2024 Sep 29 SUN: TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Nm 11: 25-29/ Ps 19: 8. 10. 12-13. 14 (9a)/ Jas 5: 1-6/ Mk 9: 38-43. 45. 47-48

Very briefly I want to talk about some things in the second half of this Gospel and in the second reading. We know that Jesus is not calling us literally to maim ourselves. He is making a point that it is better to enter the kingdom of heaven one way or another rather than fail to do so. In the second reading -- this is our last selection from the letter of James -- James is already bemoaning the fate of those who cling to their riches. If they cling to them they cannot with open arms receive the gift of the kingdom of heaven. You and I may not consider ourselves especially wealthy but actually our economic standard of living is the envy of billions. We have to keep in mind that we are called to live lives of sharing with those in need. 

The main thing I want to get to here is the theme that is obviously set up by the passage from Numbers and by the Gospel today. And it has to do with the question who is in and who is out. And we hear that Jesus is talking about inclusion. And that's especially important to think about because very recently Pope Francis made some statements about non-Christian religions and a lot of people were bothered by it.

But the Pope was saying something that was entirely consistent with the Second Vatican Council: that all who are yearning for and seeking what is good and true and holy will find themselves united with the Son of God who offered himself for all people, past, present, and future. I call this the anthropological principle of the Christian faith. It's something we find in no other religion.

And it's entirely based upon the fact that the Son of God saw fit to unite himself with our human nature and with every one of us individually. I can remember at the end of my first semester of working on a degree in theology that I had an oral exam. And the professor asked me, "How do we know that people are united with Jesus?" And I found myself struggling to come up with an answer. But the professor provided the answer for me. And I look upon this still as a great moment of wisdom, by receiving great wisdom,  when he said, "By the very fact that the Son of God has taken on human flesh, all people are united with Jesus." 

And whenever I think about his telling me that, I find myself looking at my hands. I'm looking at my human flesh, and I think of the human flesh of all people. And I realize the gift has been given. 

You and I, especially as we witness a baptism today, have the joy of explicitly proclaiming faith in the Word-made flesh. And we can be confident that people who are earnestly seeking what is true and what is good, people who have never heard of Jesus, and even people who think they know Jesus and reject Him, all these people can be welcomed in. I am sure that it has occurred to many of us that God becoming human is the way that humans need to be loved. We all have our bad days, and sometimes those bad days can extend to weeks and months. We're just not sure of what this is all about, being human, but we have the good news that the Son of God has been absolutely the opposite of indifferent to our human state and to our struggles. And of course, He laid down His life and rose victorious. In all this we trust.

You may have been aware that the priests of the diocese were taking part in our annual convocation this past week. In addition, I attended a meeting of the Diocesan Pastoral Council in Springfield yesterday. And some months ago, there was a group of priests set up to study what you might call the use of priest energy in the 28 counties of our diocese. They gave us some interesting figures. First of all, that our weekend Mass schedule is such that we are ready for 112,000 people every weekend. The fact is, however, that we have only about 36,000 people at weekend Mass in our 129 parishes. So one recommendation which they are making is that across the board, across all parishes of the diocese, we consider dropping a Mass on our weekend schedule. So I have some ideas about this, and I'm not going to talk about them until I have conferred with neighboring pastors. I want to give you some reasons for this. They also gave us a statistic that a church feels full to the people assembled when we are at about 65% of seating capacity. And we think that this is a desirable goal.

The reason for that is if you are in an assembly, if you are in a church that feels full, there is a sense of energy, we feel more alive, and those who are here will be more motivated to enter more deeply into the life of the local parish. So we are, as we say, studying this, and we are not going to be making any changes for a number of months. But when we hear this, we say, "Oh yeah, okay, well, we need to reduce the number of Masses, but don't mess up my schedule." 

In the Gospel today, the Twelve cannot fathom this thing that Jesus is telling them that He has to be killed, and He will be raised up after three days. They don't want to go anywhere near this thing that Jesus is telling them. Now, dropping a Mass is not the same, but we find ourselves very likely doing exactly what the Twelve are doing. They change the subject. They get into an argument about which one of them is the greatest. Do we recognize ourselves? I think we can recognize our reluctance to look at things which may be difficult, which may require extra sacrifice on our part. This goes along with the Old Testament passage. This is from a very late Old Testament book, the Book of Wisdom, and we hear the resentment that is residing in the hearts of the people who feel threatened by one who acts justly. 

