Catholic Women Preach

Preaching for the Fifth Sunday of Lent , Grace Salceanu reflects on living God's invitation to relationship - with God, and with one another:  "God calls us to be so full of life, we give our whole selves away in love...This Lent, we are asked to take the long view with Jesus. Who would we become if we were at home in God’s generous and reckless love? How would we use our time? Our lives?" &n...

Preaching for the Fourth Sunday of Lent ,  Alyssa Perez offers a reflection on living out the ubiquitous John 3:16:   "These days can bring up the 'dark' parts of us and we can get trapped in the cycle of shame and judgment of ourselves, feeling like we will never be worthy of God’s love.  That is the power of today’s gospel, the truth in today’s gospel.  It shakes us out of th...

Preaching for the Third Sunday of Lent , Olga Segura offers a reflection on the making meaning of Christ's crucifixion in today's context of racist violence and suffering:      "We believe in the power of the crucifixion, and this belief must help us to understand more deeply the systemic violence enacted upon Black, indigenous, people of color, and all marginalized groups. As...

Preaching for the Second Sunday of Lent, Vickey McBride reflects on everything that changed last Lent and offers a reflection on allowing God to reveal Herself to us:   "You don’t need to be good. You just need to try your best to be receptive, to recognize that God might be trying to reach out to you right where you are. Settle in. Say to God, 'Here I am.' Sit and BE with God and God will le...

Preaching for the First Sunday of Lent, Tia Noelle Pratt, PhD offers a reflection on the Lenten Year we have all experienced:   "It feels like we’ve had more suffering than one year can hold.  It has truly been a Lenten year. Yet, Lent brings with it the promise of Easter rebirth and renewal.  We truly have gotten this far by faith.  It is a faith that has been sustained by pra...

Preaching for Ash Wednesday, Teresa Marie Cariño offers a reflection on refusing to return to the status quo through our Lenten practices:   "So as we enter into this season of Lent, let us turn our whole hearts to God and place in God our trust. Let us give alms not just by giving money to the poor but by working for economic security of all. Let us pray not just by reciting rote prayers but...

Maria McGuire preaches for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time , offering a reflection on allowing ourselves to be open to God's healing and to be open to the needs of others:   "The invitation before us today is to open ourselves to God and recognize our need. Open ourselves to the one who sees us, hears us, and longs to touch and connect with us. And when this happens, it changes something in...

Preaching for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time , Kimberly Lymore offers a reflection on living as disciples at all times -- but particularly in times of suffering:   " In this time of the pandemic of COVID, the pandemic of violence, the pandemic of police brutality, the pandemic of injustice and racism, the pandemic of poverty and food insecurity, the pandemic of poor educational systems, le...

Preaching for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time , Christina R. Zaker offers a reflection on opening ourselves to the voice God "in the stuff of this world":   "Life is messy, yet that is exactly what we need: to be engaged in the stuff of this world - the sights, the tastes, the smells - distracted by all of it, because all of it is God!"   Dr. Christina R. Zaker is the Director of Fiel...

Preaching for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time , Mumbi Kigutha, CPPS offers a reflection on responding to our own "call within the call":   "What kind of invitation is God proffering to you as we begin this year? What do you need to leave behind in order to follow Christ? How better can we love God and neighbor? What is the call within the call for each of you? I am convinced the answer lies...

Preaching for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time , Jeanne Fielding Lord offers a reflection on awakening to our vocations "at this extraordinary moment in our lives, at this extraordinary moment in our world:"   "So, let’s not forget the lessons of this year. Let’s raise our voices together on behalf of those whose voices are silenced, and say, with joy and courage: Here I am, Lord. I come to...

Preaching for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord , Rachelle Kramer offers a reflection on our participation in Jesus' mission and ministry of bringing justice and light to the world:    "The light of one individual may be small, but it has the potential of growing exponentially when it spreads to others. Rosa Park’s light spread to an entire nation. Jesus’ light spread to the whole wor...

