Homilies

March 10, 2019

I. The desert is a place I’d rather not go: I sweat too much. Especially in the desert of Lent. The 40-day stay there requires that we travel without our usual props – no sunscreen, no tequila, no painkillers. Just…

February 10, 2019

I. I was in the Phoenix airport Friday, waiting out a three-hour flight delay, when I realized that I’d better get going on this weekend’s homily. So, I started. But while meditating on the scriptures, I also made trips to…

December 23, 2018

I. Traveling while pregnant is not for wimps. I know this not from personal experience, but from a reliable female source. Traveling while pregnant is especially difficult on a donkey. But Mary went “in haste” to see Elizabeth, whom she…

December 30, 2018

I. Back when I was growing up, it seemed that we had one, two, three, seven feet of snow every Christmas, and we didn’t complain—because Dad did all the driving and shoveling. The snow always made for a dizzying Christmas…

Christmas 2018

I. What do you want Christmas to look like? That question was posed to kids at a California Boys and Girls Club. One little girl said she wanted Santa to have a blue beard. Another thought the reindeer should have…

December 16, 2018

I. A well-known Native American legend goes something like this: A Cherokee elder said to his young grandchild, “My child, a battle goes on inside everyone. The battle is between two wolves. One is the wolf of anger, envy,…

December 9, 2018

I. You’ve heard it said that, here in Minnesota, we have two seasons: winter and road construction. But this winter, you’ll still find blocked roadways, detours, and orange cones—and John the Baptist, building his highway. Juan eases our passage by…

December 2, 2018

I. I drove to a conference in Chicago this week: seven hours of uninterrupted alone time in my car. It was ample time to navel-gaze, while keeping my eyes on the road: time to review my relationships, ponder family problems…

November 25, 2018

I. Last Monday, someone looked me square in the eye and told me to, (quote) “Cheer up.” There is no phrase in the English language less likely to cheer me up than that. I’m not quite sure what I might…

November 18, 2018

I. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! This weekend’s scripture readings lead us into the end times, so I was led to revisit and revise a file on my computer titled, “In Case of My Death.” I’ve planned the music, the…

November 11, 2018

I. They say that, “Death comes in threes.” At least, that’s what my Grandma said. Of course, it does happen—all we need to do is wait for the third death to happen. But death doesn’t only come in threes: it…

November 4, 2018

I. When someone who was considering becoming a Jew asked the great first-century rabbi, Hillel the Elder, for a concise summary of Judaism, Hillel told him, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is…

October 28, 2018

In a 1959 letter to a friend known only as “A,” Flannery O’Connor wrote, My cousin’s husband [became a Catholic] last week. He had been going to Mass…but never showed any interest. We asked how he got interested and…

October 14, 2018

I. More than once, I’ve heard someone say that getting cancer, or losing a job, or the loss of a love, was the best thing that ever happened to them, a blessing, that they’d never been better than after having…

October 7, 2018

I. Marriage isn’t for wimps. That may explain why I’m unmarried. Yet, I have the audacity to preach about marriage. At hundreds and hundreds of weddings in my celibate career. And today. So here goes… First, some historical context.

September 30, 2018

I. As many of you know, I spent my seminary years, five of them, in Rome, spitting distance from the Vatican. I will always be grateful for the countless times I was privileged to stand in St. Peter’s Basilica, built…

September 23, 2018

I. One of my favorite YouTube videos comes from a Philadelphia Phillies game. A fan leans over a railing and nabs a foul ball. He was thrilled. He hands the ball to his three-year-old daughter. To his amazement, the little…

September 16, 2018

I. I spent October of 1991 on Unit 6-A of St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul. I was hospitalized for depression. I was embarrassed to be there, especially because the others who were there were obviously in much worse shape…

September 9, 2018

I. An “impediment” is, literally, something that gets in the way of our feet—our “pedi,” in Latin (pedal, pedestrian, pedicure). Jesus poked, spat, and groaned to heal the man with hearing and speech impediments. Back in the olden days, when…

September 2, 2018

I. I was on retreat last week at St. Mary’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Morristown, New Jersey—safely tucked away when the clergy sex abuse scandal in this country became an even sorrier spectacle with the Pennsylvania revelations, the discoveries…

August 19, 2018

I. Some years ago, a group of American sisters traveled to Guatemala to begin work as missionaries there. Upon arriving, they were overwhelmed by the poverty and the violence that they encountered. Its effect on them was apparent to those…

August 12, 2018

A few years ago, on the backroads of San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala, I witnessed the women of that town, with their babies bundled on their backs, go to the mission’s pick-up truck to collect a sack of grain. Occasionally, a…

August 5, 2018

I. It’s called “Glamour Shots.” You’ve seen them in malls: portrait photography, as their website states, of, “you being the best version of yourself”—“you” with chicer clothes, bigger hair, and more makeup than you’ve ever imagined—with some digital touchups. They…

July 22, 2018

I. Frederick Buechner writes, Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it’s like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there…

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