Sunday Homilies

It amazes us to think that the strange imagery of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature was part of the purpose of encouraging people!  But in fact, this writing is for the sake of comforting people under persecution.  They are invited to recognize the cosmic significance of their own sufferings.  The woman was given a place of refuge in the desert; this is a fitting image of Mary's assumpti...

The Assumption of the Mother of God calls to mind the presence of the Son of God in this world.  Awareness of the presence of God focused, among the people of Israel, upon the Ark of the Covenant.  The title "Mother of God" is literally translated "God-bearer."  Recorded at St. Sebastian, Waverly.

A consideration of the concrete experience of faith.  This was recorded at the end of my current weekend schedule, at New Berlin St. Mary.

I recorded this homily at the beginning of my weekend schedule, at Visitation BVM Church in Alexander, an unincorporated community on Old U.S. 36 between Springfield and Jacksonville.  We hear from Ecclesiastes the word "vanity," which perhaps for you and me is better rendered "foolishness."

For the last time at Holy Cross, a summary of the strangeness of the Christian faith, and its power to shatter all distinctions among human beings.

Walking in on the second act of "David and Bathsheba," as we do today, is proof that our appreciation of our worship depends on our taking time to be more familiar with the Bible.  The second reading and Gospel make abundantly clear the gratuitous nature of mercy, forgiveness, and salvation.

When I tried to record this, I failed to turn it off until it had been recording for about four hours.  So here's a summary.  "Eating helps."  This was my discovery in the midst of the pain of facing up to a move.  The eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ keeps sustaining us.

Aspects of God as Trinity may be reflected upon when we say the Profession of Faith.  The new English translation highlights the "consubstantiality" of Father and Son, and the incarnation of the eternal Word of God.

The flesh is not evil.  We must understand Saint Paul's use of the term "the flesh."  Perhaps a contemporary equivalent is the modern concept of "addiction."

"What's up, Doc?"  What is the meaning of "up" when we consider the Ascension of the risen Jesus?  Clues may be found in the Hebrews passage, about Jesus' entrance into the heavenly sanctuary, and in the Gospel passage, about the Apostles frequenting the Temple of Jerusalem.

Of all the things that promise to unite people, jokes have a lot of promise -- although we have to be careful that the humor is not in mere ridicule but in a common sense of absurdity in human life.

On the occasion of First Holy Communion, a reflection on "love one another" and the fact that we can concretely love one another if we engage in the small act of listening.

On April 18, the Third Sunday of Easter, I had to catch a plane right after the last Mass, and I just didn't want to mess around with recording.  On the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, I took a look (again) at the unrelenting aftershocks of the clergy sexual abuse crisis.  Crises can make us stronger if we give up our denial and confront the dysfunction in our midst.

Even though I have spoken about the issue of clergy sexual abuse many times in the past, I had a hard time with this homily, and its length (16 minutes plus) reflects my difficulty.  My RSS feed of The Tablet  has just reported that the Vatican has published on its website, in English, norms for handling such cases; there is stress upon the requirement that police be contacted.

The apostles and the other witnesses of Jesus' resurrection found this event to be an inner as well as an outer experience.  His resurrection meant that so many things which they did not understand beforehand made sense now.

Our anxiety about whether "things are going to be OK" hangs on the meaning of the death of the man in whose Passion we participate today.

On my tenth anniversary in Divernon and Auburn, a consideration of the fact that we would like God and his people to respond to us with mercy rather than harshness.

We say we see.  Do we have insight as well as sight?

Grow or die.  Bear fruit or be rejected.  We know that our God is not the rejecting type; nevertheless, we need to be attentive to the spiritual imperative before each of us.

It is difficult for us to hold in our minds any thought which would embrace the wholeness of any person.  We use mental shorthand and categorize people into "like us" and "not like us."  The transfiguration of Jesus is a response to the tremendous difficulty the disciples would undergo when it seemed to them that their master was utterly isolated from all human society.

This is about a guy who takes a funny-looking stick and hits a tiny little ball and people pay him lots and lots of money for doing this.

Every one of us has need of God as a tree needs to be rooted in a place with an unfailing supply of water.  We must not behave with presumption, as if we could casually postpone a bond with God until the time that suits us.

Our call from God makes itself felt when we are caught up in wonder and awe.  Our sense of awe may well be connected with a sense of unworthiness, as in the case of Isaiah, Paul, and Peter.  We are aware of our absolute need for God, and thus God can take command of our life.

Our feelings, including feelings of love, must become integrated with our sense of values and of relationship to God and the world.  We must move from the "childish" reaction of the crowd in Nazareth to a realistic sense of our limits and our call to love.

We consider the strong feelings surrounding the reading from these scrolls in the books of Nehemiah and Luke. Awareness of our feelings keeps us in touch with our full humanity and our relationship with the Creator. Our being subject to our feelings is a fact which we can carry to our sense of wonder over Jesus, God become human.