Homilies

May 25, 2022

Column: The Hellish Loop of Gun Violence

March 2, 2022

Column: Winnie-the-Pooh and Lent

September 15, 2021

Column: On the Heartbeat Act

Let’s remember, it’s a kind of war.
April 2, 2021

Column: Scars and Peace

That he still bore scars is what I’ve always thought so beautiful. It’s what’s intrigued me more than almost anything else all these years about the story so many celebrate at Easter all over the world, believers, half-believers, unbelievers too. The story of resurrection, the idea of it, the hope of it.
April 1, 2021

Column: Cold and Creatureliness

Brutal are the reminders of our creatureliness, our frail nakedness.
April 1, 2021

Column: Freedom Revealed in a Myanmar Nun

A democracy fighting for its life, a body politic trying to survive: that’s what we’re seeing in Myanmar.
December 9, 2018

Homily: Finding God in Forgiveness (Lk 3:1-6)

Please forgive the topic this morning; it’s tragic and horrific. I want to talk about what happened on October 2, 2006, when Charles Roberts, tormented for years by the loss of his infant daughter, finally snapped. Randomly, it seems, he entered a small Amish schoolhouse near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania and opened fire; five young girls lost […]
December 24, 2018

Homily: Beautiful is God (Lk 2:1-14)

Beautiful is God, the Word with God. He is beautiful in Heaven, beautiful on earth; beautiful in the womb; beautiful in His parents’ arms, beautiful in His miracles, beautiful in His sufferings; beautiful in inviting life, beautiful in not worrying about death, beautiful in giving His life, beautiful in taking it up again; He is beautiful […]
April 22, 2019

Homily: But You Know, You Understand (for the Easter Vigil)

In the Seventh Circle of Hell, in Dante’s Inferno, in the circle of violence, is a rockslide, rubble as from an earthquake. It wasn’t always ruinous like this, this part of hell. It’s new, Virgil tells Dante; it wasn’t there the last time he came through. Earlier, Virgil had talked about it, the moment hell shook. […]
April 28, 2019

Homily: The Second Struggle (Jn 21:1-19)

I call it the Second Struggle. After Easter, Peter and the disciples still needed to grow.
May 12, 2019

Homily: Listen Carefully (Jn 10:27-30)

He talked of a kingdom, Jesus did. In him, it is “at hand,” he said.[1] It’s why we’re called to repent and believe, because it would be a fearful thing otherwise.
May 19, 2019

Homily: The Lesson We Forgot (Jn 13:31-35)

In George Orwell’s novel 1984—in that dark world, that dystopia—there is something called the “Two Minutes Hate.”