Catholic Women Preach

Preaching for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, Sara Ann Conneely invites us to look beyond suffering and punishment to see God’s love revealed in Christ, who transforms pain into hope and new life: "If we focus on the punishment, on the pain, on the poison, we might miss the miracle that is happening. When we read these two stories together, we become more aware of the sacrifice made...

Preaching for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - and the first Sunday in the Season of Creation - Annapatrice Johnson invites us to consider how discipleship—and our relationship with all of God’s creation—can reorder our lives and change everything: " Throughout the Gospels, Jesus points us to prioritize relationships: understanding the other helps us see the impacts of our society’s...

Preaching for the Feast of Saint Phoebe, Sarah Probst Miller, DVM offers a reflection on the unstoppable movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our church: "There are St. Phoebe’s today... called to speak, called to walk, called to be present. St. Phoebes all around us with Charisms. . . Charism seen, Charisms expressed, Charisms yet to be seen yet to be heard. We . . . we are here.&...

Preaching for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Amy Hoegen offers a reflection on lifting up others: "As we go forth this week, there will be daily opportunities to respond to the needs of others. Some of those needs will be global and feel overwhelming. Some will be more practical and routine. In all those moments, let humility be the gift that uplifts, the gift that encourages us and gi...

Preaching for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sr. Julia Walsh, FSPA offers a reflection God's discipline: "God is bigger than our limited understanding. God’s discipline reveals relationship, intimacy. Our God is close to us, knowing and holding our suffering. "Julia Walsh is a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration who ministers as a vocation minister and writer. She earned a BA...

Preaching for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Katie Davis-Crowder reflects on what it means to "go set the world on fire" today: "Looking around in 2025, many of us are struggling with how to be hope-filled truth-tellers in the face of profound human suffering and sin. We are witnesses today to the same rejection of covenant values about which Jeremiah warned Israel, the same rejection of God’s...

Preaching for the Solemnity of the Assumption, Daniel Harrison offers a reflection on what is possible if we keep saying 'yes' to God: "We look in the world today and we see…What do we see? We could dwell in the uncertainty and confusion and pain and strife and the negative. Or we can take our ‘yeses’ to what God is calling us to do and go into the marketplace of the world ... and be that good new...

Preaching for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Meredith McKay offers a reflection on moving past fear and paralysis to take risks for the good of the world: "Fear keeps us still, while faithfulness keeps us growing. The world today needs people who acknowledge their fear and move past that tendency towards paralysis to instead do their best to live out the call of the gospels."Mer...

Preaching for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Grace Mariette Agolia, offers a reflection on St. Lydia as a model of ongoing and whole-hearted response to God: "Through baptism, Lydia came to know life in Christ and the hope of sharing in his glory, treasure infinitely more valuable than the purple cloth she traded. She heeded Jesus’s warning in today’s Gospel reading from Luke: 'Take care...

Preaching for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sr. Theresa Hafner, CSJ offers a reflection on how helps to align us with God's vision for us and our world: "At times we may feel overwhelmed and helpless regarding the injustices taking place in the world today. The need for prayer may be flowing out of us all the time, waking and sleeping. Our prayers and conversations with God are...

Preaching for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Martha Ligas invites us to let God's love transform us and - through us - the world: "May this day, this Feast of Mary Magdalene, be an opportunity to re-commit to transforming the world. To encountering and becoming the Love of God that the world so desperately needs. May we do it for our grandmothers, and our granddaughters, too. Like our a...

Preaching for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Stacy Geere offers an empowering reflection on the story of Martha and Mary: "Martha and Mary are not rivals. They are reflections of the fullness of discipleship—service and contemplation, action and proclamation. They, along with other women of the Gospels, minister with Jesus and to Jesus. Their relationship reflects the very nature of o...

Preaching for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Meghan J. Clark offers a reflection on the Parable of the Good Samaritan as a call to a communal ethic of compassion: "God calls to us from the depths of our own hearts. Christ calls to us in our neighbor. How then can we together advocate for compassion and resist indifference, resist pretending nothing is wrong. That is the message I hear anew...

