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 acquaintances and connections with Annunciation Parish and School. And we can repeat the words of many being heartbroken over this very sad event. To orient ourselves with today's Scriptures, we might think about what is described in the Letter to the Hebrews. That writer is making a contrast between the things that were experienced in Old Testament times such as the dark cloud coming over Mount Sinai. He contrasts that w

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 says, "That's universalism." Universalism traditionally has been the idea that everybody is saved. And I suppose that it kind of tore at his idea of religion. I guess he had this idea that there are winners and losers. I don't know. But we have this question posed today. It says that someone asked Jesus, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?"  Well, Jesus does not give an answer -- a numerical answer. He does tell us that

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 comfortable. And there is a prophetic element in preaching. And we must be clear that primarily a prophet is not someone who foretells future events. The prophet speaking on behalf of God might refer to future developments, but they are rooted in what is going on in the here and now. And it is interesting to hear reactions. I've sometimes heard people say, "I have chosen this parish instead of another parish because over there they're t

[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 past will be condemned to repeat them. So we have all these ideas about history, and in the case of believers in Jesus Christ, we understand that God intervenes in our history in surprising ways. We start today considering Old Testament times. In Hebrews, we do have an account of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who came to know God. And in the case of Abraham and Sarah, it came about in a most remarkable way by

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 gift of baptism is, we will understand how to pray and particularly we come to understand that we must pray in order to emphasize and affirm the relationship which is set up because of this entry into Jesus' Paschal Mystery. So in the first reading we have Abraham bargaining with God. And there really is no definite conclusion here and in fact Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. But this bargaining that Abraham carries out i

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 gift we often talk about. So what could Paul mean by this? It seems that he is thinking about the growth of the Church, and feeling a sense of solidarity, we might say, with all the people who will come into the Church, the People of God. As he makes his way around various communities along the Mediterranean Sea, he witnesses growth, and he knows that sufferings will have to take place as a result of this growth. And we t

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 the Gospel who asks the same question. And it seems as if both of them want to figure out how to get this salvation thing sewn up, because it is such an inconvenient thing to have to be thinking about salvation all the time. This man has to give himself credit, because when he answered Jesus' question about what is in the law, he took two laws that are in different books of the Torah and put them together. That is actuall

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 among wolves. That doesn't sound very comforting. They go in pairs and if we, if we reflect on this, we realize that if two people can get along with each other that would seem to be a proof of the integrity of what they are talking about. And it happens that they come back rejoicing. They are proclaiming and in so many cases successfully proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Now that expression is something that we hear very of

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 course, from the Acts of the Apostles that Peter spent a good deal of time in Jerusalem and the area surrounding it. And what we hear today from the Acts of the Apostles is the threat of death that he was under there. And in fact that passage from Acts 12 begins with the martyrdom of St. James, the brother of John. He was the first of the apostles to be put to death. And it appeared that Peter himself was going to be part of that

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.  Well, I don't think that we can separate the mystery of the Holy Eucharist from those events because Jesus was instituting the Eucharist so that, as Saint Paul says today, we can proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again. So we have from Saint Paul this most ancient account of what the earliest Christians did right away after the resurrection and after Pentecost, after the Pentecost event: they gathered together to celebrat

2025 Jun 15 SUN: THE HOLY TRINITY S Prv 8: 22-31/ Ps 8: 4-5. 6-7. 8-9 (2a)/ Rom 5: 1-5/ Jn 16: 12-15 Last evening I spoke about current events and I'm not sure that everybody got the context. And the context is this. There were shootings in the Minneapolis area early yesterday morning. A state representative and her husband were killed. A state senator and his wife were badly injured but it is believed that they will survive.  You know I've talked in the past about my sister Kathy. Kathy lives in Minneapolis and teaches at a Catholic school, three blocks from where George Floyd was killed. So yesterday morning I texted her: "How are things where you live?" And she said "quiet" and I said "good." And she said, "My friends and I were going to protest but we have decided against it." And I just replied to her, "There will be time to protest and plenty to protest about."  We have to lift up our voices. I refer you to today's bulletin and it ran in last weekend's bulletin as well. And that notice amounts to a prot

2025 Jun 8 SUN: PENTECOST S Acts 2: 1-11/ Ps 104: 1. 24. 29-30. 31. 34/ 1 Cor 12: 3b-7. 12-13 or Rom 8: 8-17/ Sequence Veni Creator Spiritus/ Jn 20: 19-23 or Jn 14: 15-16. 23b-26 We come today to the conclusion, and you might say the crown, of the season of Easter: Pentecost -- what we also refer to as the Birthday of the Church. And if you were following in Breaking Bread, you may have found it somewhat difficult because of a variety of options for our Scriptures. In fact, there are a variety of options both today on Pentecost itself and also yesterday on the Vigil of Pentecost. Because there are a great number of images of the Holy Spirit, and it's good for us to appreciate those images and discover which are most helpful to ourselves.  On the banners we have the dove which is associated with the baptism of Jesus. We have other images as well. When the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles, it was with a driving wind and with tongues of flame. And in the Gospel today, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as th

2025 Jun 1 SUN: ASCENSION OF THE LORD S (Seventh Sunday of Easter) Acts 1: 1-11/ Ps 47: 2-3. 6-7. 8-9 (6)/ Heb 9: 24-28; 10: 19-23/ Lk 24: 46-53 As I mentioned last week, I am intending to concentrate through the 15th of June on God the Holy Spirit.  And we have another help today in the passage from the letter to the Hebrews. He is asking us to imagine the heavenly sanctuary itself, which of course is beyond imagining. I know it exists. It is the proper place for the blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are to picture God the Son returning to that heavenly sanctuary with His own blood offered in sacrifice for the salvation of all of us. And we are called to understand the difference between offering sacrifices over and over, as opposed to the one great sacrifice which is effective for all of us for all time. And we understand that once the Son of God has returned to that heavenly sanctuary, He does send power from on high, and this is God the Holy Spirit. I mentioned last week that I

