I knew a close-knit family of 5 personable children, and as they got older, they would kid their mother about having a favorite.
McKenna
The Word (Deut 4: 1-8; Jas 1:17-27)
I remember a heated conversation between a man who was promising something to a woman, and the woman to whom the promise was being made. It ended with her exasperated response, “Those are just words.”
In This Together (Joshua 24; John 6)
Our believing is not solitary. The quality of one person’s faith spills over into the religious convictions of all the others.
Past and Present, Living Through One Another
Past and Present, Living Through One Another (I John 4:7-16) At a Eucharist honoring the deceased members of the Vincentian Family, I picked up on a verse from the first reading (1 John 4:9). It starts out with the question, “How was God’s love shown to us?” It...
“I Have Seen and So Can Testify To…”
“I have seen and so can testify to…” (John 20) So much of the New Testament is about witnessing. “We have seen and testified to…the Eternal life that was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard.” (1 John 1:1-2) In one way...
The Right Focus
The Right Focus (Matthew 6) I came across an interview with a woman violinist who had just completed a concert and gotten rave reviews for it. The interviewer was asking her how she got to be so good, how she developed this great gift of letting the beauty of the...
You Are Somebody
“You Are Somebody…” (John 15) (Homily at the Farewell Mass for the departing members of the 2015/16 Vincentian Mission Corps, St. Louis) Jesus confides in His disciples today, “I have told you this, that your joy may be complete.” Or to put it another way: “I...
Wonderful News. Blessed Are Those…
“Wonderful News.” Blessed Are Those… Matthew 5 What if we were to take these Beatitude behaviors and attitudes as descriptions of the way things already are in the world, as if we were hearing Jesus giving a kind of analysis of society as it really is? We’d have...
What do I do, Lord? Gospel/Vincentian Discernment
“What Do I Do, Lord?” Gospel/Vincentian Discernment (Acts 1; John 15) There’s what you might call a woman’s quip about the man supposedly being the one who pursues the woman. It runs, “He chased her and he chased her and he chased her – until she caught him!” You...
St. Louise: Moving Toward Love
St. Louise: Moving Toward Love (Is. 58: Mt. 25) There’s a famous quote attributed to Mark Twain: When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much...
The Saints as Bibliography
The Saints as Bibliography Acts 4:8 There’s a writer who characterizes the lives of the saints as “bibliographic entries onto the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.” A bibliography: a series of additions to the one story; i.e., variations on how Jesus’ story plays...
Moving Toward “I Believe” John 10:27-30
First, some scene-setting. You’re there with these other disciples, and this Jesus person is right in front of you looking you in the eye. He’s in the process of making this claim: “I and God are one. What you hear coming from my mouth is coming from God’s mouth.” And...
