Category: Sunday Homilies

This Gospel account of Jesus and Zacchaeus is one that is so familiar to us that we can lose sight of the depth of the message that the incidents contains.   There are three things in this encounter that describe well the purpose of Jesus’ coming into our world and his mission:  1. Jesus attracted sinners; […]

An interesting contrast presents itself in this Sunday’s scriptures:  in the second reading, from the Second Letter to Timothy, Saint Paul uses the image of a successful athlete to describe his journey of faith. He says: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown […]

Luke 18: 1-8 This parable would make a great plot for a made for television movie. We have a widow who goes up against a dishonest judge.  The widow is persistent in her desire for the judge to make a decision in her case.  She initially waited a long time with not ruling by the […]

The last two Sundays masses of September we heard from the prophet Amos, who inveighed against the lack of fidelity and the ruthlessness of many in the northern Kingdom of Israel, often called Samaria. The first Sunday of October we witnessed his fellow prophet Habakkuk thundering against the people of Judah. Today we hear a […]

Amos is arguably the earliest of the great prophets whose names are given to books of the Old Testament.  He was an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah and a predecessor in the prophetic ministry of Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many others whom the Lord raised up to rouse his people, Israel.  In today’s reading […]

The passage this weekend is known as The Parable of the Dishonest Steward.  A steward was responsible for the management of his master’s possessions. It seems that this steward squandered those possessions, rather than investing them so as to increase the value.   He was serving two masters: his employer and himself.  As usually happens with […]

The passage this weekend is known as The Parable of the Dishonest Steward.  A steward was responsible for the management of his master’s possessions. It seems that this steward squandered those possessions, rather than investing them so as to increase the value.   He was serving two masters: his employer and himself.  As usually happens with […]

Asking forgiveness and receiving forgiveness are the beautiful themes for this week’s Sunday readings.  The fact that all of us are always in need of mercy on one count or another reminds me of the instructive rhythm of the Church’s Lectionary cycle:  we hear the same messages again and again precisely because we need to […]