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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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…
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We all love the Christmas message, which is that there is a God of love who cares about this world enough to be with us. And now we find out something more, what we find out is that God doesn’t just love us. In the end, God wins. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Like at Christmas, the signs of this aren’t always spectacular. There is just an empty tomb, and the reports of people who are absolutely certain about what they saw and experienced, which is that someone they knew and loved was fully alive and present in a completely new way that no…
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My mom was not a mean person at all, but she had a few phrases that she would use whenever she saw something in this world that really irritated her, and what often irritated her was people who put themselves forward in what she thought was a big-headed or pushy way. And when that happened, the phrase you’d hear was, “Who does he (or she) think he is?” I grew up in the Midwest, where traditionally people who put on airs are regarded with great suspicion, but I don’t think this is just a midwestern thing. I suspect that many of us have grown up with this phrase or something…
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So let’s take a moment and think back before Christmas, if you can, back when we heard about John the Baptist here in the gospel readings. We heard about him back in Advent because he was someone who felt called by God to be on the lookout for God alive and active in this world. He believed that God was sending someone to us, someone who would change everything. John attracted huge crowds and gotten them very excited, telling them that he, John, was not that person, but that when that person came, you’d know him. And yet, when Jesus came, John did not know him. He says twice in…