Sunday Homilies

Healing takes place in many dimensions of our life.  We can resist healing, but if we are sufficiently disgusted with ourselves, we might open ourselves up.

We may not be acquainted with leprosy, but there are a variety of other ailments of human existence.  We can think about our own attitudes toward life and indeed toward ourselves.  We find healing and wholeness in the Son of God, who opens to us our full humanity.

A meditation upon the weariness of this earthly existence.  Jesus has plunged into our life as we know it, with all that is dismaying and disheartening, so that we can find peace.

A consideration of the meaning of prophecy and authority, and the diversity of states of life.

A parish adult-education event on the importance of understanding ourselves as feeling people and allowing the power of anger, fear and love to make us the persons we want to be.

A parish adult-education event on Christianity and its relation to the other four most prominent religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam.

We will not prevent God from using us for his purposes, even if that means we end up becoming, like Jonah, an example of how not to be a prophet or disciple.

God's call of all the faithful to holiness is not otherworldly.  We need to be aware of the call being worked out in the social situation in which we find ourselves.

Can a childhood friendship change the world?  On Epiphany, when we consider the frontiers of our contacts with the human family, we examine the friendship of Karol Wojtyla and Jerzy Kluger.

My apologies, first of all, for not recording a Christmas homily.  -- As we contemplate Mary's role in the coming of the Savior, and as we consider the Savior's act of sacrificial love, we come to understand how personal the gift of salvation is, and we know that we must respond to this gift in our personal commitments.

Warning: About four and a half minutes into this homily, I have a coughing fit.  Joy is not found in arranging the circumstances of our life according to our taste.  Joy is found when we acknowledge the source of life, God, and as we celebrate the Creator-creature relationship.

The egos of some -- kings, for instance -- can expand to the point that they think they can do favors for God.  We consider today the ways in which God, who is in need of nothing from us, reaches out to us in our helplessness and provides for the birth of the Son of God into our world.

We may muse about "the end of the world," but our God is calling us to consider how he is pleased to re-create us and preserve in us the love which alone endures.

"Advent" denotes an arrival -- but how often do we protest that God is absent from human existence?  We can consider the ways in which we have been inattentive to God's presence.

What do we seek when we are powerless?  We hope that someone will exercise personal kindness toward us.  This is the very tenor of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, who is united with all who are cast down.

God is demanding.  He did not create us idly.  He created us for a purpose.  Are we willing to find out this purpose?

We must keep sufficient oil with our lamps so that we can keep peering into what seems to us to be obscurity, and thus to welcome the clarity which emerges.

In light of the scriptural expression of tension regarding religious leadership, a reflection on the sexual-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

I was on vacation for two weekends. What is our principle for conducting our lives?  We may be stuck in a childhood mode, assuming that "good behavior" or "conformity" is equivalent to living the great commandments, which call for an entrance into relationship when the childhood carry-over essentially has us saying, "I'm good; now leave me alone!"

The focus is on the word "anxiety" as we find it in Philippians, so we can find our way through the vineyard of life's challenges and appreciate the Savior who willilngly entered it on our behalf.

The Scriptures today call us to take seriously the need of all of us to undergo ongoing conversion to the God who emptied himself for the sake of our salvation.

There's a lot going on: Catechetical Sunday, Appeal Sunday for our diocesan services assessment, and so on.  Only at the end of a litany of "business" did I comment on "the parable that drives everyone crazy."  The challenge of this tale of the workers in the vineyard can be met only if we drop our tendency to analyze every element of the story (allegorizing) and focus on the gift of the day's wag...

In case we are tempted to harbor resentment on this tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Sirach warns against holding on to an embittered spirit, and Jesus asks us to consider to what extent we act as the unforgiving debtor does.

We take a look at a geometric figure in order to consider the ways in which we communicate -- or fail to communicate -- about difficult matters.

What does it mean to be a fulfilled person?  Is it enough to have the esteem of others?  Do fame, wealth, or accomplishment fulfill us?  Jesus bids Peter to look at the Cross and to see that the suffering and death of the chosen one of God is the way to fulfillment.