Homilies

My favorite year of elementary school was fifth grade. The person who made that year truly special was my teacher, Chris Kaune. Chris was passionate about teaching and loved us students, giving many of us nicknames and treating us with great kindness. He brought an energy and excitement to the classroom that was hard not […]

Today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension, that event which took place, according to the Acts of the Apostles, forty days after Jesus rose from the dead, when he ascended into heaven. This particular event is very significant to us and has a large bearing on our faith for a couple of reasons.  First

I have two heroes on my mind as we ponder the beautiful readings for this sixth Sunday of Easter; one who is nationally known and one who is locally known. The national hero on my mind is a man named Desmond Doss. In case you don’t know who that is, he is a hero from

The image of the vine that Jesus uses in the Gospel for this weekend sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. There are so many videos on the internet about grafting. I learned the term ‘scion’ from these videos. It might be a familiar term to anyone who does a lot of gardening,

At the end of the Gospel of John, in the famous scene where Jesus is speaking with Peter at the sea of Tiberius after his resurrection; Jesus asks Peter three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  Each time he responds, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus then says to

My mind is on the beautiful, fictional land of Narnia once again. You may remember me talking before about C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia book series in previous homilies. Right now I am reading book one in the series with the 6th and 7th graders at the school, so it’s not too surprising that a

When I was 19, I spent my first real summer away from home. I decided to do a summer household program in Minnesota with Saint Paul’s Outreach, the Catholic group I was involved in during college. That summer I lived with a number of other young Catholic men in a house near the University of

Today is a great day, a day of joy, a day of victory, a day of gladness, because Jesus is risen! Alleluia. As I prayed about the Easter glory that we celebrate today and throughout the Easter season, once again the Lord impressed upon my heart the truth that all of history, going back to

What a privilege we have tonight in joining Christians all over the world to herald the triumph of Jesus’ Divine Love over sin and death. As we heard Dcn. Doug sing in the Exultet at the beginning of this beautiful Mass: This is the nightthat even now, throughout the world,sets Christian believers apart from worldly

What can we say today except, thank you Jesus! Thank You for Your conquering love. Thank You for pouring out Your blood for our forgiveness. Thank you for winning us the victory over death, sin and hell! There is a moment in the movie, The Passion of the Christ, that always strikes me. It is