A Homily for the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A In the 1996 movie The Preacher’s Wife, Denzel Washington plays the role of an angel named Dudley. One scene is a particular favorite of mine. A little boy, unaware that he is speaking to an angel, asks Dudley
Read moreThe Ace of Spades and the King of Hearts
I was recently surprised to learn that National Geographic’s geneticist Spencer Wells has argued convincingly that, based on markers in human DNA, all human beings are descended from a single set of parents! That’s right. Wells calls them, appropriately enough, Scientific Adam and Scientific Eve and says they lived
Read moreBetter than We Found It
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it
Read moreFlight into Freedom
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
Read moreThe Mirror
The following comes from a book entitled Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul,[1] published way back in 1997. I used to give this piece to my students. It’s called “The Mirror.” “Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?” The usual laughter followed and people stirred to go. Papaderos held
Read moreSymbol of Rome Is Grown
In 1980, when Renée Riley was a chubby cherubic child of all of four months, she captured the heart of artist and family friend Dana Van Horn, who was then living in upstate New York. At the time, Van Horn was hard at work on a commission he had
Read moreSin as Shortcut
A Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A Jesuit priest Father Mark Link tells this story: John was a contractor for a construction company. To increase his personal income, he routinely cheated on materials that went into the homes he built. He was so adept
Read moreI Want a Star!
They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. –Matthew 2:11-12– In the formal dining room
Read moreApologize Quickly
A Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C Ezra read plainly from the book of the law of God, interpreting it so that all could understand what was read. Then Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and Ezra the priest-scribe and the Levites who were instructing the
Read moreFollow the Bouncing Braids
A Homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C We hear that some are conducting themselves among you in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others. Such people we instruct and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and to
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