A Homily for Pentecost My friend Rose bakes one awesome blueberry pie. It’s her mother-in-law’s recipe, and she follows it to the “T.” This is, no doubt, because the pie is quite delicious, but it is also, in no small measure, because Rose has a great deal of love
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A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. –John 10:27– I’ve said this often before: My tough Slovak mother hated when her kids would whine. As a trained nurse, Mom had a great deal of
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“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent
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A Homily for Ascension Thursday [Christ] ascended, not to distance himself from our lowly state but that we, his members, might be confident of following where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before. –Preface I of the Ascension of the Lord– When I was in college, years before
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In loving gratitude to the devoted members of the Serra Club Summer 1990 Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put Him there in that Tabernacle? The Priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul
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A Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year C How many jokes do you know that begin with someone walking into a bar? Here is one, for example: A termite walks into a bar and asks, “Is the bar tender here?” Just as there are a lot
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A Homily for Easter As you may know, the Church teaches that Jesus’ death on the Cross means that the souls He has redeemed can at last enter paradise. From the time of Adam’s fall until Good Friday, the gates of heaven were closed to the soul of every
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A Homily for Good Friday ”Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.” –Oscar Wilde, The Selfish Giant— When I was in the seventh grade, my father noticed the peach fuzz sprouting on my upper lip and called me into the bathroom. After handing me a razor,
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During the time I studied at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, we seminarians would be bussed every Palm Sunday to the Cathedral in center city Philadelphia. There we took part in the beautiful liturgy and, of course, we heard the chanting of the Passion. The chant, both measured and solemn, usually
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A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. –Luke 6:43-44– What’s worse than finding a worm in
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