Homily Wednesday of Third Week of Lent  (Mt. 20:17-28)

“The greatest among you must be your servant.”  We heard the same thing in Matthew’s Gospel yesterday.  Obviously, Jesus must feel his disciples need to hear this message and take it to heart.  Somehow it is hard for us to internalize.

During the diaconate ordination there is an instruction that is read which alludes to this…

Homily Second Tuesday of Lent (Mt. 23:1-12) “Hey Look at Me, I’m Holy”

Phylacteries.  I read that word for a long time before I really understood what a phylactery was. This has to do with a Jewish practice that at first glance does not look like anything that we have in the Catholic religion.  Once I understood what a phylactery was, I consequently have seen Jewish people in pictures praying…

Homily Second Monday of Lent (Lk. 6:36-38) “Leave the Bag at Home”

We debate a lot about plastic bags for they are one of the things that pollute the environment.  I hate collecting them.  We say we can recycle them, but really no one wants to deal with plastic, and the bags end up blowing around in the air getting hung up on trees and being ingested by animals.  When I was a child, we put…

Homily Second Sunday of Lent (B) “Listen Up”

            We all have had to be obedient to authority at some time in our life.  When we were children, we were expected to be obedient to our parents.  If we trusted them it was easier.  If we doubted them it hard.

            Quite often we might get the impression that obeying is about blindly following.  If we believe that then we…

Thursday First Week of Lent (Esther 12: 14-16, 23-25) “A God of Surprises”

Are prayers answered? At times they are, but not always in the way we would expect.  We read today from the Book of Esther.  Most of us are probably not familiar with this work of the Bible. Esther is one of the heroines of the Old Testament.  At certain moments in Jewish history strong women step in to save the day. …

Wednesday the First Week of Lent (Luke 11:29-32) “Sign of Conversion”

Jonah had no reason to think that the residents of Nineveh would listen to him.  Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. The Assyrians were a militaristic society.  At one time, the country was a power in the Middle East that conquered most of the nations of that region.  One of the countries they oppressed was Israel which…

Homily Tuesday the First Week of Lent (Matthew 6:7-15) “Prayer is not Selfish.”

One of the things that we never think about is that the Our Father seems to be a prayer for the common good.  Most often we say it to ourselves, so we personalize it.  The words are between us and God.

But if we take a moment to examine the Our Father, we find that it is written in the plural.  The Our…

Homily Monday of the First Week of Lent (Feast of the Chair of St. Peter)

When I was in graduate school, I took a trip to Rome.  I have had the privilege of going two times to the eternal city.  One of the first places we went was to the Basilica of St. Peter.  I was impressed by the immensity of the place.  In 1980 it was possible to move more freely around Rome.  Whenever we wanted to…

Dear Parishioners,

    We now have a target date for the priests to move out of the rectory and into our new living space.  We will be in our new home by March 1^st.  During the next few weeks, we will be emptying out the old building and slowly moving things over.  We do have to have a final inspection that will declare the space habitable. 

    The winter weather will…

Homily First Sunday of Lent (Genesis 9:8-15) “Can We Float Through Life?”

          The story of Noah fascinates people. Many times, the story has been used in a humorous way.  I found a birthday card recently.  On the card two unicorns are pictured on a hill.  Below them the door of Noah’s ark is being closed.  One Unicorn looks at the other and says, “Oh crud, was that today.” Noah’s story…