Sunday Homilies

Evil is not a "force." It is a lack, a deficiency. We find our confidence in knowing that the Author of Life supplies for all the deficiencies we find in ourselves.

Is there an incident that better captures the humanity and the divinity of Jesus than his calming the sea? He makes short work of the subduing of nature ... because he wants to get back to sleep!

On June 3, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI transferred Bishop George Lucas of Springfield in Illinois to the Archdiocese of Omaha. We will be experiencing at least a few months of "sede vacante" and waiting for a new bishop. Life is messy, so why should we be so surprised by Moses splashing blood all over the altar?

The Bible is not the Book of Lists. There are a few lists in the book, and today's celebration highlights a couple of lists: the fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5 and their antitheses.

This is a big year for weddings for me; I have six scheduled. I thought I might record the homily for my first wedding of the year.

The Lord Jesus ascended because he descended -- into the depths of the misery humans experience because of the broken, sinful situation we are in. He is on his throne but he has also embedded himself in our anguish.

How can anyone talk about love? The subject overwhelms any human being. God is love, and we discover who we are in being loved by God.

Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of my first Communion. I speak about the "Obama-at-Notre-Dame" thing, questioning the outraged response of some Catholics. The unity that St. Paul sought was not immediate when he made his debut as a converted person. Vine and branches, mother and child -- these say much about the organic unity of the Body of Christ.

Profound things are found in each of the readings. "Salvation is in no other name." "We are God's children now. What we shall later be has not yet come to light, but we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." "There will be one fold, one shepherd."

The novel I refer to is The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler; I find the lives of Theobald and Ernest to be a caution against the establishment of religion. When religious faith is one with the postal service and internal revenue, what sort of faith is it?

Your homilist still doesn't understand how a Sunday of Easter can be named for a private devotion.

Get rid of the old yeast and become unleavened. St. Paul's Passover imagery is applied to the change that comes about when we acknowledge the sense of human dignity that follows from the treasure of the resurrection.

The amazement of the women at the tomb may, very usefully, be compared with the amazement of the brothers of Joseph when they found that one they thought dead was in the position of saving them from starvation.

The Passion of St. John is most emphatic about Jesus "laying down" his life, as opposed to having someone snatch it from him. The calm silence of Jesus unnerves Pontius Pilate.

This is a homily on "basics" of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Was "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" a cry of despair? We must consider the source of this expression in order to understand properly why the writer of Mark's Gospel put it on Jesus' lips when he was on the cross.

The image of the grain of wheat "dying" may not be botanically satisfactory, but we certainly know what Jesus means. Conversion means entering into an existence that cannot be foreseen. It demands abandonment of self so that one's true self can be found.

An extremely important characteristic of our conversion into Jesus Christ is its personal nature. God as Trinity is personal. We come to understand that, as precious as any of our personal relationships is, there is infinite richness in the relationships among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was truly a personal sacrifice when the Son of God became human.

Tell a psychiatrist what Jesus does in today's Gospel, and you will get a diagnosis affirming that he is suffering from delusions. That's the scandal of Christianity: we acknowledge that anyone else in this circumstance would be delusional, but in the case of Jesus, his identity and his special relationship with the Father are real.

What sort of God gives a couple a child -- miraculously -- and then says, offer up the child as a sacrifice? The same God who gave his son as the sacrifice which achieves humanity's salvation. Glory is found in the midst of suffering. God is truly personal.

Conversion means becoming who we really are? Strange as it may seem, this is a very helpful way to look at conversion. Conversion is from sin, which distorts our best and truest self. So the "change" of conversion is not into something alien to us; rather, it is ourselves becoming as God has intended us to be.

Ah, performance anxiety! I had said exactly what I wanted to say at the 8 am Mass. Regrettably, I had not recorded that one. So at 10:15 I was trying to duplicate the earlier delivery. I was way off. And it is a complicated thing to think about -- the qualitative difference between sight and insight. I find I sound better than I think I'm sounding, so this one is probably not bad. Anyway, we trust...

This homily is a little different from the other one because of a rite of acceptance for a new catechumen.

Hear the word "leper," think the word "leopard"? I do.

"Thou shalt not whine." Is it possible to live according to this commandment?