February 2024 – Life on the Chrism Trail

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent

February 18, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Genesis 9:8-15
Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:12-15

The covenant between God and Noah symbolized by the rainbow foreshadows the covenant between God and the Church; the waters of the flood indicate the waters of Baptism – they bring life not death; the ark symbolizes the Church. Just as Noah and his family received refuge in the ark from death by being carried upon the waters of the flood, so, God offers us refuge in the Church from the death of sin and its punishments by carrying us upon the waters of Baptism that open for us the gates of eternal life.

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mass for the Conferral of Papal Honors

February 10, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46
Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11
1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

Today’s Gospel shows Jesus’ compassion in healing a man with leprosy. Jesus then sends the healed man to the priests of the Temple to show them that he has been healed in accord with the norms of the Old Covenant and the regulations for the Temple. Yet, Jesus does more than simply bring the man into compliance with the norms of the Temple. Rather, Jesus truly cures the man at the root of the disease that causes true alienation and ostracism from society, that is sin itself. In so doing, Jesus shows Himself to be not only the Christ but the Son of God who fulfills the Old Covenant that is only provisional until the coming of the Christ.

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Vespers: 28^th World Day of Consecrated Life

February 2, 2024
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle Parish
Fort Worth, Texas

Psalm 11:1-5, 7
Psalm 129
Colossians 1:12-20
Hebrews 4:15-16

Many of us learned in clinical pastoral education, and even more so in our religious formation, that it is insensitive to respond to the expressed suffering of others with the response, “I know how you feel.” This response is seldom uttered by the truly empathetic and usually is made as an introduction into a diatribe about one’s own sufferings. It is most often a response that is not spoken as the fruit of listening but simply to pacify another person in preparation for moving on to another subject.