http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pope0261i.htm The above takes you to the speech of Pope John XXIII which I referenced in today's homily. We all seek meaning in the span of days which is ours. We trust in the one sacrifice of Jesus, as discussed in today's passage from the Letter to the Hebrews.

Money is the reward for our personal labors, and we consider the disposition of our money to be quite a personal (and painful!) undertaking. We seek to trust that, if we are devoted to the Kingdom of God, we will discover that God is more devoted to us than we had imagined.

Human history is loaded with anonymity. Think of your multiple-great grandparents whose names you do not know. Think also of how Christian faith was passed on to you, and realize the greater difficulty of tracing your faith-genealogy. All Saints is about the witness of anonymous people, upon whom we depend absolutely for the gift of faith.

James and John last week did not perceive what Bartimaeus this week does perceive: that before one makes elaborate plans for the future, one must make sure of the way that he is traveling.

Christians must not settle for "generic religion," but must plumb the depths of the shocking, personal nature of faith in Jesus Christ.

Fr. Kevin has given this talk dozens of times to engaged couples; it's time he recorded it so he won't have to keep giving it.

The Word of God cuts through joints and marrow. We are more than naked in the sight of God: our most hidden thoughts and attitudes are known to him. Let us take advantage of this direct and frank relationship, opening ourselves to the help of the one who knows us well.

High ideals for marriage are accompanied by the assurance that the Word Made Flesh is pleased to be called our brother.

Seek consensus and unity, not division. This is a fairly obvious expectation for human collaboration. We have a maddening propensity toward ignoring this expectation, however.

It is typical of all of us that, when someone brings up a topic we don't want to think about, we change the subject. The Twelve can do this just as well as we can.

It is permitted to move a popular solemnity or feast of the Lord to a nearby Sunday. What could be more popular than the parish's own feast day?

As we hear of Jesus' healing of a deaf and speechless man, we ask how well we are hearing the Church's teaching of the truth about economic matters.

In the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, today was set aside for special readings and prayers for a new bishop. The readings were from Isaiah 61, Hebrews 5, and John 17. The podcast includes a few thoughts on the bishop as someone who is first a good administrator of what's going on in his own heart.

Our affiliations speak about our life priorities. We are free to join ourselves to God or not. Whether we do or not makes all the difference for the direction and meaning of our lives.

We open ourselves to wisdom as we acknowledge how little wisdom we have. We develop our hunger and thirst for Jesus. Some thoughts today on health care and the common good, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Buzz Aldrin.

... Sunday, August 9. I'm on vacation.

The above is the number of articles in English listed by Wikipedia. It would appear that the total will reach three million in a matter of days. Although many are wary, thinking that a "do-it-yourself" encyclopedia cannot be accurate, the principle of millions of eyeballs making for an ever-more-accurate public knowledge font is sound. I have found much that is of interest to me as I look around Wikipedia, and I am sure there is a great deal for everyone.

If we speak of something as "merely a symbol," we don't understand symbolism and its power. Some etymologies say that the word "manna" itself means "what is it?" God's people keep on asking for the food that nourishes to eternity. When Jesus said, "I am the bread of life," he meant it, absolutely.

What can we define as "a lot of food"? Given the insatiable appetites of human beings, it's hard to say that any quantity is a lot. Obviously, our God is calling us to be less concerned about stockpiles and more concerned about our relationship with the one who feeds us.

This afternoon, the College of Consultors elected Msgr. Carl A. Kemme Administrator of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois. Msgr. Kemme had served as Vicar General of the Diocese since 2002, and continues as Moderator of the Curia. He remains the pastor of St. John Vianney Parish, Sherman.

There were no homilies the last two weekends, as I was at work camp. Gathering the flock together and making sure that they are fed: these are the responsibilities of the shepherd. Even the shepherd is changed by his interaction with the sheep.

Evil is not a "force." It is a lack, a deficiency. We find our confidence in knowing that the Author of Life supplies for all the deficiencies we find in ourselves.

