Sunday Homilies

2025 Feb 23 SUN: SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Sm 26: 2. 7-9. 12-13. 22-23/ Ps 103: 1-2. 3-4. 8. 10. 12-13 (8a)/ 1 Cor 15: 45-49/ Lk 6: 27-38 HOMILIST'S NOTE: I ran afoul of Pope Francis's directive from his general audience of December 4, 2024, when he said that a homily should be in the six-to-eight-minute range.  This one ran over 12 minutes. We all know that at every weekend Mass following the Profession of Faith, we have a prayer that goes by a lot of different names. You've heard it called the Prayers of the Faithful. It's also called the Universal Prayer. If you go to other English-speaking countries, you may hear it called the Bidding Prayers. My favorite term for it is the General Intercessions. Now for some months I have been writing the general intercessions and I believe in keeping them concise and for the lector who has those prayers, I want to make sure it's on just one sheet of paper, one side of the one sheet of paper. And in fact when I'm keeping it concise, I'm able to present it in a pr