Tag: Sermon

Star gazers

A homily for the Feast of the Epiphany, January 2, 2022

Is 60:1-6, Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6, Mt 2:1-12

The calendar of events for seniors in a Central Jersey local newspaper, now defunct, used to occasionally include a listing for a “mystery trip.” The Old Age Club — yes, that’s what they called themselves back in the 1980s — would rent a bus and sell tickets, and the participants would find out where they were going once they were underway.

These trips were so popular that every one of them had a waiting list. Obviously, the Old Age Clubbers were the adventurous sort and, obviously, they were pleased with how their adventure turned out, or they wouldn’t have gone again. And again.

Obviously, the participants had faith in the organizers.

As did the Magi.

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Where the heart is

A homily for the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, December 26, 2021

Sir 3:2-6, 12-14, Col 3:12-21, Lk 2:41-52

A little girl is watching one of the dozens of rerun channels on TV and asks her parents, “When you were my age, were you in black and white?”

Because, of course, before Adam West appeared IN COLOR twice a week at the same bat-time on the same bat-channel, everything indeed was black and white.

Maybe not visually, but definitely in society.

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J K M N O P

A homily for The Nativity of the Lord — Christmas, December 25, 2021

Readings from the Mass at Night: Is 9:1-6, Ti 2:11-14, Lk 2:1-14

‘Tis better to give than receive.

Every child knows that. Every adult says that.

Every person of faith, justice and charity tries to live up to that.

So what’s the best gift to give today and every day?

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Hope springs

A homily for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 12, 2021

Zep 3:14-18a, Phil 4:4-7, Lk 3:10-18

They go together like Snap, Crackle and Pop:

Faith, Hope and Charity (or Love).

And they’re both the best way to start the day, every day.

Of course, one of these indispensable triads is a lot holier than the other.

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Switchbacks

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.

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Where you are

A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2021

Jer 33:14-16, 1 Thes 3:12—4:2, Lk 21:25-28, 34-36

In 1965, John McPhee’s book profiling Bill Bradley, “A Sense of Where You Are,” hit the shelves.  In it, the then-student athlete at Princeton University explained how he was able to accurately fire a basketball through the hoop by maintaining, literally, a sense of where he was on the court.

Bradley, who distinguished himself as an Olympian, a New York Knick, a U.S. senator from New Jersey and a true statesman — among innumerable accomplishments — has kept that sense of where he is not only physically but emotionally, psychologically and spiritually throughout his life and career.

Advent challenges us to do the same.

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Monarch

A homily for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Dn 7:13-14, Rv 1:5-8, Jn 18:33b-37

If human kings throughout history had been one scintilla of the kind of king Jesus is, we Americans would not cringe at the thought of following a crowned head of state, let alone revering one.

But they weren’t, and we rebelled 2½ centuries ago, and we’re still a rebellious bunch. Empty seats in church are only one sign of many to make that point.

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Silver lining

A homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 14, 2021

Dn 12:1-3, Heb 10:11-14, 18, Mk 13:24-32

Judy Garland sang it:

So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life

Today’s Scripture passages are none too sunny as we close out Ordinary Time and the year of Mark’s Gospel.

Frankly, “gloom and doom” only begin to categorize them.

So let’s look for the silver lining and the sunny side.

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Real value

A homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 7, 2021

1 Kgs 17:10-16, Heb 9:24-28, Mk 12:38-44 or 12:41-44

Shortly after I started college, I turned my back on the church. Oh, I’d drop in occasionally to the Sunday evening everybody-sits-on-the-floor-around-the-guitarist Mass in the private dining rooms opposite the main cafeteria, but for the most part, I stopped being a church-goer.

I wasn’t being lazy, and I hadn’t lost my faith or sense of spirituality. (I wound up minoring in theology.) But I was annoyed at my home parish’s incredible preoccupation with money. Well, anyway, that’s how I perceived it.

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