Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 31, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Aug 31 SUN: TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Sir 3: 17-18. 20. 28-29/ Ps 68: 4-5. 6-7. 10-11/ Heb 12: 18-19. 22-24a/ Lk 14: 1. 7-14 Wednesday morning, Andy Schwierjohn sent me an email. He had received word of the shooting at the Catholic parish in Minneapolis. He remembered that my sister Kathy is a teacher in a Minneapolis Catholic school. So I turned to the news and it was not my sister's school. In fact, I had spoken with her just a couple days before and I knew that her school was not starting till this week. But Kathy did inform me after this shooting that she has a number of...
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Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 24, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Aug 24 SUN: TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 66: 18-21/ Ps 117: 1. 2/ Heb 12: 5-7. 11-13/ Lk 13: 22-30 I remember, from about 20 years ago, being at a meeting with a number of non-Catholic Christian pastors and I was explaining to them what the Second Vatican Council had to say about the possible salvation of people who've never heard of Jesus Christ. And Vatican II, in the Constitution on the Church, says that such people, if they are seeking what is true and good, they can be granted entrance into the heavenly kingdom. And I remember one of the pastors objecting to this. He...
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Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 17, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Aug 17 SUN: TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Jer 38: 4-6. 8-10/ Ps 40: 2. 3. 4. 18 (14b)/ Heb 12: 1-4/ Lk 12: 49-53 We have heard in the book of Jeremiah about the lot of the prophet. People didn't like what Jeremiah was saying, and he was essentially saying, "You had better become more faithful to the Lord, the one God. Otherwise you will be taken captive and carried off to Babylon." People didn't want to hear that -- the princes, it says. So they threw him into a muddy cistern. Well, it is said that the purpose of a prophet is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the...
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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 10, 2025
Sunday Homilies
[The homilist was away on August 3.] 2025 Aug 10 SUN: NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Wis 18: 6-9/ Ps 33: 1. 12. 18-19. 20-22 (12b)/ Heb 11: 1-2. 8-19/ Lk 12: 32-48 About 60 years ago, there was a popular song that began "Don't Know Much About History." Well, as we think about that opening line, we must understand that you and I, in fact, must know much about history. There are people who say that history repeats itself. We've heard people say that it doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme -- an interesting thought. And we also heard it said that those who do not know the mistakes of the...
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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 27, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Jul 27 SUN: SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gn 18: 20-32/ Ps 138: 1-2. 2-3. 6-7. 7-8 (3a)/ Col 2: 12-14/ Lk 11: 1-13 We can take the second reading today to provide a foundation for what is being discussed in the first reading and the Gospel. So from St. Paul's letter to the Colossians, we have a statement about the death and resurrection of Jesus and the sacrament of baptism. He says that each of us in our baptism has been joined with the death of Jesus and with his resurrection. So these are gifts. This is a mystery which we are living now. And if we are aware of how great this...
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Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 20, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Jul 20 SUN: SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gn 18: 1-10a/ Ps 15: 2-3. 3-4. 5 (1a)/ Col 1: 24-28/ Lk 10: 38-42 We may have been confused last week by some words of St. Paul in this letter to the Colossians, and today he provides us with another puzzle. He says, "In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church." And we have to ask, what could that possibly mean? We understand and we teach consistently that the suffering, the passion of Jesus, His death, His resurrection, these things are sufficient for our salvation, that free...
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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 13, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Jul 13 SUN: FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Dt 30: 10-14/ Ps 69: 14. 17. 30-31. 33-34. 36. 37 OR Ps 19: 8. 9. 10. 11/ Col 1: 15-20/ Lk 10: 25-37 We have all heard from teachers and other people that there is no such thing as a dumb question. No such thing as a stupid question. We may find ourselves having to ask quite fundamental questions, for instance, if we're in an unfamiliar situation and we just have to get ourselves oriented. We have a case here of someone who is afraid that he has asked a dumb question. This scholar of the law reminds me of the wealthy man that we also find in...