2025 May 25 SUN: SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 15: 1-2. 22-29/ Ps 67: 2-3. 5. 6. 8 (4)/ Rv 21: 10-14. 22-23/ Jn 14: 23-29 (In the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, the Ascension of the Lord supersedes the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Therefore, the following second reading and gospel may be substituted today: Rv 22:12-14. 16-17. 20/ Jn 17: 20-26) Given that today is the fifth anniversary of the murder of a man named George Floyd in Minneapolis, we do need to keep in mind all of the ways in which humanity must keep growing. And that includes growing out of cruelty, growing out of race-based conclusions about people. We come together and we hear of the love of the Son of God, and we know we still need to be transformed into His loving likeness. What I intend to do for the next few weekends is consider the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit may well be the person of the Blessed Trinity which we have the hardest time knowing. The Scriptures today will help us, but as I say, we will take several weekends through Trinity Su

2025 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 f

2025 May 11 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 13: 14. 43-52/ Ps 100: 1-2. 3. 5/ Rv 7: 9. 14b-17/ Jn 10: 27-30 In my junior year of high school at Decatur St. Teresa, I was in a religion course called Social Justice. And in that course I learned about the social teaching of the Catholic Church, which began in 1891 with a writing called Rerum Novarum, that is, "of new things." And in this document, the new things being treated were the changes in society having come about as the result of the Industrial Revolution. And this writing championed the rights of workers so that they might not find themselves as mere cogs in a money-making machine, but that they might be respected in the fullness of their humanity, in the depth of their gifts. This caught my attention because my father was a factory worker at the Decatur Plant of Caterpillar Incorporated. And this is what I needed to hear because I was thinking about the priesthood, but apparently I needed to hear something which would secure for me a sense of the cre

2025 May 4 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 5: 27-32. 40b-41/ Ps 30: 2. 4. 5-6. 11-12. 13 (2a)/ Rv 5: 11-14/ Jn 21: 1-19 Many people look upon the Book of Revelation as a rather forbidding sort of writing, full of things that can cause terror in people's hearts. But today we have an utterly joyful passage from Revelation. We have a description of heaven itself. And there is mention of the creatures of earth, all creatures, on land and in the sea. And in the center of it all is the Lamb that was slain. We need to think about this. The reason for the great joy is that the Lamb, who is Jesus, was slain, but has overcome death and lives forever. So this is the joyful image of heaven which we receive from the Book of Revelation.  And as we turn to the other readings today, we see further cause for joy. In the Gospel we find Peter in some sense wishing that he could just disappear. And we're familiar with how he feels. He demonstrates embarrassment when John says it is the Lord. Peter is embarrassed. He says he nee

2025 Apr 27 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 5: 12-16/ Ps 118: 2-4. 13-15. 22-24/ Rv 1: 9-11a. 12-13. 17-19/ Jn 20: 19-31 Well, a week ago was Easter Sunday, and after Holy Week and the Easter Triduum, I was ready to get away for a few days. That's exactly what I did. And awakening Monday morning and learning that Pope Francis had died, I was shocked. Now, we all knew that his health was precarious. We had heard from his doctors that he needed at least two months of recovery. In other words, not doing very much. And at least I had a prediction that came true, and that was that he did not do the washing of feet on Holy Thursday, as much as that act means to him. But on that Holy Thursday, he did visit a prison very close to the Vatican. And we are aware that on Easter itself, he was present and made himself present. He was with us through Easter Sunday itself. And then, as we know, he died. And we have had a great gift from Pope Francis in his 12 years as Bishop of Rome. I am planning to give you information

2025 Apr 20 SUN: EASTER SUNDAY. The Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Acts 10: 34a. 37-43/ Ps 118: 1-2. 16-17. 22-23/ Col 3: 1-4 or 1 Cor 5: 6b-8/ Sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes/ Jn 20: 1-9 or Mk 16: 1-7 or, at an afternoon or evening Mass, Lk 24: 13-35 On this day of resurrection, we remember how we came here. We remember that it was through a remembrance during the weeks of Lent, a remembrance of how the Son of God [had] taken on our human nature and be[come] truly human, as well as truly God. Submitted to all the sufferings which every human being encounters in this world which is twisted by sin, he offered his life. He accepted the cross, and he said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And then the incredibly surprising thing occurred. It was something that even those closest to him were not grasping and did not grasp until it occurred. When he rose victorious from death, he conquered all the griefs of this world. We may want to question how he did it. We may want to say, "W

2025 Apr 13 SUN: PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD'S PASSION Procession: Lk 19: 28-40. Mass: Is 50: 4-7/ Ps 22: 8-9. 17-18. 19-20. 23-24/ Phil 2:6-11/ Lk 22: 14 -- 23: 56 We have heard from a suffering servant song of Isaiah and also from the great hymn of St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians regarding the self-emptying of Jesus, true God, and true man. And there is so much that we could comment on in St. Luke's Passion, but I will point out just one detail. Anyone else who addresses Jesus in Luke's Gospel uses terms such as Lord and Master. But the man who is crucified along with Jesus, the man who rebukes the other criminal, this man says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And this is the only time in Luke's Gospel* in which Jesus is addressed by his name. So there is a great intimacy to be found in this strange spectacle. He must have heard Jesus teach at some point. And now as both are dying, he makes this request with his first name, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Je