Homilies
December 1, 2024
As the beginning of Advent, the lesson each year is to watch, the question is, Watch for what? To cut to the chase, to be as brief and simple as possible, the question the Church asks this first Sunday of Advent is always something like that.
December 15, 2024
Close readers of Luke will recall that the question we hear asked today, the question—“What then shall we do?”—which is found in Luke 3:10, is the same question found in Acts 2:37.
December 22, 2024
Martin Buber, the great Jewish thinker, said once that “The Shekinah is between beings.”[1] Now the word Shekinah is sometimes translated “glory,” yet it is not some ordinary glory but the glory of the presence of God, the dwelling of God; the idea is kind of synonymous with the “word” of God or even the “face” […]
December 24, 2024
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian, said once that the Christmas homily should be brief—shorter than normal.
January 5, 2025
Preaching, centuries ago, on this feast of the Epiphany, St. Augustine ended his sermon with a rhetorical flourish.