The passage from James is also of great interest. It talks about being enslaved by our passions, and that's an important thing to look at. These days it seems that we use the term "passionate" quite a bit, and we're sort of congratulating ourselves as we say we're passionate about one thing or another. Well, we keep in mind that very word "passion" comes from a root meaning "to suffer." A passion is something that we undergo, either more or less willingly. When I hear someone say I'm passionate about something, I find myself, at least, saying to myself, "Oh, that's good." To say that we're passionate is pretty much the same as saying we have a pulse or we have a blood pressure, or we have feelings. Yes, these are all things that remind us of our humanity, including our limits. But we need to remember that we can praise ourselves for being passionate, let's say about the religious formation of our children, or we're passionate about hunting, or passionate about a particular recipe we like. Well, these have various degrees of importance, and we need to keep that clear in our minds. 

Now, Jesus, when he confronts the Twelve with their changing the subject, when he does this, he calls a child to him, and he says to the Twelve, "If you want to be great, you remember that your mission is to receive even this child." It is a call to us that says, "We all have been children." How have we turned out? What is our wish? What is our prayer for this child?  What gifts do you want this child to accept? Maybe there are gifts that we were slow to accept, which took us a long time to come around to recognize as valuable. We pray for every one of us that we might accept what is truly valuable.

As I think of a word by which to sum up all of the scriptures today, I believe that word is denial. Denial is a very common aspect of our consciousness. We decide that there are many, many things in life we would prefer to avoid.

And so we exercise denial over them. One example is in the letter of James. We have here the image of a brother or sister, and we need to remember those words, "brother" and "sister" who does not have enough to eat or to wear.

Denial puts distance between ourselves and this person whom we could help. Somehow we manage to say to ourselves, "It does not concern me. I cannot do anything." And I suppose that this denial is rooted in an unexamined fear, really an irrational fear, that says, "Well, if I start giving, I won't have anything." That's how our minds can work. We also find denial as Peter has this exchange with Jesus.

Mark does not tell us exactly what Peter said, but we can look at other Gospels and see that Peter says, "God forbid that any such thing should happen to you." And we know that Jesus then turns to Peter to say, "Get behind me, Satan." He's using the term "satan" to mean "adversary." The adversary is trying to get in the way of Jesus' mission to lay down his life for the sake of all of us.

We have from the prophet Isaiah the third of the four suffering servant songs. We hear this every year on Palm Sunday that the servant of God has set his face like flint, knowing that he will not be put to shame.

And that is another irrational fear that many of us have, that suffering is shameful. But when we know the purpose of our suffering, it is anything but shameful.

Anyone of us can embrace suffering out of love, as Jesus did. So how do we emerge from a state of denial?

We can start by realizing how common denial is. We tend to associate denial with addictions of various kinds. If alcohol is one's thing, for instance, there is a lot of rationalization going on, "Oh, I'm not drinking that much," or, "Oh, I'm only drinking beer," things like that.

But once you get started, it does become completely absurd, the things that we tell ourselves. So we have to be aware of the denial we are submitting to.

And then take a look at what human life is about. It is not about self-absorption, which is common to all kinds of addiction.

We know that we are here to be present to one another, to love and serve one another, to affirm our dignity as human beings. It is a dignity which we may not have recognized ourselves, but we give thanks that the Son of God has affirmed our dignity.

Well, here we are, gathered together in one place. Someone once said that the church could be described as "Here comes everybody." Because we understand this assembly is for everyone.

We think in territorial terms, and we say that the people in a particular territory who are Catholic Christians come to this particular assembly or church, because they are members of this particular parish.

And we know that we are to find out who we really are when we come together for this assembly, for the Sunday Eucharist, on which we give thanks for the resurrection of Jesus on a Sunday.

But there are many questions that could be raised about our coming together here. And we hear some questions in the letter of James.

And it's good for us to remember that in the very early years of Christianity, people came together for the Eucharist, for the breaking of the bread, for the most part, in private homes. So we need to imagine this. And James suggests that you might pay a lot of attention to someone with gold rings and fine clothes, and give this person some kind of privilege.

Whereas there might be someone that you judge to be less important. And you say, "Well, there's room to stand over here, or you can sit at my feet." And James is pointing out that this is how we carry out discrimination among people, when we are to understand that we enjoy a radical equality, because we are the children of God, we are the ones redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are equals. And we realize that as we come to this Eucharist, there is no one among us who has life figured out.

