Homilies

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

Years ago, my brother, Billy, and I went to a punk rock concert together with some of my friends at the Newport Music Hall near OSU campus. One of the other people in the group was a bubbly blonde girl named Maura. Although Maura and Billy had met briefly before, he didn’t remember it. But

I’m someone who likes to read.  Now I’m not what you would call a voracious reader, but I like books, especially about Scripture and faith, but I’ll also read novels of different types, too.  And if you look at my bookshelves, you’ll probably find many books that have bookmarks partway through that I need to