There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit. –1 Corinthians 12:4– Whenever I taught my students about the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, I would always mention the 1970 Academy-Award-winning Hollywood film Patton, starring George C. Scott. There is that classic scene: It’s 1943.
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Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the
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A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B Imagine you’ve been in bed for a few days due to the flu. You are on your way to recovery, but you still feel lousy. Your room reeks of sickness and needs to be aired out. The waste can
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Festina Lente[1] When I was in college, I read an insightful article by the Japanese Catholic author Shusaku Endo.[2] He told the story of an ancient Buddhist temple atop a high mountain in Japan. The temple was so high and remote that it took pious pilgrims hours and even days
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One of my favorite biblical characters is none other than the Canaanite woman described in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity
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One thing I ask of the LORD; this I seek: to dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life, to gaze on the LORD’s beauty, to visit his temple. –Psalm 27:4– In order to gain adherents to any particular doctrine, it is necessary to change truth into
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A Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A 18 October 2020 Shine like lights in the world as you hold on to the word of life. –Gospel Acclamation– I bet some of you are familiar with the children’s author Robert McCloskey, who died in 2003. He
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A Homily for those Preparing for Confession Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool. —Isaiah 1:18— You’ve heard the common expression: as
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A Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary time, Year A This past Monday night, as I was coming back to my rectory from a Forty Hours celebration at Saint Theresa’s Church in Hellertown, the young man who happened to be driving me slowed his car and then came to
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A Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A During the twenty-four years that I taught theology at Bethlehem Catholic High School, I was in residence at Notre Dame Rectory. One afternoon as I was sitting in the kitchen, in came the pastor, Msgr. Bill Handges. “Hi, Bill!”
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