And the one great riddle for all of us is our mortality, the fact that we are subject to death. And we come here because the Son of God has addressed this riddle of death, and he has done so definitively by laying down his life and then rising from the dead and bringing all of us with him into resurrection.

Now we have to help one another. We think of the various liturgical ministers who volunteer to take on various roles in our celebration.

We think of lecturers and servers and Eucharistic ministers. It is important for us to know that the people you see carrying out these functions are on a very short rotation.

And we can easily have many, many more people assume these roles. And if we are not inclined to volunteer in this way, it is important for us to ask ourselves, "What are we afraid of?" Being seen?

Well, you find out when you let yourself be seen, you can relax. Again, we are not here to impress one another or engage in some sort of one upmanship.

We are all pilgrims on this great journey, and we learn to be at ease and at peace with one another. 

In the Gospel, we have related social concerns.

We take note of the fact that Jesus, in carrying out this healing of this man, takes him away from the crowd, gives him some privacy.

And when you think about the various things that Jesus does, which seem very, very crude to us, putting his fingers into the man's ears, spitting, touching his tongue, and groaning.

I think if we were receiving this service, we'd just as soon not have anyone see us. And we take special note of the groaning, because sometimes when it comes to prayer, yes, we have words for prayer.

But there are times when all we can do is groan. And St. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit himself groans along with us.

It's strange, of course, that although Jesus told the people to keep this quiet, they announce it to the world. Jesus' point is that he only does healings when there is an expression of faith.

And people have faith in Jesus to do this. And when we have received some benefit, some great healing, it's not the first thing we do to tell everybody, we have to reflect on the meaning of this healing.

And among other things, we realize that if we're given the power to speak, we don't have to speak all the time. We also must take time for listening and listening to our Lord and what he wants us to do with our various powers.

So keep all this in mind as we give thanks for our various gifts. And remember that those gifts are for the sake of service.

Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you a joke and you had to think about it for a little while before you got it? I'm thinking about something which I would say is not strictly a joke; it was an exchange between me and a student at a school I ran.

This was about 30 years ago. And I asked a student, "What is a defibrillator?" And the student replied, "Is it a lie detector?" I thought that student was pretty sharp. There are things, and we hear this from Jesus today, that you try to say something and make something sink in.

It might take a while. And that's what Jesus is saying here. And he uses some language here in Mark's Gospel. We've returned to Mark after hearing from John. Jesus is saying, "Hear me, all of you, and understand." I think I've seen some translations that say, "And try to understand." In other words, give it your attention so that a new idea might kick in.

Now, we could think that these scribes and Pharisees had something important to point out. You and I have been through a global pandemic, and we all know the importance of cleanliness when it comes to our food.

So, in these laws that they observed, they might have been developing this according to an insight by which they equated lack of hygiene with disease. But Jesus is not going in this direction. We have to follow his argument here.

And what he says you have to try to understand is, that food goes in, waste passes out. It really does not have anything to do with you. What does have to do with you is whatever comes from within your heart. And that's the point he is trying to get across.

And he gives us this list of the things that may be residing in our hearts, which are sinful and are really ruinous to relationships with one another and with our God. So, Jesus is also saying that there are laws that are much more important than other laws.

We know when we think about the great, real multiplicity of laws that we find in every aspect of our lives, we know that some laws are more important than others. And all laws can be summed up by the two great commandments. Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.

And Moses in speaking about law, is saying in this passage from the book of Deuteronomy, that laws are based upon wisdom. And if we understand and carry out the laws, we are conforming ourselves to wisdom, provided again that we know what the really important things are and how various laws connect to the great commandments.

We begin to read today, and we will do so for a total of five Sundays, from the letter of James, which has been a source of controversy among Christians for at least 500 years. You've heard of the controversy over faith and works.

James seems to be very much focused on the works we do, the good things we do. And some have said you have to focus on the fact that God loves us and frees us from our sins.

Well, it's not an either-or situation. It's not faith or works. If you do things that you see are good in order to make God love you, that's the wrong direction. It's the wrong emphasis.

On the other hand, if you say God loves me and forgives me and that doesn't lead to a change in how you conduct your life, well, that's useless as well. It's not faith or works. It is faith. Yes, that incredible awareness we have of God's love for us.

