HOMILY EASTER SEASON WEEK 03 06 – Year I Growing our Relationship with Jesus: Memorial of St. Catherine of Sienna ((Acts 9:31-42; Ps 116; Jn 6:53-69) ********************************************* What do you think was the most pivotal moment of Peter’s life with Jesus? What would ours be? St. Peter is strikingly central to both readings today, inviting […]

HOMILY EASTER WEEK 03 05 – Year I Transformative Faith: Optional Memorial of St Peter Chanel (Acts 9:1-20; Ps 117; Jn 6:52-59) **************************************** An atheist professor was told about a little girl who claimed her newborn kittens were atheists. Finding that intriguing, he went to visit her and see for himself. When he arrived and […]

HOMILY EASTER WEEK 03 04 – Year I Dare We Also Rejoice and Proclaim? (Acts 8:26-40; Ps 66; Jn 6:44-51) ****************************************** Henri Thoreau once famously claimed “Most people lead lives of quiet desperation.” Given our society today, I would add “and silent depression,” coming from the surprising response to a retreat we gave at the […]

HOMILY EASTER SEASON 03 03 – Year I Our Lady of Good Counsel (Acts 8:1-8; Ps 66; Jn 6:35-40) ************************************** Gabor Maté, renowned psychologist from Vancouver, BC., speaks of addiction in terms of a Buddhist legend of people with huge stomachs and scrawny necks, never able to satisfy their hunger. In the book, A Spirituality […]

HOMILY – FEAST OF ST MARK Proclaiming the Good News by Word and Witness (1 Pt 5:5-14; Ps 89; Mk 16:15-20) *********************************************** This feast of St. Mark and the readings today might suggest this dismissal at the end of the Eucharist: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” […]

HOMILY EASTER WEEK 03 01 – YEAR I Faith that Yearns for More: Optional Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen (Acts 6:8-15; Ps 118; Jn 6:22-29) ************************************************** Most people are yearning for intimacy. But many are afraid of precisely that journey into intimacy, fearful of being hurt in their lives once again. The readings today […]

HOMILY EASTER SUNDAY 03 – A Witnesses to the Risen Lord (Acts 2:14, 22b-28; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35) *************************************************************** The readings on this 3rd Sunday of Easter time are like bookends – they stretch from the appearance of Jesus to his disciples on the day of his resurrection, to the Pentecost event […]

HOMILY EASTER SEASON WEEK 02 06 – Year I Balancing Prayer and Ministry, Contemplation and Action (Acts 6:1-7; Ps 33; Jn 6:16-21) ******************************************************* Noted spiritual writer and speaker, Fr. Richard Rohr OFM, founded a Centre for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, some years ago. That prophetic gesture provides a fitting backdrop to today’s […]

WEEKDAY 02 05 EASTER SEASON – Year I Faith Fully Alive: Optional Memorial of St. Anselm (Acts 5:34-42; Ps 27; Jn 6:1-15)) ******************************************* Years ago, an atheist sociologist, in his analysis of our society and the way it was developing, predicted there would one day be a crisis of the human spirit. Even he could […]

HOMILY EASTER SEASON WEEK 02 04 – Year I Faith, Transformation and Eternal Life (Acts 5:27-33; Ps 34; Jn 3:31-36) ************************************************ Faith, transformation and eternal life – these three words sum up the message from today’s readings. We believe in the resurrection of Jesus; we experience transformation through forgiveness and healing, and we then live […]