Tag: Scripture

Reciprocal

A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 18, 2025

Acts 14:21-27, Revelation 21:1-5a, John 13:31-33a, 34-35

None of us can love ice cream, no matter how vigorously or energetically foot-stompingly any of us insists we absolutely do.

Not vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. Not cookie dough or coconut or fudge ripple or key lime pie. Not even chocolate chip mint!

None of us can love ice cream, though any and all of us can really, really like it.

We can’t love ice cream because ice cream can’t love us back.

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Context

A homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2025

Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41, Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19 

Remember, back when we were in grammar school, especially back in the first, second or third grade, how weird it was to see a teacher away from the classroom? Remember how incredibly weird it was to see a Franciscan sister, or the whole convent, in the Acme Market?

Remember how we didn’t always recognize them right away because they were out of the classroom? That’s where they live all the time, right?

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Rent-free space

A homily for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 27, 2025

Acts 5:12-16, Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19, John 20:19-31

It seems like forever that people have disagreed on whether it’s better to forgive and forget or forgive and remember whenever someone — or some institution — has done wrong by us.

Both sides make strong cases.

Those who’d forgive and forget wipe the slate clean. You’re sorry; I forgive you; let’s pretend the whole thing never happened. It’s a lot less to carry around when we’re all bearing crosses of some sort.

Then again, those who forgive and remember choose to watch out for the same thing happening again. Yes, I forgive you, but I also have my eye on you. You say you’re sorry, and I mostly believe you, but I’m on guard. My radar is on. I’m wearing armor. Fool me once, etc.

Definitely an either-or proposition.

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He did what?

A homily for The Resurrection of the Lord (Easter), April 20, 2025

Acts 10:34a, 37-43, Colossians 3:1-4, John 20:1-9

Sometimes, I just don’t get it.

Every now and then, there are things I “should” understand, but don’t.

Every now and then, the harder I think about certain things, the more my brain hurts, and I still don’t understand.

Yet the biggest challenges are the things I kinda-sorta understand. Those can be incredibly nettlesome. I’ll bet we all have some of those buzzing around our brains.

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Loyalty

A homily for Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord, April 13, 2025

Luke 19:28-40, Isaiah 50:4-7, Philippians 2:6-11, Luke 22:14—23:56

I grew up in a Ford family. Over the years, we had more Country Squires than three seasons of “Bridgerton.” And a couple of Mustangs, of course.

At one point, we added a Volkswagen Bug, and we owned our share of VeeDubs, but they were always The Second Car. The big Ford V-8 was the vehicle of choice.

Yet when it was time for me to take out a loan, sign on the dotted line and drive away in my own wheels, I opted for a, yes, sexy VW Scirocco. And don’t you know, I felt some guilt pangs for betraying the Blue Oval.

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Aye, eye

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, with the Scrutiny Year A Readings, March 30, 2025

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41

Our eyes are the windows to our souls.

I’ve heard that a zillion times, and I believe it.

Our eyes reveal exactly who we are, and they empower us to see clearly just who and what other people are.

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Nearsighted

A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, March 16, 2025

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18, Philippians 3:17—4:1, Luke 9:28b-36

In James Cameron’s “Avatar” movies, the tall blue Na’vi people greet each other, and especially greet their loved ones, with “I see you.”

To the fictional Na’vi, “I see you” means a wide variety of things: “I see into you,” “I understand you,” “I respect you,” or “I love you.”

All of which intersect at “I know who you truly are.”

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Desertion

A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, March 9, 2025

Deuteronomy 26:4-10, Romans 10:8-13, Luke 4:1-13

From the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, my family and I were blessed to be members of the Stephen’s Point Fishing Club and the owners of a roughly 1930s-vintage cabin overlooking the Walpack Bend of the Delaware River in Flatbrookville, New Jersey.

The sign on westbound Interstate 80 pointing to Flatbrookville, by the way, is almost bigger than the historic hamlet itself.

And even though we lived (still live) at the Jersey Shore, and in those days headed to a beach club in Sea Bright almost every weekday in the summer, we spent many summer weekends up in the Kittatinny Mountains.

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Next

A homily for the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, March 2, 2025

Sirach 27:4-7, 1 Corinthians 15:54-58, Luke 6:39-45

One of the most important things an actor learns is not to play the end of a scene.

What that means is, even though actors know how the scene will end, because they have read and learned the script, they can’t display any inappropriate emotions or in any other way show they know what’s going to happen next. They can’t do or say anything — no matter how small — that telegraphs the ending. That would ruin the scene.

It’s a difficult skill to master.

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