Is there an incident that better captures the humanity and the divinity of Jesus than his calming the sea? He makes short work of the subduing of nature ... because he wants to get back to sleep!

http://www.sj-r.com/archive/x986608316/Seeking-forgiveness-is-key-in-many-faiths Thoughts on forgiveness: I was interviewed for this a few weeks ago.

On June 3, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI transferred Bishop George Lucas of Springfield in Illinois to the Archdiocese of Omaha. We will be experiencing at least a few months of "sede vacante" and waiting for a new bishop. Life is messy, so why should we be so surprised by Moses splashing blood all over the altar?

This was Mission Co-op weekend in my parish, so I got lost.

The Bible is not the Book of Lists. There are a few lists in the book, and today's celebration highlights a couple of lists: the fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5 and their antitheses.

This is a big year for weddings for me; I have six scheduled. I thought I might record the homily for my first wedding of the year.

The Lord Jesus ascended because he descended -- into the depths of the misery humans experience because of the broken, sinful situation we are in. He is on his throne but he has also embedded himself in our anguish.

How can anyone talk about love? The subject overwhelms any human being. God is love, and we discover who we are in being loved by God.

Regular listeners know that I do not go out of my way to bring politics into my preaching. Issues of religion in human society, of "church and state," of infusing the social order with the fruits of faith, are the toughest issues one can preach on. And yet it must be done. The complexities must be grappled with. And I do not relish the task.

Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of my first Communion. I speak about the "Obama-at-Notre-Dame" thing, questioning the outraged response of some Catholics. The unity that St. Paul sought was not immediate when he made his debut as a converted person. Vine and branches, mother and child -- these say much about the organic unity of the Body of Christ.

Profound things are found in each of the readings. "Salvation is in no other name." "We are God's children now. What we shall later be has not yet come to light, but we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." "There will be one fold, one shepherd."

The novel I refer to is The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler; I find the lives of Theobald and Ernest to be a caution against the establishment of religion. When religious faith is one with the postal service and internal revenue, what sort of faith is it?

Your homilist still doesn't understand how a Sunday of Easter can be named for a private devotion.

Get rid of the old yeast and become unleavened. St. Paul's Passover imagery is applied to the change that comes about when we acknowledge the sense of human dignity that follows from the treasure of the resurrection.

The amazement of the women at the tomb may, very usefully, be compared with the amazement of the brothers of Joseph when they found that one they thought dead was in the position of saving them from starvation.

The Passion of St. John is most emphatic about Jesus "laying down" his life, as opposed to having someone snatch it from him. The calm silence of Jesus unnerves Pontius Pilate.

This is a homily on "basics" of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Was "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" a cry of despair? We must consider the source of this expression in order to understand properly why the writer of Mark's Gospel put it on Jesus' lips when he was on the cross.

The image of the grain of wheat "dying" may not be botanically satisfactory, but we certainly know what Jesus means. Conversion means entering into an existence that cannot be foreseen. It demands abandonment of self so that one's true self can be found.

An extremely important characteristic of our conversion into Jesus Christ is its personal nature. God as Trinity is personal. We come to understand that, as precious as any of our personal relationships is, there is infinite richness in the relationships among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was truly a personal sacrifice when the Son of God became human.

Tell a psychiatrist what Jesus does in today's Gospel, and you will get a diagnosis affirming that he is suffering from delusions. That's the scandal of Christianity: we acknowledge that anyone else in this circumstance would be delusional, but in the case of Jesus, his identity and his special relationship with the Father are real.

What sort of God gives a couple a child -- miraculously -- and then says, offer up the child as a sacrifice? The same God who gave his son as the sacrifice which achieves humanity's salvation. Glory is found in the midst of suffering. God is truly personal.

Conversion means becoming who we really are? Strange as it may seem, this is a very helpful way to look at conversion. Conversion is from sin, which distorts our best and truest self. So the "change" of conversion is not into something alien to us; rather, it is ourselves becoming as God has intended us to be.

My friend Brian Noe has posted his concerns about recent U.S. Catholic mobilization against some federal legislation: http://noebie.com/blog/2009/02/21.html I concur with him that prophecy can only be based on the reality of possible laws -- not on extremes of speculation.

