HOMILY LENT WEEK 04 01 – Year I (Is 65:17-21; Ps 30; Jn 4:43-54) ****************************************************** When a lady was asked why she put in her will a request to be buried with a fork in her hand, her answer was because her mother always told her, “Keep your fork, the best is yet to come!” […]

LENT SUNDAY 04-C (Joshua 5:9, 10-12; Psalm 34; 2 Cor 5:17-21; Lk 15:1-3; 11-32) ************************************************************* Ron Rolheiser, Oblate theologian and spiritual writer, sometimes uses this saying in his presentations: Act like God, and you get to feel like God. Learn to forgive as God forgives, and you will feel God’s peace and joy. In 2007, […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 03 06 – Year I (Hos 5:15-6:6; Ps 51; Lk 18:9-14) **************************************** Have you ever tried to earn anyone’s love? The readings today invite us to respond to a relational God through humble honesty, trusting repentance and grateful service. The tendency to try to earn someone’s love is a rather human one, […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 03 05 – Year I (Hos 14:1-9; Ps 81; Mk 12:28-34) **************************************** A lady confessed she was guilty of the sin of narcissism. When asked by the confessor what that meant, she replied she was totally centered on herself, spent all her time on her make-up, hair, nails, looking in the mirror, […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 03 04 – Year I (Jer 7:23-28; Ps 95; Lk 11:14-23) **************a********************************** The late psychiatrist Gerald May wrote a book entitled Will and Spirit. In it he claims the gift of free will that we have been given by God is one of our most precious attributes as human beings in this […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 03 03 – Year I (Dt 4:1-9; Ps 147; Mt 5:17-19) ************************************************* We need to hear again the striking statement of Moses to the people, “What other nation has a god as near and as just as the Lord our God whenever we call him?” The readings to day invite us to […]

  HOMILY LENT WEEK 03 03 – Year I (Dt 4:1-9; Ps 147; Mt 5:17-19) ************************************************* We need to hear again the striking statement of Moses to the people, “What other nation has a god as near and as just as the Lord our God whenever we call him?” The readings to day invite us to […]

SOLEMNITY OF THE ANNUNCIATION (Isaiah 7:10-14, 8:10d; Ps 40; Heb 10:4-10; Lk 1:26-28) ************************************************* Sr. Connie Piska UJ of Edmonton gave me a gift she made for my priestly ordination in 1974 that still hangs on a wall in the bathroom so that I see it every day. It is a silhouette of Mary kneeling […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 03 01 – Year I (2 Kg 5:1-15; Ps 42; Lk 4:24-30) *********************************** A little recovery joke fits today’s liturgy. The addict’s problem is not that he or she thinks, “I am very special.” Nor is it that he or she thinks, “I am a worm.” The addict’s problem is that he […]

LENT SUN 03-C (Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15; Psalm 103; 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12; Lk 13:1-9) ********************************************************* Many years ago, a well-known spiritual writer and mystic, Carlo Coretto, wrote a book entitled Letters from the Desert. It was quite popular when it came out, with its invitation to greater spiritual growth to his fellow Christians, perhaps not […]