2025 Jul 6 SUN: FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 66: 10-14c/ Ps 66: 1-3. 4-5. 6-7. 16. 20 (1)/ Gal 6: 14-18/ Lk 10: 1-12. 17-20 Our Scriptures begin today with an image from the prophet Isaiah of the most natural thing in the world: a mother feeding her child with her own milk. It is an image of comfort. And comfort is something that we all ne…

2025 Jun 29 SUN: PETER AND PAUL, APS S Vigil: Acts 3: 1-10/ Ps 19: 2-3. 4-5/ Gal 1: 11-20/ Jn 21: 15-19. Day: Acts 12: 1-11/ Ps 34: 2-3.4-5. 6-7. 8-9/ 2 Tm 4: 6-8. 17-18/ Mt 16: 13-19 When we think of Peter and Paul, we think of their leadership in the early Church. They did different things. They both found themselves in Rome, we believe somewhere…

2025 Jun 22 SUN: THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST S Gn 14: 18-20/ Ps 110: 1. 2. 3. 4/ 1 Cor 11: 23-26/ Optional Sequence Lauda, Sion/ Lk 9: 11b-17 This solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ was instituted in the 13th century. There were people at that time who said, "There needs to be a celebration of the Holy Eucharist which is apart fro…

2025 Jun 15 SUN: THE HOLY TRINITY S Prv 8: 22-31/ Ps 8: 4-5. 6-7. 8-9 (2a)/ Rom 5: 1-5/ Jn 16: 12-15 Last evening I spoke about current events and I'm not sure that everybody got the context. And the context is this. There were shootings in the Minneapolis area early yesterday morning. A state representative and her husband were killed. A state sen…

2025 Jun 8 SUN: PENTECOST S Acts 2: 1-11/ Ps 104: 1. 24. 29-30. 31. 34/ 1 Cor 12: 3b-7. 12-13 or Rom 8: 8-17/ Sequence Veni Creator Spiritus/ Jn 20: 19-23 or Jn 14: 15-16. 23b-26 We come today to the conclusion, and you might say the crown, of the season of Easter: Pentecost -- what we also refer to as the Birthday of the Church. And if you were fo…

2025 Jun 1 SUN: ASCENSION OF THE LORD S (Seventh Sunday of Easter) Acts 1: 1-11/ Ps 47: 2-3. 6-7. 8-9 (6)/ Heb 9: 24-28; 10: 19-23/ Lk 24: 46-53 As I mentioned last week, I am intending to concentrate through the 15th of June on God the Holy Spirit. And we have another help today in the passage from the letter to the Hebrews. He is asking us to ima…

2025 May 25 SUN: SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 15: 1-2. 22-29/ Ps 67: 2-3. 5. 6. 8 (4)/ Rv 21: 10-14. 22-23/ Jn 14: 23-29 (In the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, the Ascension of the Lord supersedes the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Therefore, the following second reading and gospel may be substituted today: Rv 22:12-14. 16-17. 20/ Jn 17: 20-26) Give…

2025 May 18 SUN: FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 14: 21-27/ Ps 145: 8-9. 10-11. 12-13 (see 1)/ Rv 21: 1-5a/ Jn 13: 31-33a. 34-35 The word "love" is sort of tricky. We have to consider that we give two main meanings to the word "love." And one of them really is a starting point, whereas the other is the goal. We use the word "love" to refer to a simple …

2025 May 11 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 13: 14. 43-52/ Ps 100: 1-2. 3. 5/ Rv 7: 9. 14b-17/ Jn 10: 27-30 In my junior year of high school at Decatur St. Teresa, I was in a religion course called Social Justice. And in that course I learned about the social teaching of the Catholic Church, which began in 1891 with a writing called Rerum Novarum…

2025 May 4 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 5: 27-32. 40b-41/ Ps 30: 2. 4. 5-6. 11-12. 13 (2a)/ Rv 5: 11-14/ Jn 21: 1-19 Many people look upon the Book of Revelation as a rather forbidding sort of writing, full of things that can cause terror in people's hearts. But today we have an utterly joyful passage from Revelation. We have a description of h…

