If you ever visit Rome and go to the basilica of St. Peter’s, the first time you see it, no matter how jaded you are, you’ll be overwhelmed by its size and scale. In the midst of all the spectacle, you may not even notice that in the center, carved around the bottom of the dome in what seem like ten-foot letters, are the words Jesus speaks in today’s gospel: You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. All this, because Peter answered the question from Jesus in today’s gospel: Who do you say that I am? I hear, by the way, they have made it…
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There’s a portrait of Jesus you’ve probably seen that a lot of people like. It shows Jesus laughing, and it’s true that over the centuries we have seen so many images of Jesus showing him as some otherworldly being, that it’s good sometimes to picture him as human, someone like us. Because he was. If that is your main picture of Jesus, though, today you have to make a change in the way you picture him. Because today in this gospel we see another side of Jesus, a Jesus we don’t often seek out, the Jesus who turns our lives completely upside down. I don’t know if we can avoid…
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St. Paul says something disagreeable to us in that second reading: He says that we do not know how to pray. On the surface, it’s a harsh judgment, because many of us are here every week trying to pray, after all. But the fact is, it can be very hard to feel like we do know how. and many of us would find it hard to tell someone that we know how to pray, with the same confidence we would tell them we know how to ride a bike or drive a car. Prayer can be hard; everyone who prays struggles with distractions, everyone wonders if they are using the…
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I am not a morning person. Usually, my best times for work and concentration do not have the letters “a.m.” associated with any of them, and if I’m ever up at 5:00 in the morning, it usually means I’ve made a horrible decision about scheduling a flight out of town. But this past week I was down at the shore, and we were staying right on some tidal wetlands that extended out our back window. One morning last week, well before sunrise, I was completely overwhelmed by what it’s like in a place like that right before the sun comes up. In the midst of darkness, the noise of hundreds,…
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The experience of being excluded, on the outside looking in, is a painful part of life. Maybe you have a memory of being the last kid chosen for a baseball team, or not chosen at all. OK, I confess, that was me in grade school, and I vividly remember the coach’s name. Or, maybe you have at one time or another found yourself suddenly fired from a job, an outsider after years of being an insider. But exclusion can get much uglier. Any week, you can read the stories of Christians in parts of the world who find themselves hated and persecuted and the targets of violence, or gay teenagers…
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You probably already know this, but we have a parish of very intelligent people here, which of course is generally a good thing, but it makes for a tough audience for any preacher, and maybe even for today’s preacher in the gospel, Jesus. The week before last I was around the parish one evening, and I happened to mention to one particular parishioner that I’d be preaching this weekend. “What readings?” he asked, and I told him, “You know, that part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells us that if our eye causes us to sin we should tear it out, and if it’s the hand, cut…
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I don’t know if you follow football, but last week there was a brief story that might help us think about today’s Gospel. A player for what everyone agrees is a bad NFL team dropped several important passes that apparently he clearly should have caught, and he single-handedly turned a losing effort into a disastrous one. After the game, on his Twitter feed, he sent a message to God, to whom he apparently prays very devotedly, and who, apparently, is also on Twitter, which of course makes sense if you think about it. And this player wasn’t happy. Unfortunately I have to leave out all the exclamation points and question…
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Many years ago now, right after this church was built, I brought an old friend of mine over to see it. When he came in and looked at the setup of the place, he said, “This is the perfect arrangement for a Catholic church.” When I asked him why, he said, “More seats in the back than the front.” I don’t mean to put any heat on anyone in the back today, since I see some pillars of the church sitting back there even as I speak, but here is my question: If you had to place yourself on a map in terms of how close a relationship you have…
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Picture for a moment a wild campaign party in a hotel ballroom on the night the polls close. Red, white and blue balloons, confetti, crowds of people waving signs, loud upbeat music, wild cheering every time the TV cameras cut live to the scene. But then gradually, the mood changes as the numbers come in, and those wildly high expectations begin to fade quickly. A concession speech from the would-be hero, and a little cheering, a few tears maybe, but after a few last drinks the crowd begins to trickle away, and the next morning we’re left with nothing but an empty ballroom with the depressing signs of celebration scattered…
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This feast of the Holy Family that we celebrate today is here, they tell us, so that we can consider how our lives as families can be inspired by the Holy Family. As we all know, this is an intimidating prospect. I was struck on Christmas Eve, when we were singing that old favorite, “Away in a Manger,” by the line in one verse referring to the baby Jesus that says “no crying he makes.” Now this is a pretty high standard for babies, at least in this parish, perhaps as much of a miracle as anything else that happens in the Christmas story, and sometimes we’re tempted to apply…