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Here we are in Advent once again.  One of the characteristics of this season is that it invites us to look forward, to imagine a new world, and then to offer ourselves to God as co-creators of that new world.  Advent also gets us looking forward to the Parousia, the return of Jesus signaling the end of time. Jesus told his followers—and by extension, us—that the return of the Son of Man will happen, but the timeline is only known by …

As I mentioned over the last two weekends, as the liturgical year draws to an end the readings, themselves, were getting darker and heavier. They were pointing us to the end times. After much talk about the end times, Jesus faces, in today’s gospel, the end time of his human life as he hangs on the cross to die. We are told that during the three hours Jesus hung on the Cross, darkness covered all the land. Before the crucifixion, when …

In the homily last weekend, I mentioned that as the liturgical year draws to an end, the readings seem to get darker and heavier.  That’s certainly the case with today’s readings. Malachi, in that first reading, is speaking about evil doers being burned up while Jesus is mentioning earthquakes, famines, plagues, arrests, persecutions and family members betraying you.  Yet in the middle of all this darkness, Jesus says this will be your opportunity to testify.  Testify to what?  To light — a light …

As we inch closer to the end of the current church year (liturgical year) and will soon be entering a new church year, with the Season of Advent, you will notice the Scripture readings naturally speak about the end times. As you hear them, they may even come across as dark or heavy. 

I don’t think most of us give too much time or energy thinking about the end of all time, but we have all …

If you remember, last weekend’s gospel referred to a tax collector in the Temple whose sincere prayer to God garnered the praise of Jesus. Today’s gospel is about another tax collector, Zacchaeus, who likewise is praised by Jesus. What basically goes over our heads but was not lost on Jesus’ audience 2000 years ago, was the hatred Jews had for tax collectors. It’s important for us to know the depth of the hatred for tax collectors, if we are …

A little story about people who are self-righteous, like the Pharisee who prayed in the Temple. 

Jimmy, the local drunk, womanizer, and thief dies. His wife, a proper lady, wants a nice funeral for him to keep up appearances, if for nothing else. So, even though religion meant nothing to Jimmy, his wife, nevertheless, goes to visit the parish priest. “Please,” she begs the priest, “I know Jimmy was a scoundrel and never went to church, …

Jesus says, “If you know these things, then blessed are you who do them” (Jn. 13:17). In other words, if you know better, you must do better. Once you know, you cannot pretend you don’t know. When I consider the deplorable state of presiding and preaching that we find in most of our churches– not just here in our diocese, but almost everywhere I go—I wonder if these priests actually do know better. They should know better, but …

Contrary to popular belief, the Irish (and I can say this because I’m from Irish stock) do not have a monopoly on stubbornness, but what we have done is that we have polished it into an art form. Stubbornness is not a virtue, but persistence—like the type we find in all three Scripture readings today—can be. Stubbornness is often self-serving, but when we persist in promoting justice, truth, peace, fairness, equality, dignity, and beauty, we are acting like God. …

We just heard the familiar story of how 10 lepers were healed, yet only one of them bothered to thank Jesus.   I suppose the simplest and most direct message of that story, especially on this Thanksgiving weekend, is that we ought to be more grateful for all we have. That’s certainly true in my life. If I thanked God only 10% of the time, for all that I have received, I would be a more grateful person than I am …

Once again, we have Scripture readings that are not easily understandable, at least not in the first reading or the first hearing of them. There is a message in these readings, Good News, but we must do a little digging. It seems to be the prophets’ and Jesus’s preferred way of doing things. They get you thinking about something, and then they walk away leaving you to puzzle it in your mind. Neither Jesus nor the prophets are into …