Preaching for the Epiphany , Marie Dennis offers a reflection on "the kind of global paradigm shift that the arrival of the Magi portends":   "As the global community struggles to respond to the crises of our time, a fundamental shift is needed from systems of exploitation and domination toward a new order of universal communion toward which this feast, this manifestation of the universal inb...

Preaching for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God , Dr. Kim R. Harris offers a reflection on Mary and Jesus and “the talk” and Black and brown Mothers and “the talk”:    "We must remember the glorious Mother, raising her child in a dangerous land, to help us all be free. Then we must spend our time, our energy, our prayers, and our actions, working to help all people be free."  &nb...

Preaching for the Feast of the Holy Family , Bridget Burke Ravizza offers a reflection on the character of Christian families:   "From a Christian perspective, of course, it is not enough to care for the needs of our own family members. We belong to them, yes, but not only to them. We belong to the wider body of Christ, and we are called to be light to the world. The gospels very clearly push...

Preaching for Christmas , Kayla August encourages us to find the glorious even in our simpler Christmas celebrations this year:   "This Christmas, may need to be a simpler time than ones in the past...But, in these seemingly simple moments, let us not miss the miraculous in our midst. The small moment when the GLORY OF GOD is around us and we are awakened to the miraculous hidden in the ordin...

Preaching for the Fourth Sunday of Advent , Mary Katharine Deeley offers a reflection on seeing ourselves as God sees us:   "It is sometimes hard to see how God is working in a world that is darkened by pandemic and civil unrest, and injustice toward the marginalized and vulnerable among us. Because of that, Advent is precisely the time to learn how God sees us. It is the time to ask ourselve...

Preaching for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Dr. Pearl Maria Barros offers a reflection on the "dangerous memory of Mary":   "[R]ecalling the 'dangerous memory of Mary' challenges depictions of Mary’s life that attempt to neutralize its radical implications for pushing against injustice and its call to stand in compassionate solidarity with all who suffer....It is this dangerous memory o...

"What is clear is that to be a Catholic is to proclaim that bodies matter.  We are not simply concerned for the state of a soul, but for the whole person, even as the world tells us that women’s bodies in particular are fragile and disposable. Yet, a first-century pregnant teenager teaches us otherwise." Preaching for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception , Angela Howard McParland offers...

Preaching for the Second Sunday of Advent , Katherine Greiner offers a reflection on proclaiming God's promise of salvation especially in this fraught Advent of 2020:    "This Advent, more than ever, we are called to be both listeners and proclaimers, to be contemplatives and prophets, to let the silence prepare us to speak truth to oppressive power and to speak tenderness to the oppress...

Preaching for the First Sunday of Advent , Sr. Terry Rickard offers a reflection on being awake to the continual coming of the God of hope, even as we lament our current realities:   "Be awake, be woke to the God of hope who comes to us now in midst of our lamentations. Lamenting the surging virus, a divided country and a sinful and suffering Church. Lamenting racial injustice, lamenting our...

Preaching for the Solemnity of Christ the King , Ellie Hidalgo offers a reflection on building el reino de Dios -the kingdom of God as engaged citizens and Catholics:    "As Catholics, what we believe to be the shape of the heart of Christ the King, determines how we respond and the kinds of communities we construct. And if in our communities we have laws that treat the lives of the hung...

Preaching for the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time , Rose Lue offers a reflection on using our God-given gifts fearlessly to cooperate in building God's reign:   "Consider the Gospel’s invitation to share the talents entrusted to you in trust and without fear.  Know that when shared in this way, there’s a promise of the talents being multiplied!  And if we all used our God-...

Preaching for the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time , Patricia Smith, RSM offers a reflection on returning to the ancient practice of living in communal anticipation of the return of Christ:   "In their time, Matthew’s audience were ardently awaiting the final coming, the end of the world as they knew it.  As that didn’t happen, later generations transferred the hope of Christ’s comi...

Preaching for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time , Pauline Hovey offers a reflection on the Greatest Commandment in light of her experiences serving at the US-Mexico border:   "Who does this? Who gives half of what they have to a stranger? Or one-third of what they’ve earned when they don’t even know when they will next receive any income? Who does this?  Imitators of Christ. Such act...