Preaching for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Nina Santos Laubach offers a reflection being peace makers in an uncertain world and church: "Our Gospel today is asking us to cross thresholds as peacemakers. A threshold is a boundary, a liminal moment where we experience crises, decisions, or change. And our task as peace-makers is to offer the possibility in these moments for Shalom, for re...

Preaching for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Christine Monica Zuba offers a reflection on "what is possible" with the power of witness and encounter: "The LGBTQ+ community, and specifically the transgender and gender queer community, are likewise under attack, simply for who we are. At every governmental level, rights are being denied, as politicians strive to erase our ver...

Preaching for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Marianne Duddy-Burke invites to embody Christ's healing, compassion, and abundance by meeting the real needs of our world: "We are also the present embodiment of Christ’s ministry of healing, of accompanying one another, of feeding each other. We provide the lifeblood of compassion and hope. To live into this call, we must const...

Preaching for Trinity Sunday, Madeline Marlett offers a reflection on the tension between suffering and hope and the call to co-create a world where love, acceptance, and the fullness of divine truth can flourish for all: "The role of the Holy Spirit here is to continuously bring that enlightened truth into the world as the world is ready for it. Just think what more good news is there to dis...

Preaching for Pentecost, Yunuen Trujillo offers a reflection on how the Holy Spirit is calling us to unity, justice, intersectionality: "Dear siblings: We have reason to be hopeful because the Holy Spirit—the Advocate—is calling us toward unity and intersectionality. She is moving the world in that direction—toward a refusal to let those who seek to divide us succeed. We will not take part in...

Preaching for the Solemnity of the Ascension, Colleen Campbell Karchunas offers a reflection on transforming struggle and pain into testimony and purpose: "When we experience suffering or confusing and complicated events in our lives, it can be easy to turn away from asking deeper questions because of the pain we have experienced. However, the Ascension calls us to consider allowing what happ...

Preaching for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Dr. Kim R. Harris lifts up “Saintly Seven” African Americans on the path to canonization and asks how the Holy Spirit is calling us to widen our vision of holiness and belonging:"I am thinking about a vision of who we are. And thinking about that widening of the vision and shining of a spotlight on the many heritages of people who are Catholic in thes...

Preaching for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Katharine Guerrero offers a reflection on rising to the challenge to love as Jesus loves: "Let us think about how we are called to love. And that, though it may be hard work, we have support. We have community. We have others we can lean on. We have our faith to guide us. And so let us rise to that challenge. Let us accept the challenge of love."...

Mollie Wilson O'Reilly preaches for the Fourth Sunday of Easter - Good Shepherd Sunday: "If we are blessed to be sheep in the care of a Good Shepherd, we can trust that shepherd to keep us safe. It’s not our job to patrol the boundaries and keep trespassers out. It’s not in our power to take anyone out of Jesus’s hands."Mollie Wilson O’Reilly is editor-at-large and a contributing wri...

Preaching for the Third Sunday of Easter, Jenny Jackson offers a reflection on knowing Jesus and caring for the sheep: "So, let me ask you the question that changed my life: Who is Jesus to you? Not just in your head—but in your heart. Not just in theory—but in your everyday life. And how will you tend to the sheep?"Jenny Jackson currently serves as a Coordinator of Youth Ministry, suppo...

Preaching for the Second Sunday of Easter, Marissa Papula offers a reflection on the convergence of trauma, hope, and mercy: "On this Divine Mercy Sunday, as we fumble for Easter hope in a broken world, as the wounded Christ reveals himself among us in the joy of the Resurrection, as we brave the coalescence of our lived experiences of hurt and hope, may we meet one another with such coherent merc...

Preaching for Easter Sunday, Dr. Cynthia Bailey Manns offers a reflection on the witness of women as we remember Mary Magdalene's Easter proclamation: "Mary’s complete story, shared on Easter Sunday, a holy day of obligation, would ensure more Catholics hear John’s full resurrection narrative where she was an example of female leadership, an Apostle to the Apostles, commissioned by Jesus to share...