Tag: WWJD

Revealed

A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, February 25, 2024

Gn 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18, Rom 8:31b-34, Mk 9:2-10

We all know about Clark Kent, right? Mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Planet, who wanted a job someplace where he could hear about emergencies or disasters anywhere in the world.

And why was he so interested in hot topics? Was he some sort of news junkie?

No.

As we all know, every time he took off his glasses and otherwise changed his outfit, he was duty-bound to go and help people in trouble. Whenever he arrived to save the day, everyone around him saw his true self, his true identity, the identity he kept secret the rest of the time.

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Shhh…

A homily for the First Sunday of Lent, February 18, 2024

Gn 9:8-15, 1 Pt 3:18-22, Mk 1:12-15

I’m pretty sure I have a bad case of FOMO. Or I’m just plain nosy.

Then again, I’m legitimately extremely curious, and with better-than-average peripheral vision and much-better-than-average hearing — even in my dotage — I’m easily attracted and distracted by interesting things and events.

Such as God’s Creation, and the various activities of my fellow children of God. In other words, Life.

I always have been.

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Essential

A homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 11, 2024

Lv 13:1-2, 44-46, 1 Cor 10:31—11:1, Mk 1:40-45

In the classic 1982 film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” the little sister played by Drew Barrymore dresses the tiny alien botanist in a gown and wig and costume jewelry, which startles her brother Elliott. “You should give him his dignity,” Elliott demands of Gertie. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dignity was what Jesus gave to the lepers he cleansed, perhaps even more than their restored health and an end to their physical pain. Jesus ended their emotional and spiritual torment as well.

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Employment

A homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 4, 2024

Jb 7:1-4, 6-7, 1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23, Mk 1:29-39

In my first job as a professional journalist, at the now-defunct Daily and Sunday Register in Shrewsbury (better known as the Red Bank Register), I was obliged to do a lot of typing. Sports scores and statistics, mostly. Long, long lists of stats and records. Much of it was on a tweaked IBM Selectric typewriter, modified so my words on legal-size paper could be scanned into a rudimentary computerized typesetting system. 

This was 1978, after all.

I also had the task of tapping the keyboard of a hand-me-down phototypesetting system, sent from The Register’s absentee owners in Toledo. Yes, the hometown of Max Klinger from M*A*S*H. Into that “tube,” I transcribed the wit and wisdom of George Sheehan, The Running Doctor, as well as the results of the thoroughbred races at Monmouth Park.

It was tedious, what a colleague years later would refer to as “chimping.”

A different colleague, though, had a more sanguine outlook: “That’s why they call it ‘work.'”

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Organic

A homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 28, 2024

Dt 18:15-20, 1 Cor 7:32-35, Mk 1:21-28

In a few hours, we’ll know if the Kansas City Swifties … I mean, the Kansas City Kelces … I mean, the Kansas City Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl.

It’s a telling sign of the times that most of us know more about who’s dating whom than we know about a football team’s rushing and passing statistics. Media of all sorts have made sure we know all about how one player’s brother watched the game without his shirt and then hoisted a cute little girl into the box seats to meet her pop star idol.

Ohhhh, the things we seem to care about…

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Caught

A homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 21, 2024

Jon 3:1-5, 10, 1 Cor 7:29-31, Mk 1:14-20

In a “Hägar the Horrible” comic strip, the red-bearded Viking’s son, Hamlet, asks Hägar if he has any words to live by. Yes, his father replies, there are three things to always remember.

“Never apologize.”

“Never explain.” 

Then Hägar pauses and leans closer to Hamlet, who asks, “What’s the third?”

“Don’t get caught!”

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Handoff

A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 14, 2024

1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19, 1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20, Jn 1:35-42

Back in 2000, when Haley Joel Osment was younger and cuter, he starred in “Pay It Forward,” a movie based on the novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde. It’s a change-the-world story based on the notion that, after someone does you a good deed you couldn’t have done for yourself, you must do a similarly large favor for three people, preferably strangers. And, in doing so, you must explain to the mitzvahs’ recipients that they are now obliged to pay it forward as well.

This, in theory if not in practice, would add up to an exponential growth in kindness and justice that could overspread the world.

And even though the movie received mixed-to-negative reviews, the notion — and the phrase — etched a place in our social consciousness.

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Tip

A homily for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 5, 2023

Mal 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10, 1 Thes 2:7b-9, 13, Mt 23:1-12

The DoorDash food-delivery service made somewhat unwanted headlines recently when its app started nudging customers to leave its drivers a tip with the extortion-like suggestion that, if the customer didn’t pay a gratuity, their food might arrive late and cold.

Frankly, I think the suggestion was cold. 

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Long view

A homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 29, 2023

Ex 22:20-26, 1 Thes 1:5c-10, Mt 22:34-40

The long and the short of it — literally and figuratively — is that how we live our lives depends on our perspectives.

Every one of us is different, even identical siblings. Each of us was born at a different time, in a different place (even if your mom and mine were side-by-side in the maternity ward). We have different body types, in every way that can be possible. 

And through the sheer laws of physics, none of us can see and experience precisely what another of us sees and hears and feels because none of us can exist in the same space as somebody else simultaneously.

Eight billion of us today. Billions who came before us. And, God willing, billions and trillions yet to come after us.

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