It is that faith which gives us the energy to make our lives a work of thanksgiving. So it is faith leading to works.

And we need to keep that in mind as we hear from a portion of the New Testament which is distinct, which has its own set of issues to address. We are here allowing ourselves to be enveloped in the love that God has for us, a love that's been shown to us through various people in our lives.

We welcome this opportunity to celebrate that love and then to allow our gratitude to form our works.

I believe many of you know, because I've spoken about this at times, that I have been helped greatly by the sciences of psychology and psychiatry. And we recognize that these disciplines are addressing the human person in our complexity.

And we are the most complex creatures of God. And I bring this up because our readings today mention wisdom. And I am thinking about one school of thought in psychology and it's okay to have many, many different schools of thought. Again, it's because of our complexity. There are so many ways that we can approach the human person. And I'm thinking about stages of normal human development. And I'm going to the end. I'm going to the last couple of stages. There are maybe eight or nine, or it looks like some people have added more. But anyway, according to my references, the second to the last stage of personality development is called generativity. And we hear that and we think, "Oh, yes, having children." That is obviously one way to be generative. But for those of us who do not have children, we can also exercise generativity by being creative, for instance, in the arts in one way or another. And generativity leads to what is considered the final stage.

And that's called wisdom. And it is interesting that our Scriptures today in the first and second readings mention wisdom. You may also have noted in the fourth verse of our opening hymn ["Here at This Table"] that there is a reference to wisdom. It's not as if through the course of our life we were totally without wisdom. But the final stage of our earthly life is for the sake of summing up, recognizing the wisdom we have acquired. It might have been at many different turning points during the course of our life. And it may have been through mistakes we'd made. In any event, wisdom is saying to us, "Yes, you can look upon your life as worthy." You can recognize that you have lived on behalf of very, very important values.

And so we have in Proverbs the invitation to the banquet offered by wisdom. There's also a banquet offered by folly, by foolishness. And we didn't read that, but you can read it on your own. Just go to the ninth chapter of the book of Proverbs. And then St. Paul in Ephesians goes on to address wisdom as well. And he specifically indicates the problem of getting drunk on wine, as he says. Apparently such behavior did upset many of the earliest Christian communities. So we take all this into account and then we return to Jesus' instruction on himself as the bread of life. And he is very, very earthy in this particular passage. He is saying, "You must eat my flesh and drink my blood." And people just don't know what to do with this. They say that's impossible. At the same time, they're probably thinking it's disgusting as well to say that. And all the more they're saying, "Drink my blood, that's impossible." The dietary regulations totally forbid the ingestion of blood. It may seem as if there is no wisdom to be gained here. You and I are thankful that we have been introduced and exposed to this incredible gift of the Son of God who became one of us. He has loved us completely, all the way to death, followed by resurrection. And we are united with his love in a most intimate way, the most intimate way that we can imagine through our partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. So we give thanks for the gift of wisdom. And we know that next weekend, the last of our five weekends in which we have detoured from Mark into the Gospel of John, we look forward to hearing the profession of faith of Saint Peter, when people go away, but Peter says, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of everlasting life."

Jesus ratchets up the tension as he makes declarations which are hard for most of his listeners to accept.

"I am the bread of life."  Some notes on how to receive Holy Communion.

We will get to "the bread of life" next week.  Today, I call on a teddy bear to help us focus on "bearing with" each other (Ephesians).

Ephesians, on the "assembly," fits in well with the other readings' emphasis on shepherding.

Five minutes of music at the beginning of a Mass at the Cathedral of the Apostolic Vicariate of Izabal, Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.  The entire country was celebrating the 500th anniversary of the first Mass in Guatemalan territory.

First Sunday homily with, perhaps, better audio quality.  On standoffishness and its opposite.

Using a new app for recording MP3 files.

I have determined that the iRiver digital recorder, given to me by my friend Brian and which I have been using for 19 years, has expired.  Shortly I will be switching to a phone app.  The homilies currently on the dead recorder will not be retrieved.

Heaven will be beyond our imagining ... and also very familiar.

Our faith does depend upon the testimony of witnesses.

Understanding is superior to seeing.

The consciousness of Jesus and his self-emptying.

"Christ learned obedience from what he suffered."  This statement from Hebrews may be hard to accept.  But Jesus' experience of suffering allows us to bear our own.

Anger and love can and, very often, do go together.

Anger.

Fasting from words.