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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 6, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Jul 6 SUN: FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 66: 10-14c/ Ps 66: 1-3. 4-5. 6-7. 16. 20 (1)/ Gal 6: 14-18/ Lk 10: 1-12. 17-20 Our Scriptures begin today with an image from the prophet Isaiah of the most natural thing in the world: a mother feeding her child with her own milk. It is an image of comfort. And comfort is something that we all need. We turn then to the Gospel and it seems as if there's not much in the way of comfort. These 72 disciples are to go out on Jesus' command to proclaim the Kingdom of God in various towns. And Jesus himself seems to foresee, well, you're going in...
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Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
Sunday Homilies
2025 Jun 29 SUN: PETER AND PAUL, APS S Vigil: Acts 3: 1-10/ Ps 19: 2-3. 4-5/ Gal 1: 11-20/ Jn 21: 15-19. Day: Acts 12: 1-11/ Ps 34: 2-3.4-5. 6-7. 8-9/ 2 Tm 4: 6-8. 17-18/ Mt 16: 13-19 When we think of Peter and Paul, we think of their leadership in the early Church. They did different things. They both found themselves in Rome, we believe somewhere between the years 64 and 67, and they were martyred while Nero was emperor. They had differing personalities and they did different things. And it is instructive for us to consider how they led the earliest believers in Jesus. We see, of...
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The Body and Blood of Christ, June 22, 2025
Sunday Homilies
2025 Jun 22 SUN: THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST S Gn 14: 18-20/ Ps 110: 1. 2. 3. 4/ 1 Cor 11: 23-26/ Optional Sequence Lauda, Sion/ Lk 9: 11b-17 This solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ was instituted in the 13th century. There were people at that time who said, "There needs to be a celebration of the Holy Eucharist which is apart from Holy Thursday." Apparently they had the idea that celebrating the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, the day it was instituted, made things too somber because Jesus' betrayal and arrest and condemnation and crucifixion immediately followed. ...
info_outline2025 May 18 SUN: FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Acts 14: 21-27/ Ps 145: 8-9. 10-11. 12-13 (see 1)/ Rv 21: 1-5a/ Jn 13: 31-33a. 34-35
The word "love" is sort of tricky. We have to consider that we give two main meanings to the word "love." And one of them really is a starting point, whereas the other is the goal. We use the word "love" to refer to a simple attraction, such as, "I love ice cream." And that's what we're saying, that ice cream is an object which is desirable to us. It doesn't do anything for the ice cream, so it's not relational. The ice cream has its own fate, which does not build it up in any way. So we have to consider that that is a starting point. There's nothing wrong with it, but we have to build on it.
We find with experience and with, above all, the grace of God, that love is a virtue which recognizes the dignity and worth of all the people in our life. And we respond with love as we say, "Yes, God has given me this dignity, and I want others to respect me and therefore I respect them." And in fact, if I have a responsibility to a particular person, I am utterly committed to that person, and I accept that person even with his or her faults. This is difficult, and we know we need a lot of practice. And we know we need to make mistakes, and the mistakes teach us very well what the opposite of love is.
I think of some history that I am listening to right now. This has to do with the civil rights movement, and in particular I was listening to people who were known as "freedom riders" back in 1961. They confronted unjust segregation laws, witnessing to the injustice, but acting with love, non-violently confronting people. And of course, if we think about that, to respond to violence with non-violence is to cause the violent person to have many, many questions. To ask, "What does this mean? That these people are, first of all, standing up to us, and then not even responding to our force with force." This was a powerful witness in those days, and we see that this applies to our own lives and our own situations, even today.
This requires a lot of practice and a lot of discipline to be so focused on the virtue of love. And this is what Paul and Barnabas were attempting to do. We read today about their visits to various cities along the Mediterranean Sea. They found that there were many people who accepted the good news of Jesus, and there were those who quite flatly rejected them, but they kept at it. They kept going, and we know that that sort of persistence is necessary for us as well.
We have again a beautiful image from the Book of Revelation of the new Jerusalem coming down from the heavens. We may be puzzled by a statement of John that the sea was no more. We have a reference to this actually in the opening hymn today, which refers to God as the master of the sea. And we may wonder, "Why is the sea no more?" It is because the sea was looked upon as the source, a source at least, of chaos, and it was supposed that there were great sea monsters in the deep.
So "the sea was no more" simply means that God is doing away with chaos and threats. And we ourselves must consider what is chaotic or what is monstrous in the ways in which we respond to one another. And as we reflect and as we accept the grace of God, we will find that we can live out this command: Love one another.