2025 Apr 27 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 5: 12-16/ Ps 118: 2-4. 13-15. 22-24/ Rv 1: 9-11a. 12-13. 17-19/ Jn 20: 19-31 Well, a week ago was Easter Sunday, and after Holy Week and the Easter Triduum, I was ready to get away for a few days. That's exactly what I did. And awakening Monday morning and learning that Pope Francis had died, I was shoc…

2025 Apr 20 SUN: EASTER SUNDAY. The Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Acts 10: 34a. 37-43/ Ps 118: 1-2. 16-17. 22-23/ Col 3: 1-4 or 1 Cor 5: 6b-8/ Sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes/ Jn 20: 1-9 or Mk 16: 1-7 or, at an afternoon or evening Mass, Lk 24: 13-35 On this day of resurrection, we remember how we came here. We remember that i…

2025 Apr 13 SUN: PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD'S PASSION Procession: Lk 19: 28-40. Mass: Is 50: 4-7/ Ps 22: 8-9. 17-18. 19-20. 23-24/ Phil 2:6-11/ Lk 22: 14 -- 23: 56 We have heard from a suffering servant song of Isaiah and also from the great hymn of St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians regarding the self-emptying of Jesus, true God, and true man. And …

2025 Apr 6 SUN: FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT Is 43: 16-21/ Ps 126: 1-2. 2-3. 4-5. 6 (3)/ Phil 3: 8-14/ Jn 8: 1-11 Last week I spoke of the Easter Triduum and specifically the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper. That will be 7 p.m. Thursday, April 17th right here. I mentioned foot washing and, along with the sign-up for the chicken dinner, I have a sig…

2025 Mar 30 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT Jos 5: 9a. 10-12/ Ps 34: 2-3. 4-5. 6-7 (9a) / 2 Cor 5: 17-21/ Lk 15: 1-3. 11-32 Well, we are coming close to the celebration of Holy Week and the Easter Triduum. And I ask you especially to keep Holy Thursday in mind. We'll have the Mass of the Lord's Supper here Thursday, April 17th at 7 p.m. And you know tha…

2025 Mar 23 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT Ex 3: 1-8a. 13-15/ Ps 103: 1-2. 3-4. 6-7. 8. 11 (8a)/ 1 Cor 10: 1-6. 10-12/ Lk 13: 1-9 It is good to learn that Pope Francis has been released from the hospital. He was going to do -- so this would have been almost four hours ago, a noon praying of the Angelus that is a Sunday noon day custom, there in Rome. An…

2025 Mar 16 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT Gn 15: 5-12. 17-18/ Ps 27: 1. 7-8. 8-9. 13-14/ Phil 3: 17 -- 4: 1 or 3: 20 -- 4: 1/ Lk 9: 28b-36 My brother had a friend when we were growing up, and my brother passed along to me some of the things that he heard from this friend about their family. So apparently it was kind of a ritual with them: that they wo…

2025 Mar 9 SUN: FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT Dt 26: 4-10/ Ps 91: 1-2. 10-11. 12-13. 14-15/ Rom 10: 8-13/ Lk 4: 1-13 Our Scriptures begin today with an account from Deuteronomy of some of the history of God's chosen people. It refers to slavery and liberation. We move on to St. Paul, and he is telling us that the gifts of salvation and liberation, which com…

2025 Mar 2 SUN: EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Sir 27: 4-7/ Ps 92: 2-3. 13-14. 15-16/ 1 Cor 15: 54-58/ Lk 6: 39-45 Have you ever heard this expression: "Just sayin'"? I hear that and this is how I translate it. "I'm going to pass along some information to you and it may be distasteful to you, but I am distancing myself from it. Please don't hit me.…

2025 Feb 23 SUN: SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Sm 26: 2. 7-9. 12-13. 22-23/ Ps 103: 1-2. 3-4. 8. 10. 12-13 (8a)/ 1 Cor 15: 45-49/ Lk 6: 27-38 HOMILIST'S NOTE: I ran afoul of Pope Francis's directive from his general audience of December 4, 2024, when he said that a homily should be in the six-to-eight-minute range. This one ran over 12 minutes.…

2025 Feb 16 SUN: SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Jer 17: 5-8/ Ps 1: 1-2. 3. 4. 6 (40: 5a)/ 1 Cor 15: 12. 16-20/ Lk 6: 17. 20-26 We know that in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount gives us eight or maybe nine depending on how you count them, eight or nine beatitudes. They are promises that people are going to be happy …

