September 26, 2024 – Life on the Chrism Trail

Homily for the Red Mass for the Diocese of Fort Worth

September 26, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Daniel 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28
Psalm 104:1-2, 24, 35, 27-28, 29, 30
Romans 8:14-17
Luke 10:25-37

Our first reading taken from the Book of Daniel begins by describing an elite banquet hosted by the Babylonian King Belshazzar for one thousand of his nobles. As the banquet deteriorates into the haze of inebriation, the king orders brought to him the holy vessels that they had plundered from the Temple in Jerusalem when they vanquished God’s Chosen People. As the Babylonian king, his nobles, and their concubines enter further into debauchery, guzzling from the precious chalices that had been reserved for the sacredness of Temple sacrifice in honor of the one true God, they begin to mock the God of Israel and to praise their material idols of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.