Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time
World Mission Sunday
October 22, 2023
Saint Rita Catholic Church
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
Psalm 96:1, 3, 4-5,7-8, 9-10
First Thessalonians 1:1-5b
Matthew 22:15-21
Pope Francis has set for the theme for this year’s World Mission Sunday, Hearts on Fire, Feet on the Move. Our hearts are on fire with love and our feet move forward with zeal. The grace of our Baptism and full initiation in the life of the Church makes us missionaries who have come to recognize the Lord in the opening of the Word and in the Breaking of the Bread and then we are sent to bring this good news of salvation and mercy to those to whom God sends us. God uses many different means to send us out for His mission.
Read more…
Homily for the Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time
October 15, 2023
University of Texas at Arlington
Arlington, Texas
Isaiah 25:6-10a
Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20
Matthew 22:1-14
The readings that the Church offers us for our reflection on this Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time present us with two symbolic examples of garments. There is the wedding garment from Jesus’ parable and there is the veiling of death (a shroud) from the first reading from Isaiah. These two garments represent two possibilities for our decision that the Lord offers us along with His invitation to follow Him. They represent two pathways: the way of life and the way of death. They call to mind the option presented in the thirty-first chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, “I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing, and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.”
Read more…
Homily for Mass for Babies Who Died Before Baptism
October 14, 2023
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 25:6a, 7-8b
Psalm 25:4-5ab, 6, 7b, 17,20
Matthew 11:25-30
“On this mountain He will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations. He will destroy death forever. The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces; the reproach of His people He will remove from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.” The veil of death about which Isaiah speaks has many layers in which human beings have been shrouded and obscured since our first parents sinned in disobedience in the Garden of Eden. There is first the bitter experience of death whereby human beings are separated from each other and where there formerly was a father, or a mother, or a sister, or a friend, now remains only a gap with bittersweet memories and a tear in the fabric of one’s life.
Read more…
Homily for Diocesan Teachers Service Awards Mass
October 13, 2023
Nolan Catholic High School
Fort Worth, Texas
Joel 1:13-15; 2:1-2
Psalm 9:2-3, 6 and 16, 8-9
Luke 11:15-26
Today’s first reading from the Book of Joel is also the first reading for the Mass of Ash Wednesday. The message of the prophet Joel is that each person is first a member of a community, members of one people called to repentance and radical conversion from selfishness to a life directed to love of God and neighbor. The prophet Joel summoned the people for a service of repentance seeking God’s mercy and forgiveness. God, having heard the people’s painful expression of contrition, in turn promised the people of Israel a time of peace and prosperity. The good news is that His judgment is not a judgment of condemnation but a judgment of salvation that liberates us from the power of sin.
Read more…
Homily for the Memorial of Saint Bruno
October 6, 2023
Assumption Seminary
San Antonio, Texas
Philippians 3:8-14
Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 5
Luke 9:57-62
An Apostle is one who is called by Christ, promptly answers the call from Christ, and then follows and is sent from Christ into the mission he has received from the Father: to establish the Kingdom of God. Authentic hearing, prompt response, and generous obedience and priority of Christ’s mission of salvation are three aspects of what is known as an apostolic heart. The vocation to the priesthood requires an apostolic heart and that heart is developed and grown for freedom’s sake through your formation in the seminary.
Read more…
Homily for Alumni Day of Theological College
Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi
October 4, 2023
Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, DC
Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18
Psalm 16:1b-2a, 5, 7-8, 11
Galatians 6:14-18
Matthew 11:25-30
“You are my inheritance, O Lord.” We pray this psalm today with the Church as we gather to worship God as He desires to be worshipped through the sacrifice of the Mass. We do so as the entire Church, made so by the Eucharist we offer, and we particularly do so in gratitude for our priestly vocations nurtured and formed at Theological College of the Catholic University of America. In fidelity to our call and to our ordination, we pray for our departed formators and mentors, and our departed friends and priestly brothers for their eternal repose in God’s Mercy. The responsorial psalm for this Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi speaks profoundly of the evangelical meaning of the poverty of Saint Francis and its import on our life as the Church in contemporary times and particularly on our mission as Christ’s priests, configured to Him at our ordination as Head and Shepherd of the Church. “You are my inheritance, O Lord.”
Read more…
Homily for the Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
October 1, 2023
St. Michael Catholic Church
Bedford, Texas
Ezekiel 18:25-28
Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Philippians 2:1-11
Matthew 21:28-32
In today’s Gospel, Jesus presents us with a parable about a father with two different sons. The first son rejects the father’s direction to go out and work in the vineyard, but then later proceeds to answer his father’s direction and does go to work in the vineyard. The father makes the same request of the second son who responds reverently that he will do as the father asks, but then proceeds not to do what he has said that he would do. Jesus asks the chief priests and elders which son did as the father requested. They respond that the first son did as the father requested. Jesus then makes his point by implicating the chief priests and elders as maintaining the same disobedience and false piety as the second son, while prostitutes and tax collectors display the obedience of the first son.
Read more…
Life on the Chrism Trail 