Ah, performance anxiety! I had said exactly what I wanted to say at the 8 am Mass. Regrettably, I had not recorded that one. So at 10:15 I was trying to duplicate the earlier delivery. I was way off. And it is a complicated thing to think about -- the qualitative difference between sight and insight. I find I sound better than I think I'm sounding, so this one is probably not bad. Anyway, we trust in the power of the Word for our deepest healing.

Catholics are hearing a lot about a bill before Congress called the "Freedom of Choice Act." I recommend your checking out a couple of recent articles in the Catholic press: Commonweal The Tablet

This homily is a little different from the other one because of a rite of acceptance for a new catechumen.

Hear the word "leper," think the word "leopard"? I do.

"Thou shalt not whine." Is it possible to live according to this commandment?

What might I have talked about on this weekend? You'll have to listen to find out.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Pope John XXIII's call for an ecumenical council.

I do recall that I made mention of the historic character of Barack Obama's assumption of the Presidency.

Again, I am uploading this on 2/14/09 and I do not recollect the substance of this homily.

I was traveling this weekend; hence, no homily.

Once again, this homily has disappeared into the mists of history, at least as far as my own mind is concerned.

I did not manage to record a Christmas homily.

Hello, Fr. Kevin is back in business. The other six will upload shortly. I have to run. I'm sorry I can't remember exactly what I was talking about on this occasion.

I am indeed taking a little break from tribunal business. It has been a long time since I have posted anything. I am recording my Sunday homilies; I am currently experiencing a technical problem which prevents me from uploading them. Friday I will be engaging in some troubleshooting. Blogs, I know, tend to be brief opinion-pieces. I am not necessarily comfortable with such, because I find that important societal issues require more than a statement of opinion. Indeed, I was recently reading a Commonweal article from a Catholic legal expert who finds the blogosphere odious because of the unthoughtful way in which so many super-Catholic bloggers respond. He finds it difficult to see charity being practiced. I can get into this frame of mind -- the short, sharp opinion! -- when I want to: say, when it comes to English grammar??? Garrison Keillor once did a sketch in which his character asks whether there is some kind of rule about the use of "whom." I find that there are a lot of people who vaguely know that "whom" is supposed to be used in certain cases. They have no idea, however, what the rule is. And then there's "between you and I." I'm told that President Obama is an egregious offender in this department. These situations are related, because both require a working knowledge of the objective case. English-speakers are not well aware of the case of nouns and pronouns. We tend to rely upon the order of words in a sentence as our indication of what's the subject and what's the object. Inflected languages, on the other hand, have noun endings which remove all doubt about the case. In English we encounter some inflection in "who/whom," "I/me," etc. The second of each pair is the objective-case form, while the first is what we call the nominative case. Direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of prepositions are to be in the objective case. So, for instance, it's always "between you and me." "I was heard by whomever was in the room." Sorry! This statement has to be analyzed so we see that "I was heard by whoever was in the room." We can rephrase this as "I was heard by anyone who was in the room." "Who" is the subject of the clause "who was in the room," and the form of "whoever" follows the case of "who"'s function -- as the subject of the clause -- and therefore it is in the nominative case: "whoever," not "whomever." I've been wanting to express this for years. If you've enjoyed this, tell all your friends you seen it here.

It may seem insignificant that John the Baptist answered "no" to the question, "Are you the Christ?" In fact, his "no" shines a light on our tendency to say "yes" and to act as if we are our own saviors.

While on a conference call this morning, I took a look at "Kevin Laughery" on Google and found a number of references to my having expressed concerns last week about setting up a Nativity scene in the Illinois State Capitol. I repeat my sense of the situation: that one must be wary of getting into the religious-symbolism business in the halls of government. I have been told that this is a free-speech matter; I still hold that there are also serious non-establishment concerns. I will be happy to discuss this issue.

Can we hold together the words "comfort" and "repent" in the same thought? If not, we need to open ourselves to the chastening received by God's people when they returned from the Babylonian Captivity.

See November 16.

See November 16.

For four weeks I failed to get my software to recognize my hardware. This morning, at last, it worked. Off the top of my head, I can't remember exactly what I was talking about in these earlier ones.