Category: Sunday Homilies

Lectionary 143 The Book of Wisdom, also called the Wisdom of Solomon in the Protestant traditions, is another one of the lesser known books of the Old Testament which does not get much air-time in the Church’s liturgy.  Considering the readings at Sunday mass we only hear from Wisdom eight times in the entire three-year […]

Genesis 2:18-24 Hebrews 2:9-11 Mark 10:2-16 The first Sunday of October is designated by the United States Bishops as Respect Life Sunday.  The theme for this year is “Every life; Cherished, Chosen, Sent.” This observance is meant to remind us and renew in us the importance of the culture of life. Human life is both […]

Envy is a particularly evil sin because by means of it we wish to deprive others without gaining anything ourselves—it is the self-pitying refuge of all of us when we become embittered and petty. The YouCat, a version of the Catechism which Pope Benedict XVI directed to be developed for use among young adults, says […]

The scene in the Gospel is an easy one to picture. Jesus and his disciples are walking through Galilee and most likely Jesus is up front leading the way like a good shepherd leading his flock. He’s telling them the harsh reality of what is going to happen; he’s going to be killed and on […]

Lectionary 131 Today’s Sunday scripture readings open with a passage from the prophet Isaiah, in which the prophet speaks of his fidelity to the Lord even in very difficult times, and of the way in which the Lord provided refuge for him in this time of testing. We read, “I gave my back to those […]

Isaiah 35: 4 – 7a Gospel – Mark 7: 31 – 37 God is a hands-on God. Throughout the Scriptures there are beautiful descriptions of God being personally involved with creation, especially with us. From the book of Genesis where we read that God created us by forming us out of the earth and then […]

Lectionary 20 On the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord the Church remembers at the beginning of each new year the fundamental missionary impulse that lies at her core: to take the good news to the ends of the earth, just as Jesus himself commanded her before his ascension: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of […]

Lectionary 125 This Sunday the scripture readings reflect upon law, both that of Moses and that of Christ, and upon the way in which we are called to abide by the law. To put it better, we should substitute the term “instruction” for “law,” since the root of the word Torah, the Hebrew term for […]

Gospel – John 6: 60 – 69 This weekend we listen to the end of the Bread of Life Discourse. The ending is not what one would expect regarding the miracles and teachings of Jesus. The Israelites at the time of Jesus were longing for the coming of the Messiah. There were others preaching at […]

Lectionary 119 In the reflection on the eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time we saw that while the “bread of life” is found above all in the Eucharist, our hunger for the Lord can and should be satisfied in other ways as well, chief among them the study of the word of God as recorded in […]