Homilies

I want to give you a little window into the turnaround in the life of Shayne Smith, a popular comedian, tattoo enthusiast, one-time atheist, and now convert to Catholicism. You may remember that I shared part of his conversion story in a Lenten homily last year. Shayne’s story is beautiful because he gives a living […]

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus is speaking about a tradition that was believed in the time of the Old Testament and was a common belief even in first century Judaism.  That is, that if some evil were to befall you (illness, an accident, sudden death), then it must be because of some sin of which

When I was a freshman at Ohio State, I started my journey of going to daily Mass. At the time, I lived in a Catholic fraternity-style household with about 12 other Catholic men. I noticed that many of the older guys in the house went to daily Mass throughout the week. I really looked up

I’m always struck by the portrayal of Simon of Cyrene in the movie, The Passion of the Christ. In the biblical account of Jesus’ passion, Simon is the man coming in from the countryside whom the Roman soldiers conscript to help Jesus carry the cross. In the movie, we see him very resistant at first.

Imagine with me for a second that we are in North Korea. Catholicism is illegal. We are forced to celebrate Mass in secret because to do so publicly would put all of us at grave risk. So we are gathered with the bishop for a secret Mass. At the end of the liturgy, a couple

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have spent time with a canonized saint. I know people who met St. John Paul II and I’m super jealous of them. I bet the friends of the soon-to-be St. Carlo Acutis are very excited for Divine Mercy Sunday, as he will be canonized on that

This past week I relistened to the soundtrack of Les Miserables (‘Les Mis’ for short), a beautiful musical which deals with deep themes like love, self-sacrifice, and redemption. To this day, it remains one of my favorite musicals of all time. The music is phenomenal, the characters and stories are compelling and the overall message

Some of you may remember that I was a part time wedding DJ at one point in my life. It started off with a request from my good friends Mike and Natalie and went forward from there, with multiple different gigs at different friends’ weddings. I had such a fun time doing this job. Wedding

In 1656, a baby girl was born in an Iroquois village in Upstate New York to a Christian mother and Mohawk father. Her mother wanted her to be baptized, but her father resisted. She was known as “Little Sunshine” until the age of 4. At that time, tragedy struck her life as her mother, father

Some of you may remember from my previous Christmas homilies that I am a big fan of the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It’s actually my favorite Christmas movie. I watched it this year on Christmas Eve. It’s one of those movies that I really never get tired of watching. The themes of faith, family,