Homily – July 13th, 2025 – 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily – July 13th, 2025 – 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

There is a spirituality for the first half of our lives and a spirituality for the second half of our lives. First half of life spirituality and second half of life spirituality are very different from each other, but both are necessary. Unfortunately, most of us Catholics—including us priests—continue to operate out of a first half of life spirituality even when it is no longer serving us well. We just keep trying the same old things over and over again ...

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Fr Phil

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Homily – June 29th, 2025 – Feasts of Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Homily – June 29th, 2025 – Feasts of Saint Peter and Saint Paul

I had the privilege twice of making it to the Holy Land and visiting Caesarea Philippi, the setting for today’s gospel story. It’s no longer called Caesarea Philippi but Banias. It was easy to be there, take in the history, and snap a few pictures, and move on. But it wasn’t so easy for Peter 2,000 years ago. Jesus dared to ask the questions, “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” If ...

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Fr Phil

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Homily – June 22nd, 2025 – Corpus Christi

Homily – June 22nd, 2025 – Corpus Christi

As with every gospel story we hear, including this one, the miraculous feeding of the multitude, it’s often helpful to read the story that precedes it. It gives us context and context is always a good thing to have. Bad theology–and there’s lots of it around–doesn’t do that. People, including priests, will take a handful of lines from the entire Bible and run all of reality through those three or four lines in order to justify why they are right ...

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Fr Phil

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Homily – June 15th, 2025 – Trinity Sunday

Homily – June 15th, 2025 – Trinity Sunday

Before any of the great religions were established, including Christianity, there was wisdom. Cultures were guided by wisdom figures, guides, mentors—men and women who had been on some kind of spiritual journey themselves. These wisdom figures lived by a truth that was not only bigger than their little, individual truth, but also by a truth that was humbly passed on from generation to generation. Since there were no books or computers, wisdom was passed on verbally through stories but more ...

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Fr Phil

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Reflection – June 15th, 2025 – Trinity Sunday

Reflection – June 15th, 2025 – Trinity Sunday

The late Pope Francis, in my mind, will go down in history as one of the greatest popes ever. He was a prophet, no doubt. As with all prophets, Biblical or otherwise, they are only appreciated once they are long dead. While alive they are too disturbing to our comfortable lifestyles and ways of thinking. Prophets never fit into our neatly-constructed boxes, boxes that contain our never-changing set of certitudes and rules, the very things that nobody better call into ...

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Fr Phil

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Homily – June 8th, 2025 – Pentecost

Homily – June 8th, 2025 – Pentecost

As I mentioned last weekend, the four gospel writers aren’t always on the same page, chronologically, when they write about the events of Jesus’ life including the timing of the great events of Ascension or Pentecost. In fairness to them, they are not primarily trying to give us an historical or a chronological account of Jesus’ life. They are attempting to convey spiritual truths about Jesus, truths that are meant to form us here and now, in 2025.

I suppose it’s ...

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Fr Phil

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Reflection – June 8th, 2025 – Pentecost

Reflection – June 8th, 2025 – Pentecost

Today we celebrate Pentecost Sunday – the day considered to be the Church’s birthday. The readings focus on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, sent by the Father to empower believers to be witnesses of Christ. The focus is on the Holy Spirit’s presence and guidance in the lives of the apostles and, by extension, in the lives of all Christians. People from different nations were able to hear the apostles speaking in their own language. The Holy ...

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Cathy Keirstead

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Homily – June 1st, 2025 – The Ascension

Homily – June 1st, 2025 – The Ascension

I’ve always felt that today’s feast, the Ascension, only makes sense in the light of next Sunday’s feast, Pentecost. If Ascension is about the great leaving of Jesus, then Pentecost is about the great return of Jesus. Or, as Jesus said in last Sunday’s gospel passage, “I am going away, and I am coming to you” (Jn. 14:28). To which I always want to ask, “Jesus, are you coming or are you going? Because this kind of talk is very ...

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Fr Phil

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Reflection – June 1st, 2025 – Ascension Sunday

Reflection – June 1st, 2025 – Ascension Sunday

How Hopeful are We About Heaven?

As we enter the month of June, many things in church world are slowing down, getting ready for the summer break.  Parish councils are having their last meetings, diocesan committees are wrapping up another pastoral year and even faith development gatherings such as catechism and R.C.I.A. are taking a break.  I am blessed to serve as part of the team that are facilitating the sessions entitled “Dying With Christ, Living With Hope”, and we are ...

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Mark Mahoney

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Homily – May 25th, 2025 – 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily – May 25th, 2025 – 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I realize that, for you people in the pews, it’s more difficult to recall anything you heard in the first or second reading. What’s a lot easier to remember is the Gospel reading only because it was the last reading you heard, and the “Jesus stories” seem to be simpler to get into. Personally, I’ve always preferred the gospel stories about Jesus over the stories in the Book of Revelation about dragons with seven heads and ten horns.

Having said that, ...

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Fr Phil

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