Peace is one of the gifts of the season of Lent.

There are many indications in Mark's Gospel of an aspect of Jesus' personality: that he is eager for solitude and quiet.

Each of us is more than what we do.  The same goes for Jesus.

The deacon preached on January 21.  -- Can we appreciate the peace and calm arising from being freed from mental illness?

The touching call of Samuel gives all of us hope that we will hear the call of God, even if many times we mishear it.

Ephesians: The nations beyond the Chosen People inherit the Good News of Jesus' death and resurrection.

On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, I left the recording device behind, and when I remembered it, I said to myself that I would be mad to run home for it on this absolutely crazy weekend, with Christmas on Monday.  -- We'd like to see around the bend, beyond our capacities.  But we remember: "Lord, your words have been fulfilled."

We make many decisions about who we think is impressive and attractive.  We might want to re-think our criteria.

I remember why December 3 did not get recorded.  My recording device had a dead battery.  -- Where are we to find comfort and joy?

"The least" is not Jesus' concept.  It is something we have devised so we can tell ourselves to whom to pay attention.  Jesus confounds our strategies.

I cannot recall why I did not record November 12.  -- There is more to life than being industrious.

A focus on today's psalm, 131, about the peace which all profess to desire.

We must heed St. Paul's words: "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind."

Peter professes faith in Jesus ... having no idea what his adherence to Jesus will mean.

I cannot recall why I have no recording for August 13.  -- I reflect on a discussion of the nature of interfaith friendship.  These words seem quite prescient as we consider the agony in Gaza/West Bank and Israel.

We consider the feelings of Peter, James and John as they behold their Master transfigured.

It appears that I recorded myself twice this Sunday.

I regret that next Sunday's feast of the Transfiguration keeps us from hearing "What can separate us?" (Romans 8.) So I have included what we otherwise would have heard the following Sunday!

Do you often rebuke temerity?  Are you frustrated by a lack of explanation of Jesus' parables?  Why does prayer seem to be so much like groaning?

I was on vacation on July 9.  -- We must open ourselves to the gift of insight, a way of seeing more deeply the meaning of life.

My best guess is that the deacon preached on June 25.  -- A return to Romans 6 and the core teaching on baptism.

We read from Romans that our salvation is sheer gift.

Reflections on the Eucharist in light of the death of a man who built an altar.

It appears that I have copied over the Fifth Sunday of Easter and following so that they are lost.  My apologies.

Even the First Letter of Peter contains imagery of sheep and shepherding.

The First Letter of Peter thinks about Jesus' death and resurrection as our "ransom" from eternal death.

We must take note of the First Letter of Peter, our second reading for the Sundays of Easter this year.  There are many statements of encouragement which make us feel more alive.

Are we, in fact, ready for the gift of resurrection?

The ninth chapter of John's Gospel causes us to ask: Who is really blind?

The raising of Lazarus was a sign of the coming resurrection -- and also a provocation.

On the Second Sunday of Lent, the deacon preached.  -- We must be aware of our various thirsts.

Considering distraction as a major element of temptation leading to sin.

This homily ran a lot longer than usual, mainly because of late word of the homicide by firearm of an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles.  The focus is mainly on our misunderstanding of what Jesus means when he says we are to be "perfect."

A discussion of the reality of free will.

Jesus says, "Let your light shine"; but he also says "Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."  Does he contradict himself?

Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes: promises that we will be happy even if it seems we are out of step with what most of the world is doing.

This is the Sunday of the Word of God, and we begin our year-long reading from the Gospel of Matthew with Jesus' choosing of his first four disciples.

We are getting started with the long expanse of Ordinary Time and particularly with a continuous reading from Paul's first letter to the Christians of Corinth, Greece.

The Bishop of Rome Emeritus, Pope Benedict XVI, died yesterday.  His resignation in 2013 provided an example to all of us that we all must acknowledge our limits.  Mary's identity as "Mother of God" means that she is pointing to her Son and encouraging us to greater amazement at his identity as truly God and truly human.

In our age of information, the Scriptures for Christmas Day are all about the Word who says everything to us.

Advent points us to completion and fulfillment.  What do we think such fulfillment will look like?

Entering the privileged time of Advent, we are invited into timelessness and the possibility of doing something productive with our swords.

