Homily for the Feast of St. Philip Neri St. Philip Neri, whose feast day we celebrate today, once said: Let no one wear a mask, otherwise he will do ill. And if he has one, let him burn it. This quote struck me as ironic, given that we are now required to wear face-masks at […]
Homily for St. Joseph Catholic School Mass – May 21, 2020 Jesus says to us in our gospel today: “A little while and you will no longer see me” and then “a little while later, you will see me.” What’s Jesus talking about? Well, this passage comes from the very end of John’s Gospel in […]
God became like the sick, so that the sick might become like God. This humbling truth is perhaps best depicted in a famous image of the Crucifixion in the Isenheim Altarpiece by the artist, Matthias Grünwald. It is an incredibly gruesome painting, showing Jesus in absolute agony on the Cross: His body is twisted, his […]
Listen to a recording of this homily here: We all want control. And when we finally think have control… we immediately start to worry that we’re gonna lose it. That is exactly the dynamic we see in our first reading today from the first book of Kings. The Davidic Kingdom has recently been divided and […]
Homily for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul Listen to the recording of the homily here: Before entering seminary, I had an opportunity to go on a pilgrimage in Rome. We arrived later in the evening, and it became quickly apparent that the Wi-Fi in our hotel was terrible. So, like any good […]
Listen to the recorded homily: Readings for Saturday of the First Week in Ordinary Time “Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Because Jesus is the perfect evangelizer. He is so natural, so smooth, so unassuming in his masterful way of loving people, that he’s able to easily slip into their daily life. […]
Homily for Thanksgiving Day Readings for the day Did the others even realize they were healed? That is the question the Lord laid on my heart as I meditated on this gospel: The nine other lepers who failed to return and give thanks to Jesus…Did they even realize what had happened to them? Did they […]
Are our lives so on fire with God’s love that they demand explanation? Readings for the day Are we living lives that provoke questions? True Christian witness is a very odd thing. Holiness inevitably causes a stir — It makes people curious, perhaps angry, annoyed. And we know it when we see it. In a […]
Homily for Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time Readings of the Day Our gospel passage today — the story of the persistent widow — is obviously meant to teach us a fundamental Christian truth: “Pray always, without becoming weary.” But this essential lesson takes on a fascinating layer of meaning when we hold […]
Mass Readings for the Day Where does the radical boldness and the freedom of the martyrs come from? How do people like the North American Martyrs find the insane courage to acknowledge Christ before rulers and authorities who are absolutely intent, not only on eliminating their lives, but also stamping out the Gospel entirely? When […]