Homilies

January 12, 2025

Homily: The Sacramental Point

If you step back to consider the whole—that is, the whole liturgical year—you will begin to understand what the Church is teaching us Sunday by Sunday.
January 5, 2025

Homily: Solemnitas, Pietas, Caritas, Veritas

Preaching, centuries ago, on this feast of the Epiphany, St. Augustine ended his sermon with a rhetorical flourish.
December 24, 2024

Homily: The Abbreviated Word

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian, said once that the Christmas homily should be brief—shorter than normal.
December 22, 2024

Homily: Mystics, Like Elizabeth

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 15, 2024

Homily: What Then Shall We Do?

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 1, 2024

Homily: These Intimacies

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.