s more of a number phrase, because it’s not pronounced in the familiar way it appears.
A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2025
Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:37-44
The folks who run Starbucks, Burger King, movie theaters and especially Cinnabon, among thousands of similar outfits, are geniuses.
They have made it impossible for even the most strong-willed among us to pass by their kiosks and shops without pining — yearning! — for their products. Regardless of how bad they may be for us.
A homily for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, November 23, 2025
2 Samuel 5:1-3, Colossians 1:12-20, Luke 23:35-43
In first-century Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth …
… Jesus, the descendant of David who was born in a Bethlehem stable …
… Jesus, the Son of God and son of Mary …
was a terrible king.
Horrible.
Incredibly bad.
At least, that’s what a lot of Israelites believed.
A homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 16, 2025
Malachi 3:19-20a, 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12, Luke 21:5-19
In one of Hollywood’s greatest tear-jerking farewell sequences, E.T. admonishes young Gertie, “Be good.” Then, in his raspy, almost robotic voice, the little alien botanist points to Elliott’s forehead and says, “I’ll be right here.”
The spaceship ascends to the heavens, and the Extra-Terrestrial lives on in the hearts and minds of the people whose lives he’s touched.
And in those of movie fans worldwide.
A (belated and brief) homily for the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, November 9, 2025
Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12, 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17, John 2:13-22
In every city and village worldwide, we’ll find houses of worship: temples, synagogues, mosques, churches, and more. Even storefronts and basements and tents and, yes, caves serve as gathering places for members of the human family to acknowledge in their culturally and religiously appropriate way that somebody somewhere loves us enough to give us our little blue marble in the sky.
To give us our own lives.
To give us our own unique lives, with our own unique abundance of gifts.
A homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 26, 2025
Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18, Luke 18:9-14
About 600 years before Jesus called out the Pharisees and other leaders of the people as hypocrites, the Greek moralist Aesop told a fable about a frog and an ox.
A homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 12, 2025
2 Kings 5:14-17, 2 Timothy 2:8-13, Luke 17:11-19
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”
― Meister Eckhart
The German theologian and mystic Eckhart von Hochheim wrote plainly, simply, yet profoundly, and his writings on many topics that link the everyday with the spiritual have been translated for centuries. His statement on gratitude is among the most-quoted.
A homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 5, 2025
Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4, 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14, Luke 17:5-10
We’re slowly edging into autumn. It’s more than a month old, meteorologically, and a little over a week old astronomically. The trees are starting to show their fall colors (though this looks like a dull season), and not long from now the leaves of brown will come tumblin’ down (to steal some lyrics).
It’s the annual cycle of seasons here in the Northeast.
It’s the circle of life, to borrow some other lyrics.
And because all life on God’s Green Earth is interconnected, because every singular aspect of life — our lives — contributes to the whole of Creation, there’s a spiritual aspect to the very physical cycle of death and rebirth. A metaphor.
As witnessed by all the plants we refer to as deciduous or annuals.