Please note: A number of Sundays are missing.  I know that I left the device at home on the Third Sunday of Advent, when I pointed out a crescendo in what the prophets and the Gospels were saying about "the one who is to come."  Other Sundays, the deacon preached.

Kingship and kinship: Christ is King of humanity because he has identified with our lowest ebb.

The Sadducees did not believe in eternal life; therefore, they were sad, you see.

Last weekend, the deacon preached.  -- If we think about sin, we must also think about mercy, forgiveness, and healing.

Prayer is not for the sake of controlling God.  We must immerse ourselves in prayer so that we may discover how to be united with our God.

The story of Naaman inspires us to consider failures of imagination and the concept of local gods.

Again, the homilist must have forgotten to record September 18.  Too bad; it built on an earlier Sunday's pronouncement that life is not a game.  On September 25, the deacon preached.  -- We need to become more comfortable with the statement "We are unprofitable servants" so that we will wait actively for "the vision."

The weekend of September 4, the homilist was in Paris and North Arm while their priest made a Mission Co-op appeal in the homilist's parishes on behalf of his diocese in Rwanda.  -- The stories of Luke 15 can be revisited countless times, and they do not get old.  God's mercy does not make sense -- but we know we need it.

Jesus is not giving an etiquette lesson.  He is asking us why we are so concerned about status when people who cannot gain any such status need to be responded to.

The homilist must have failed to record August 14, shortly after his mother's funeral.  -- Anyway, LIFE IS NOT A GAME and is, in fact, BETTER than a game.

The homilist preached on the short form of the Gospel, seeing no need to talk about beatings.

After three weeks away, because of a visit to Guatemala and the souvenir he brought back (Covid), the homilist returns and considers the vanity-content of our lives.

Do you think that perhaps Jesus was seeking new recruits because he was having second thoughts about James and John?

The return to Ordinary Time and a consideration of vocation was somewhat overshadowed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision and its implications.

This separate celebration of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist can never be separated from Holy Thursday and the Passion of Jesus.

Two persons of the Trinity are called "Father" and "Son."  Therefore I decided to stick with family relationships.

We, the Christian community, can work through our problems together.

The Christian people began with a small number; Revelation promises that this nucleus will grow into a vast throng.

We as Christian community must be fed by the Sacred Scriptures.

The gift of resurrection is the foundation of our Christian community.

What sort of conversation can be held among three people condemned and dying?  Saint Luke's Passion gives us an example, and it is the opposite of futile.

Our lives are not games.  We must not manipulate people.  We must treasure the gift of forgiveness which our God has given us, and allow that gift to make us compassionate.

The story of the father and his two sons never fails to agitate us as we marvel at the behaviors therein portrayed.

The "problem of evil" is best addressed by our looking at the evil within our own hearts, and opening ourselves to conversion.

How are promises to be fulfilled?  What is our reaction if we simply see no way to fulfillment?

Beware the polarities of "I am God" and "I am nothing."  If we understand ourselves as God's beloved creatures, we will be less likely to succumb to temptation.

The Third and Fifth Sundays of Easter, and the Ascension, are missing.  In the case of the first two, I had left the recorder at home and did not feel like running back for it.  The Ascension marked the return of Deacon Bob Crosby, who preached.

As I recall, on the Third Sunday of Easter, I preached about our need as Christian community to grow comfortable with one another -- which Peter obviously was not when he discovered himself to be in the presence of the risen Jesus.  On the Fifth Sunday of Easter, I focused on the word "elder" in the Acts of the Apostles and the fact that I am technically a presbyter or "elder," and became an elder before I had turned 26.

There was a lot to talk about, including the Russian attack on Ukraine, in light of the image of having a block of wood in your eye.

It was a crazy day, and what I have here is a summary.  Love your enemies.

"Blessed are you who are poor": may there be no obstacles to our accepting this promise of Jesus.  (This file runs a little long; I remembered to turn off the device after I dismissed our catechumen.)

I don't like to be startled.  Peter, I suppose, needed to be startled.  I trust in God's gentle revelations to me of his presence.

St. Paul's meditation on love anchors us in a sense of what is valuable.

How clear is St. Paul's "analogy of the body"!

The Magi, the baptism of Jesus, the wine at Cana: all these are connected with Epiphany, the manifestation of Jesus to the world.

In the midst of uncertainty, we have a "theophany" -- God showing himself to us.  Sorry, this file runs a little long; I forgot to turn off the device.

We see very clearly that the human family is a global community.