Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Jer 20:7-9, Ps 63, Rom 12:1-2, Matt 16:21-27. You made it. Some Sundays that is a minor miracle and should be listed among the corporal works of mercy. Somebody found the car keys under a pile of permission slips. Somebody squeezed into last spot next to the minivan … Continue reading The Living Sacrifice (And Other Things Nobody RSVPs To)
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time — Year A Geography can have theological significance. Caesarea Philippi is not a Jewish town. It’s intriguing that this is where Jesus asks the apostles who people say that he is. The city sits at the foot of Mount Hermon at the northern end of modern Israel. Water flows from … Continue reading Who do You Say That I Am?
Homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) Isaiah 56:1, 6–7 | Psalm 67 | Romans 11:13–15, 29–32 | Matthew 15:21–28 A few years ago, a bishop in Missouri looked at one of the most popular hymns in American Catholicism and decided it had to go. The hymn was “All Are Welcome.” Actually, the hymn … Continue reading Welcome to What?
Human beings are astonishingly good at apologizing without actually admitting we’ve done anything wrong. You’ve heard them. You may even have given a few. I have. Some could teach graduate seminars on the subject. “Sorry if anyone was offended.” Translation: I’m not sorry. I’m merely sorry your emotional ego couldn’t handle reality. “Mistakes were made.” By … Continue reading The Confiteor: The Culturally Unfashionable Prayer
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A: Isa 55:1-3, Ps 145, Rom 8:35/37-39, Matt 14:13-21 There are certain moments when I begin to wonder if the internet was a mistake. A friend sent me a YouTube video and asked for my honest opinion. After watching it, I’m reconsidering both the video and the friendship.T he … Continue reading Come to me, not within yourself
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12 There is an uncomfortable fact underneath today’s first reading. Insight doesn’t guarantee fidelity. Truth doesn’t guarantee love. You can pray exactly the right prayer at twenty and still lose it by sixty. Solomon is a young king when God appears to him in a … Continue reading The Wisdom That Didn’t Last
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Wis 12:13, 16–19 · Ps 86 · Rom 8:26–27 · Matt 13:24–43 I can vividly recall, from the hazy recollection of my youth, the bike race of '76. Back then, a bicycle came with exactly one safety feature: your mother yelling, “Be careful!” as you disappeared around the … Continue reading Leave the Weeds, They May Be Saints
Homily: Fifteenth Sunday Ordinary Time. Rom 8:18-23 I can still vividly remember from the hazy recollection of my youth a particular Sunday morning in the summer of 1975. The sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows, the water cascading off of Mr. Wallacavage. He had no choice but to march all the way to the front … Continue reading Diagnosing the Wrong Patient
A Father’s Day Homily Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A — Rom 5:12–15 You inherited your father’s face before you ever saw it. The jaw. The eyes. Maybe that charming tendency to fix things with duct tape and quiet muttering. You didn’t sign up for any of it. One day you just looked in … Continue reading The Two Inherentences
The Joy of the Gospel 