Tag: WWJD

Rock solid

Lectionary readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 7, 2023

Acts 6:1-7, 1 Pt 2:4-9, Jn 14:1-12

With your kind indulgence, I’m trading my usual online attempt at a homily for an in-person celebration of our son’s new doctorate at The Ohio State University in Columbus.

I have faith that you can see yourselves in these readings and that the Holy Spirit will tell you how you can continue the work of the Apostles and other fellow disciples to help ease the troubles of our world today.

Until next week, peace and blessings to you!

The GOAT was a shepherd

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2023

Acts 2:14a, 36-41, 1 Pt 2:20b-25, Jn 10:1-10

The genius Bill Watterson, father of the long-missed “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip, had his characters invent Calvinball after mischievous boy Calvin grew tired of so-called organized sports. Instead, Calvin cobbled together the first truly disorganized or unorganized sport, a sport with only one rule and a mishmash of sporting goods that may or may not be suitable for use.

The one permanent rule in Calvinball dictated that players could not play it the same way twice. The game involved croquet wickets and mallets, volleyballs, basketballs, gloves, bare hands, goggles, and anything else that seemed remotely sporty or otherwise preposterous.

Continue reading The GOAT was a shepherd

Eye drops

A homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, April 23, 2023

Acts 2:14, 22-33, 1 Pt 1:17-21, Lk 24:13-35

I watch a fair amount of cable TV, primarily news, and with the programming come the unavoidable commercials, mostly for medicines and the like. You know the ones: They start off by listing the one or two benefits of that particular snake oil and then rattle off the 10,000 possible side effects that include painful death or dismemberment, significant gain or loss of weight, or terminal halitosis.

(And have you ever noticed that the actors playing some of these couples’ children are biologically inaccurate, if not impossible?)

Continue reading Eye drops

See, then do

A homily for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 16, 2023

Acts 2:42-47, 1 Pt 1:3-9, Jn 20:19-31

One of the many great advantages of having a doctor as my dad was the supply of free copies of Highlights for Children magazine that piled up in his waiting room, alongside ancient Time, Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest relics. It was heaven for a voracious reader like me.

Back then, as I recall, Highlights had a feature called “Tommy the Talker and Danny the Doer.” And if it wasn’t a Highlights feature, Tommy vs. Danny appeared somewhere. So let’s go with it.

Continue reading See, then do

Hop in, Lord

A homily for Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, April 2, 2023

Mt 21:1-11, Is 50:4-7, Phil 2:6-11, Mt 26:14—27:66

Some spring morning early in the second half of the 20th century, the fourth- or fifth-graders (I forget which …) at St. Leo the Great School in Lincroft had an assignment: If you invented a time machine that took you back to Jerusalem in 33 A.D. and saw Jesus along the Way of the Cross, what would you do?

The answers — most of them illustrated as best as we Warhol wannabes could — ran a wide gamut as we each stood up and presented them to the class.

Some of my classmates insisted they would snatch the cross from our Messiah and take his place on Golgotha. Some said they would comfort him as he walked past, offering him water and snacks. Some promised to be yet another Simon of Cyrene.

I guess my answer was Cyrenian, sort of.

Continue reading Hop in, Lord

To life

A homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 26, 2023

Ez 37:12-14, Rom 8:8-11, Jn 11:1-45

In one of the big production numbers in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye the milkman and wedding guests get rowdy and sing l’chaim — to life!

To life, to life, l’chaim.
L’chaim, l’chaim, to life.
Life has a way of confusing us,
Blessing and bruising us.
Drink, l’chaim, to life!

Every day, most of us raise a glass of something — wine, coffee, Gatorade, water — to life.

We’re grateful for a new day, another day, and we’re grateful for the people, places and things in our lives. Grateful to be sharing the day with them.

We’re grateful to be on this side of the daisies, as the sassy expression goes.

Continue reading To life

Embossed

A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 19, 2023

1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Eph 5:8-14, Jn 9:1-41

Every place I’ve ever lived had shelves full of books, sometimes to the point of making the floorboards creak or sag.

When my Uncle Richard lived with us, my dad bought him a set of paperbacks that Time-Life considered to be the essential modern literature. I remember one being the “Ox-Box Incident,” which even to this day I have yet to read. The other essentials? Long forgotten. Shame on me.

Continue reading Embossed

H 2 … Oh!

A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, March 12, 2023

Ex 17:3-7, Rom 5:1-2, 5-8, Jn 4:5-42

Water has been in the news a lot lately.

California has too much of it — in the form of unimaginably deep snow as well as downpours that would have challenged Noah — even as the state’s drought has yet to be solved.

The Great Salt Lake is drying up because the rivers that flow into it are drying up, and scientists and politicians are trying to engineer a way to save it.

Closer to home, March is coming in like a lion after a warm and dry winter. Slush and rain and flooded roads.

Yes, water has been newsworthy a lot lately.

Continue reading H 2 … Oh!

Alone time

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.

Continue reading Alone time

Gilt-free

A homily, sort of, for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 19, 2023

Lv 19:1-2, 17-18, 1 Cor 3:16-23, Mt 5:38-48

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily /
To throw a perfume on the violet …/
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

If you haven’t heard this week’s selections from Scripture proclaimed in a house of worship, or if you haven’t used the links above to read them, please do.

There’s absolutely nothing I can add to make them more understandable or clearer. There’s no call to action I can write or shout from the rooftops that these passages don’t deliver.

Continue reading Gilt-free