Sunday Homilies

You need an explanation of the parables of Jesus ... if you want to make them safe and domesticated and toothless. Jesus probably did not provide explanations; somebody in the early Church considered this necessary. Jesus intended his parables to have teeth -- to keep gnawing at us as we consider how we enter into the kingdom of God.

Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.

Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.

Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.

Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.

You need to decide whether the homilist is conscious. After a week spent at Catholic HEART Workcamp, I was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. I seem to recall talking about CREATURELINESS. Believe me, I was feeling like a creature, not a creator.

This was the homily given on the occasion of my silver jubilee.  This homily is unusual because I am interrupted by people explaining to me how funny it was for me to say "You don't know one another ... and it's a good thing."  They didn't let me complete my thought -- it's a good thing (for me, at least) that all these people from across nearly 51 years can come together for something very meanin...

Since Easter was the earliest we'll ever see it, we have before us twenty-six weeks of Ordinary Time, and that means six months of a more or less continuous reading from the Gospel of Matthew.  Today's passage is the conclusion of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  Does the exhortation to "build your house on rock" contradict St. Paul's teaching that salvation is a free gift?

We were baptized into "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."  The  communitarian being of God Himself helps us to understand why it is absolutely necessary for us to live our lives in relationship.

See the Vigil of Pentecost for references to harrowing experiences (does even St. Paul have the right to be the one talking about "labor pains" on the weekend of Mother's Day?).  Going through crises may perhaps purify our sense of what really matters in life.  We may be more responsive to the Holy Spirit.

This one features yours truly trying to talk about four different things; the third part is the homily proper.  Jesus commands the Eleven to "go and make disciples" -- in other words, bring people around so that they are as excited about their faith as anyone devoted to a particular teacher.

The essence of God is sharing.  Now that's something to think about.

I can't remember what I preached about.

The resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, create community.  The first letter of Peter proclaims our new birth in baptism.  Birth means we belong to someone.  We eagerly claim our relationship to the crucified and risen one.

Resurrection is real; we just have a hard time perceiving it.  Resurrection, in fact, is a challenge held out to us.  Do we accept the challenge?  Do we submit to the dying that is necessary if we are to rise?

"What is truth?"  Pilate doesn't know.  Pilate very likely doesn't want to know.  Truth includes an acknowledgment of human suffering.  Jesus in his death does this very thing.

Through the Passover, and then through the Eucharist, ancient memories are alive and active in our midst, helping us to "remember forward" regarding our dignity and our call from God to service.

I was a bit distracted on Palm Sunday and did not manage to record a homily.  This is a summary.

"If I can survive death, I can survive anything."  But how does one survive death?  Jesus himself succumbed to death -- but this death was the conquest of death.  The raising of Lazarus prepares us to celebrate Jesus' resurrection.

Recorded while I was having my car worked on -- there may be some background noises.

On Laetare Sunday, I was looking for a "respite" from this sorry winter we've been experiencing.  On that particular day, the temperatures got up around 70.  I'm uploading this the following Tuesday, and we've been hit with several inches of blowing snow.  Maybe I should have prayed for more than a respite.

I'm sorry to be late with this upload.  As I recall, I looked at Jesus and the Samaritan woman as a way of identifying various anxieties of human life.

How can we act with true hope, and not give in to a despairing attitude?  Jesus gave an answer through his transfiguration.  We can perceive, along with Peter, James, and John, that the good is triumphant, even when we can see only evil surrounding us.

Yes, this year we are going to talk about sin.  Jesus' resistance of temptation is a good occasion for us to think about sins of recklessness, as well as their opposite extreme: sins of shrinking fearfulness toward all the challenges of life.

Today we are "searching for Bobby Fischer" and thereby presenting a counterexample for the Beatitudes.  We are all tempted to make the activity that most gratifies us our only goal in life.  If we accede to the temptation, we tell ourselves that we are providing ourselves with happiness, but in fact we cut ourselves off from the deeper acceptance of the world and our place in it which in fact brin...