2025 Feb 9 SUN: FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 6: 1-2a. 3-8/ Ps 138: 1-2. 2-3. 4-5. 7-8 (1c)/ 1 Cor 15: 1-11/ Lk 5: 1-11 If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? You've heard that expression. And it seems that in our culture, the test of whether you are intelligent is whether you make a lot of money. Now, in fact, there are plenty of intelligent …

From time to time I have heard people speak of what is called an elevator speech. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. If you are in some sort of group that is sponsoring a cause of some kind, for instance, the elevator speech is the way you summarize and distill your message to such a brief amount of time that you can give this speech during…

2025 Jan 26 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Neh 8: 2-4a. 5-6. 8-10/ Ps 19: 8. 9. 10. 15/ 1 Cor 12: 12-30/ Lk 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21 (I added 4: 22-30, which would have been heard next Sunday, were it not for the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.) It happens that we have some really wonderful Scriptures prepared for us here in the early Sundays of…

2025 Jan 19 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 62: 1-5/ Ps 96: 1-2. 2-3. 7-8. 9-10 (3)/ 1 Cor 12: 4-11/ Jn 2: 1-11 We are getting started on a course we will pursue during this entire year, and that is we are getting started on Ordinary Time, which is actually a favorite time of mine because we hear the Scriptures in a continuous fashion. Now d…

2025 Jan 12 SUN: BAPTISM OF THE LORD F Is 40: 1-5. 9-11/ Ps 104: 1b-2. 3-4. 24-25. 27-28. 29-30 (1)/ Ti 2: 11-14; 3: 4-7/ Lk 3: 15-16. 21-22 We have had an interesting few days. We received more snow than we're used to. And from my point of view, it's a hardship. It's tough to get around. Of course, we can think of the inconvenience of the snow and…

2025 Jan 5 SUN: EPIPHANY OF THE LORD S Is 60: 1-6/ Ps 72: 1-2. 7-8. 10-11. 12-13/ Eph 3: 2-3a. 5-6/ Mt 2: 1-12 I want to start by looking at two words. It seems to me that more recently there has been some confusion between these two words, and I think it is helpful for all of us to maintain a distinction between them. The words are epiphany and in…

2024 Dec 29 SUN: HOLY FAMILY F 1 Sm 1: 20-22. 24-28 or Sir 3: 2-6. 12-14/ Ps 84: 2-3. 5-6. 9-10/ 1 Jn 3: 1-2. 21-24 or Col 3: 12-21/ Lk 2: 41-52 I find that these readings today can be summed up by quoting another reading, not found among these. I'm thinking of a verse in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 6, in which he says, "You…

2024 Dec 22 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT (O Rex Gentium) Mi 5: 1-4a/ Ps 80: 2-3. 15-16. 18-19 (4)/ Heb 10: 5-10/ Lk 1: 39-45 You know that for several weeks we have been looking at Scriptures which have to do with what are called the last things. Again, that technical word is eschatology. We've been thinking about the fact that people find somethin…

2024 Dec 15 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT Zep 3: 14-18a/ Is 12: 2-3. 4. 5-6 (6)/ Phil 4: 4-7/ Lk 3: 10-18 Very quickly, I want to let you know that we have a number of people who are coming forward and seeking to enter the Catholic Christian way of life, and therefore we are planning to reform our team for what we properly call the Order of Christian…

2024 Dec 8 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT Bar 5: 1-9/ Ps 126: 1-2. 2-3. 4-5. 6 (3)/ Phil 1: 4-6. 8-11/ Lk 3: 1-6 I imagine that many of us, when we're trying to read the Bible, find a particular frustration in that we would like for the Bible to be sort of like journalism or a history book that mentions dates. We want to know when certain events happ…

2024 Dec 1 SUN: FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Jer 33: 14-16/ Ps 25: 4-5. 8-9. 10. 14 (1b)/ 1 Thes 3: 12 -- 4: 2/ Lk 21: 25-28. 34-36 I have been thinking about how the events of our life present a variety of contrasts. Things we may desire, things we may not desire so much. Yesterday I have to say I was not happy to see the snow come, Although I know that…

