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 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 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 Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 9, 2024
Gn 3:9-15, 2 Cor 4:13—5:1, Mk 3:20-35
The first time I saw someone talking on a cellphone wearing wireless earbuds, I thought the person was … uh … possibly mentally ill. You see, they weren’t merely having what looked like a conversation with their self; they were arguing.
Loudly. Passionately. Did I mention loudly?
With vigorous hand gestures to no one in sight, some of them NSFW.
As were many of the loud words.
The earbuds were so small that I didn’t spot them right away.
A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, February 26, 2023
Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7, Rom 5:12-19 , Mt 4:1-11
Out in the backyard of my boyhood home in Lincroft, my brothers and I built a treehouse. Not just any treehouse. This was a classic, enough to make the Swiss Family Robinson jealous.
A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C, April 3, 2022
Is 43:16-21, Phil 3:8-14, Jn 8:1-11
We remember Alexander Pope’s most famous quote:
To err is human; to forgive, divine
And in this Lenten season of repentance and the seeking of forgiveness, we admit that we err occasionally. Or more than occasionally.
And we take comfort in knowing that our loving God forgives us and welcomes us home every time.
But there’s another quotation from this 18th Century writer that relates to all three of our passages from Scripture this weekend:
