Homily for Midnight Mass
December 25, 2025
St. 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
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.” What is this darkness into which streams such brilliant light? What is this gloom prophesied by Isaiah? This darkness and gloom is the experience of a newborn child being born in a filthy stable and resting in a trough because he and his parents are not wanted so that there is no other room for them within a human society; valued only for enumeration in the census ordered by Caesar. The gloom of rejection that will shadow this child’s life through His Passion and Death is present even tonight.
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Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 21, 2025
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 7:10-14
Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-24
At this Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church provides us with a set of readings from Scripture that present us with two different paths on which we are free to travel but on which only one leads us to God-with us-Emmanuel. There is the way of Ahaz and there is the way of Saint Joseph, the righteous man. The way of fantasy and cunning or the way of dreams and grace.
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Life on the Chrism Trail 