2024 Nov 24 SUN: CHRIST THE KING S (Thirty-fourth and Last Sunday in Ordinary Time) Dn 7: 13-14/ Ps 93: 1. 1-2. 5 (1a)/ Rv 1: 5-8/ Jn 18: 33b-37 This Gospel is a part of the passion according to John, which we read every year on Good Friday. And we need to take note of the overriding quality of that we find here. And that quality is the fact that J…

2024 Nov 17 SUN: THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Dn 12: 1-3/ Ps 16: 5. 8. 9-10. 11 (1)/ Heb 10: 11-14. 18/ Mk 13: 24-32 So this is the time of year when in our liturgical calendar we find ourselves thinking a lot about what theologically we would call the last things. More popularly people will refer to the end of the world, although that spec…

2024 Nov 10 SUN: THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Kgs 17: 10-16/ Ps 146: 7. 8-9. 9-10 (1b)/ Heb 9: 24-28/ Mk 12: 38-44 or Mk 12: 41-44 Abundance and scarcity are on our minds as we consider the Scriptures today. We may have a variety of attitudes toward the gifts with which we have been entrusted. We may think of our situation here and now a…

You may know that I and the various liturgical ministers get ready for Sunday Mass in a little room back in this corner. It's called the prep room. And it is a relatively small space for the number of people who gather there. So I find myself getting vested for Mass and I try to catch a glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror, to make sure that t…

The homilist was away last week. Well the young people sitting up front here spent a night -- I don't know how comfortable it was because they were sleeping outside during the night. It's what we call cardboard city. It is an opportunity for them to have an experience of homelessness. And I wonder whether at school you know people who are similar t…

This is a summary of what I preached on Sunday, October 6, 2024, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. So we had a Gospel about marriage accompanied by Genesis 2 and the creation of a woman. This is always an occasion to talk about marriage, and I have to say the main point I was driving at that day was that before people can be spouses they have to be…

2024 Sep 29 SUN: TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Nm 11: 25-29/ Ps 19: 8. 10. 12-13. 14 (9a)/ Jas 5: 1-6/ Mk 9: 38-43. 45. 47-48 Very briefly I want to talk about some things in the second half of this Gospel and in the second reading. We know that Jesus is not calling us literally to maim ourselves. He is making a point that it is better to en…

You may have been aware that the priests of the diocese were taking part in our annual convocation this past week. In addition, I attended a meeting of the Diocesan Pastoral Council in Springfield yesterday. And some months ago, there was a group of priests set up to study what you might call the use of priest energy in the 28 counties of our dioce…

As I think of a word by which to sum up all of the scriptures today, I believe that word is denial. Denial is a very common aspect of our consciousness. We decide that there are many, many things in life we would prefer to avoid. And so we exercise denial over them. One example is in the letter of James. We have here the image of a brother or siste…

Well, here we are, gathered together in one place. Someone once said that the church could be described as "Here comes everybody." Because we understand this assembly is for everyone. We think in territorial terms, and we say that the people in a particular territory who are Catholic Christians come to this particular assembly or church, because th…

Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you a joke and you had to think about it for a little while before you got it? I'm thinking about something which I would say is not strictly a joke; it was an exchange between me and a student at a school I ran. This was about 30 years ago. And I asked a student, "What is a defibrillator?" And th…

I hope that everyone has read the cover story of the latest issue of our diocesan magazine Catholic Times. It has to do with a person who was addicted to pornography, and this person is very, very forthright in describing the things which go on in the minds and in the feelings of all of us. And we realize that this is one example of the way in whic…

I believe many of you know, because I've spoken about this at times, that I have been helped greatly by the sciences of psychology and psychiatry. And we recognize that these disciplines are addressing the human person in our complexity. And we are the most complex creatures of God. And I bring this up because our readings today mention wisdom. And…

Jesus ratchets up the tension as he makes declarations which are hard for most of his listeners to accept.

"I am the bread of life." Some notes on how to receive Holy Communion.

We will get to "the bread of life" next week. Today, I call on a teddy bear to help us focus on "bearing with" each other (Ephesians).

Ephesians, on the "assembly," fits in well with the other readings' emphasis on shepherding.

Five minutes of music at the beginning of a Mass at the Cathedral of the Apostolic Vicariate of Izabal, Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The entire country was celebrating the 500th anniversary of the first Mass in Guatemalan territory.