HOMILY LENT WEEK 01 05 – Year II Repentance, Reconciliation, Righteousness, and Restored Relationships (Ezk 18:21-28; Ps 130; Mt 5:20-26) *********************************************************** Five words starting with “R” sum up the readings for today: Repentance leads to Reconciliation which leads to Righteousness that in the end results in Restored Relationships. Sinners who repent and become righteous (in […]

HOMILY WEEK 01 04 – Year II On Faith, Prayer and Living the Golden Rule (Esther 14:1-14; Ps 138; Mt 7:7-12) ******************************************** Two young brothers, staying at their grandparents’ house overnight, were saying their night prayers – one quietly, the other shouting out his desire for a new bike as loud as he could. The […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 01 03 – Year II Repent, Believe and Heal: Optional Memorial of St. Frances of Rome (Jon 3:1-10; Ps 51; Lk 11:29-32) ***************************************** The people of Nineveh — proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. (Jonah 3:5)  Today’s readings proclaim a clear message – believe and […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 01 02 – Year II A Non-rescuing God and Our Faith as a Witness (Is 55:10-11; Ps 34; Mt 6:7-15) *************************************************** A question that many people continually ask and wonder about is why there is so much suffering in the world if God is good and all-powerful. In fact, the first reading […]

HOMILY LENT WEEK 01 01 – Year II Doing the Works of Mercy: Optional Memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (Lev 19:1-18; Ps 19; Mt 25:31-46) ************************************************ Did you know that today’s first reading contains the one sentence Jesus used to give us a new commandment? The two readings combine to flesh out that command: […]

HOMILY LENT SUNDAY 1-C Spe Salvi or Hope (Dt 26:4-10; Psalm 91; Rm 10:8-13; Lk 4:1-13) ***************************************************** The message from the readings this first Sunday of Lent is very clear: we are to put our faith in a loving relationship with God and say “no” to any temptations. In the Gospel, we see Jesus, blessed […]

HOMILY SATURDAY AFTER ASH WED Called to Loving Obedience and Holiness (Is 58:9-14; Ps 86; Lk 5:27-32) ********************************************** Have you ever felt a call from God to do something more with your life? The call of Levi today invites us to reconsider God’s call to us, our deeper purpose in life, and how we can […]

FRIDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY Towards More Mature Fasting: Optional Memorial of St. Casimir (Is 58:1-9; Ps 51; Mt 9:14-15) *********************************************** Does it strike you as rather curious that on this Friday after Ash Wednesday, when the gospel was all about the three disciplines of Lent – prayer, almsgiving and fasting – Matthew has Jesus explaining […]

THURSDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY Seeing the Cross as a Blessing (Dt 30:15-20; Ps 1; Lk 9:22-25) ****************************************** The late Fr. Mathieu OMI, a veteran missionary who spoke Dené fluently, was a boxer in his youth, ran a dog team, and ingeniously extracted a caterpillar half-submerged on a frozen lake with a winch and horses, used […]

ASH WEDNESDAY – ABC Lent – a Time of Repentance and Healing (Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51; 2Cor 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18) ********************************************************* A dishonest painter hired to paint a church building thinned his paint with water. As long as it didn’t rain, he would be okay he thought. That night there was a rainstorm. He […]