homily
April 2, 2021
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
Brutal are the reminders of our creatureliness, our frail nakedness.
April 1, 2021
A democracy fighting for its life, a body politic trying to survive: that’s what we’re seeing in Myanmar.
December 9, 2018
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
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 […]
June 30, 2019
Simone Weil, that eccentric and brilliant woman, said once, rather famously, that it was “more useful to contemplate our stupidity than our sin.” Contemplating sin risked pride, she said; admitting failure due to “sheer stupidity,” on the other hand, the bad results of our plain mediocrity: “No knowledge is more to be desired,” she wrote. Because […]
July 14, 2019
“Telescopic Philanthropy” is what Charles Dickens called it.
July 20, 2019
An old politician was beginning to lose his hearing.
August 18, 2019
Click here to listen to this homily! Ten years ago I wrote a book on martyrdom, Christian martyrdom, on how Christianity can neither be understood or practiced without also understanding martyrdom, without also, at least in principle, being open to it for oneself.[1] I also suggested that if we wanted to know how to behave as […]