Years ago when I was a college student, I remember that it was the fashion for the evangelical students on campus to come up to people and ask them if they had a personal relationship with Jesus. For all I know, this is still a thing, but it certainly was back then. And of course my reaction was, besides please go away and leave me alone, my reaction was it seemed like if they did have a personal relationship with Jesus that they were being really braggy and smug about it, you know, of course I have a relationship and it’s a great one, it’s easy, and that seemed wrong.…
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The ritual we are going to see in just a couple of minutes I would say that most Catholics have never seen in their lifetimes. I can say that with some confidence because we only see this ritual on Holy Thursday, when we read John’s gospel of the last supper, the only gospel where we hear about Christ washing the disciples’ feet. And so the only people who get to see this are you, who are among the elite who have figured out that this next three days, no offense meant to anything else, but this three days are really the best thing the Catholic Church has to offer all…
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If you were listening to the reading from the Old Testament, I wonder how many of you were immediately discouraged when the first thing you heard was about scabs and pustules. If you have ever sat down to try to read the Old Testament all the way through it’s passages like this that probably convinced you that if you were going to make it there are some parts you would end up skipping. But the fact is our ancestors in the faith thought that things like this were a serious issue for their community. There are many rules and regulations about various illnesses and most importantly, types of uncleanness. Why…
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I tried to see whether there was any research done on this topic, but I couldn’t find anything, so I’ll just have to go with my own observations over the years, and you can tell me if you think I’m wrong: which is that John the Baptist really isn’t anyone’s favorite saint. He has great name recognition, you have to admit that, but it often doesn’t go much beyond that. You never hear about anyone who has a special devotion to John the Baptist, you know, who just loves the idea of him being a role model. You don’t hear about people choosing him as a confirmation name. I’m sure…
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There’s an idea about God that we are all used to, which is that God loves and embraces us just as we are. There are plenty of scripture readings that tell us that, from the Prodigal Son to all those meals Jesus ate with sinners, they tell us there is nothing we need to do on this earth to merit God’s love, we have it without asking for it or earning it. And we should believe it, because it tells us that we have a relationship with God that can’t be broken, no matter how many times we fail in our end of that relationship. But there are a few…
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There are times when Jesus had a great instinct for simplifying things. In his time, we are told that there were more than 600 laws that devout Jews were supposed to know and follow, dietary rules, rules about behavior, more than half were things that you were simply never to do. Sometimes it seems like Catholics have also been extremely good at lists like this, prayers to say, activities to avoid, attendance requirements. There are almost 3,000 numbered paragraphs in our catechism explaining what we believe and how we should live. So it might seem like it is something of a relief for Jesus to say in today’s gospel that…
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So here’s the way God works. God assigned this gospel reading for me to preach on right when I’m in the middle of really finding it hard to forgive someone. I don’t want to give you the details, it’s no one around here, but all I’ll say is that of course I’m in the right. He’s a hard person to love right now, he acts like a jerk, and I’ve really had it with trying to help him out. I’m done. But the consolation for me is that I’m probably not alone. Jesus would not have made forgiveness the center of everything he did if he hadn’t known that lack…
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Some of the great Catholic theologians of the Middle Ages had a strong opinion about why God couldn’t ever change. And here was roughly the way their reasoning went. God, by definition, is greater than any category of anything we can think of. Therefore God is so vast, that it’s really impossible for us to say that there’s anything that God is not. And if there’s nothing that God is not, then how could God ever change? Because by definition, if you change, you become something you weren’t before. That would mean God wasn’t complete to start with. So therefore, by logic, God can’t change. QED, as they said in…
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On a beautiful summer weekend, even though this is the feast of the Trinity, I think the last thing you are probably needing is a homily that tries to explain the Trinity. I went back and looked at my previous homilies over the years on Trinity Sunday, and once or twice I think I actually went a little in that direction, so I think I should start by saying that if you were around for any of those, I’m really sorry. So instead today, one thing to notice about the Trinity. And let’s take that one thing from the first reading. So God the father is supposed to be unapproachable…
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We all have a question after hearing this story, and we have this question no matter how many time we’ve heard it. And the question is, “Why?” Why did this have to happen? We’re told Jesus in some way died for us, that this was necessary. Even he said so, it had to happen, and no one understood him, and we don’t either. So how do we answer this “why” question that is here each Good Friday? Our mistake is to see what happened here as a tragedy, someone who got something terrible he didn’t deserve. But we can’t ever forget what kind of story this really is. Because what…