Homily for the Solemnity of the Holy Family
December 29, 2024
Saint Mark Catholic Church
Argyle, Texas
1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28
Psalm 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10
Colossians 3:12-21
Luke 2:41-52
The Church offers us in today’s liturgy of the Solemnity of the Holy Family the Gospel story that recounts the event that we reflect upon when praying the fifth joyful mystery of the Rosary: Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. The 12-year-old Jesus who stays behind in the Temple in Jerusalem unbeknown to Joseph and Mary who, surprised and anxious, discover Him three days later conversing with the teachers in the Temple. Jesus answers His mother who asks for an explanation that He must “be in his Father’s house,” that is God’s house. The Gospel relates that Mary and Joseph do not understand the meaning of Jesus’ response and then adds that Jesus returned with them in obedience and “advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God.”
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Homily for the Feast of Saint Stephen, First Martyr
December 26, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Acts 6:8-10, 7:54-59
Psalm 31:3cd-4, 6 and 8ab, 16bc and 17
Matthew 10:17-22
Christmas, the liturgical season of the birth of Emmanuel as an Infant in a Manger, is a liturgical season that is filled with the commemoration of significant martyrs: the Holy Innocents slaughtered by Herod; Saint Thomas Becket murdered in his cathedral; and today the Church gives us this Feast of Saint Stephen, the first martyr and among the first deacons in the life and history of the Church. This first day of the Christmas season, the Church celebrates the feast of the first martyr of the Faith, Stephen, whose murder reveals his complete configuration to Christ including his passion, death, and forgiveness of his murderers. It seems that the Church snaps us away from the sweet image of the Infant in the Manger with Mary and Joseph, and the angels and shepherds, to the jarringly violent murder of Stephen. The Christ Child truly is a sign of contradiction.
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Homily for Christmas Mass During the Day
December 25, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98: 1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6
Hebrews 1:1-6
John 1:1-18
It is exceedingly difficult to see in the darkness. We can stumble over things and get hurt in the darkness. We can become agitated by our imagination when we are in the dark. The darkness can make us feel isolated and lonely, not seeing and not being seen. Yet, our eyes can soon grow accustomed to the darkness and we can become satisfied with stumbling around a room in the dark. We can soon numb our imagination’s turbulence simply by imagining that “there’s no need to be afraid of the dark.” The darkness can begin as our acquaintance, soon become our companion, and end up serving as a friend of our convenience.
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Homily for Midnight Mass
December 25, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96: 1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14
“Today is born our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.” The message of Christmas is that because God became fully human through the freely given “yes” of the Blessed Virgin Mary, born amidst the darkness in Bethlehem, and given the name Jesus, human beings no longer have to be defined according to their sins. Since the time that our first parents gave into the temptation of the devil and disobeyed God, the devil’s lie had its sway over human beings resulting in our being terrified by God. Venerable Fulton Sheen wisely taught that when the devil tempts us, he convinces us that our sins are no big deal and of little consequence, but immediately after we sin, he tells us that our sin is so horrible that even God cannot forgive it and there is no hope. The lie of the devil is that our sin defines us, the truth revealed tonight in the tender Infant of Bethlehem is that humanity belongs to God and that our relationship with God through Baptism in Christ is what defines us.
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Vigil Mass of the Nativity
December 24, 2024
FMC-Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 89:4-5, 16-17, 27, 29
Titus 3:4-7
Matthew 1:18-25
For this celebration of the Vigil of Christmas, the Church offers for our reflection the annunciation of Saint Joseph as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. One of the noteworthy aspects of this reading is the silence of Saint Joseph. He responds to the announcement by the angel of the first Christmas with silence. The silence of Saint Joseph is not born of confusion regarding what this news means for Mary and for him.
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Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 22, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Micah 5:1-4a
Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45
Today, we conclude with the final Sunday of Advent in which we reflect upon the first coming of Christ as we listen to the words of the Gospel that proclaim that immediately after receiving the message of the Holy Spirit through the Archangel Gabriel and having offered her free and obedient consent to accept God’s Will to become the Mother of His Son, the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Son of God alive in her womb, urgently travels to visit her older cousin Saint Elizabeth.
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Commemoration of Saint Peter Canisius
Mass for the Saint John Paul II Shepherds Guild
December 21, 2024
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
II Timothy 4:1-5
Psalm 40:2 and 4, 7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11
Matthew 5:13-19
“Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.” We have just prayed this responsorial psalm together in union with the whole Church for our own lives as disciples and for our priests and for those in discernment and formation for a priestly vocation. To do the Lord’s will is the summation of any vocation rooted in Baptism but in a particular way the priestly vocation which is so intrinsic to fostering the fidelity of all of the baptized to the call of the Lord, that each may fulfill their response to God’s call with accountability to their promise, “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.”
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Life on the Chrism Trail 