Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday
May 11, 2025
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Acts 13:14,43-52
Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 5
Revelation 7:9, 14b-17
John 10:27-30
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one”.
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Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
Pastoral Visit to the Dominican Sisters
May 5, 2024
Blessed Imelda Convent
Fort Worth, Texas
Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48
Psalm 98: 1, 2-3, 3-4
I John 4:7-10
John 15:9-17
The readings that the Church offers us in today’s liturgy center on authentic love and friendship. It is unconditional love that is the way that “the Lord has revealed to the nations His saving power” as we prayed in the 98th Psalm as our responsorial psalm. In our second reading and our Gospel for today’s liturgy the word love appears eighteen times. The type of love that is mentioned is known as agape or charity. It is not mere human love or affection. It is stronger than marital or familial love. It is the type of love that only God can instill because it is the very life of the Holy Trinity. It is this type of love that the Incarnation of Christ makes a capacity of human love and that which the Holy Spirit imbues in us as the theological virtue of charity at our Baptism and Confirmation.
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Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
Sacrament of Confirmation
April 28, 2024
St. Mary’s Catholic Church
Windthorst, Texas
Acts 9:26-31
Psalm 22:26-27, 28, 30, 31-32
I John 3:18-24
John 15:1-8
The Acts of the Apostles tells us today about Saint Paul’s entry into the Church. Three years after the Lord had appeared to him on the road to Damascus, Paul presented himself to the disciples in Jerusalem. But his reputation as Saul the enemy of the Church had preceded him, and the leaders had trouble believing that he had changed from persecuting the Church to being its defender.
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Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter
Sacrament of Confirmation
April 14, 2024
Holy Family Catholic Church
Fort Worth, Texas
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9
I John 2:1-5a
Luke 24:35-48
The disciples had returned to the Apostles after encountering Jesus while they were on the road to Emmaus. They were describing to the Apostles how they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, when Jesus suddenly appears among them and speaks to them the words, “Peace be with you.” The disciples thought they were seeing a ghost, but Jesus showed them His wounds and told them to touch Him to prove He was not a ghost. He even asked them for something to eat.
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Homily for the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
April 8, 2024
Assumption Seminary
San Antonio, Texas
Isaiah 7:10-14; 8:10
Psalm 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38
The section of Luke’s Gospel that immediately precedes the Gospel reading that we have just proclaimed is the annunciation to Zachariah that his wife Elizabeth is to conceive in her advanced age and bear a son, whom he is to name John and who will be known as John the Baptist. Zachariah was unable to speak for the entire time of Elizabeth’s pregnancy after he had experienced the vision of the Archangel Gabriel. The silence of Zachariah was not just a gift that the Lord gave to his wife Elizabeth to assist her in what would undoubtedly be a difficult pregnancy at her advanced age.
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2024 Mass of Reparation for Victims and Survivors of Abuse
Saturday in the Octave of Easter
April 6, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Acts 4:13-21
Psalm 118:14-21
Mark 16:9-15
“Though the Lord has indeed chastised me, yet He has not delivered me to death. Open to me the gates of justice and I will enter them and give thanks to the Lord.” These words of Psalm 118 which we have prayed are exemplified in a particular way in the person of Saint Mary Magdalene who is the first to experience the risen Lord Jesus. The Gospels and Tradition of the Church tell us that Mary Magdalene did not recognize the risen Lord to be Jesus until He speaks her name. Her name, like all human names, carries with it a character of the uniqueness of her person, her dignity, that is the most intimate part of her humanity — even more so than the aggregate of human nature. Her name is what identifies her as being unique as a person in the eyes of Christ — uniquely created and uniquely redeemed. Her name is so much more than a pronoun that cloaks the person in anonymity and isolation. She was denied her name when she was dominated by the seven demons that the Lord cast out from her — the demons that not only included her own sin but even more dramatically the effects of the sins of others perpetrated against her with its resulting anonymity and isolation.
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Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
Good Shepherd Sunday
April 30, 2023
Holy Family Parish
Fort Worth, Texas
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
1 Peter 2:20b-25
John 10:1-10
Today we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Easter that is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Part of our celebration incudes the administering of the sacrament of confirmation to eighteen young men and women of your parish. This is a day dedicated not only for prayer for priestly vocations but also to pray for our ordained priests and bishops that we continue to grow in configuration to Christ the Good Shepherd.
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Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter
Confirmation at St. Joseph Parish
May 1, 2022
St. Joseph Parish
Rhineland, TX
Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41
Psalm 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
John’s Gospel today reports the appearance of Jesus at the Sea of Tiberias. The disciples, who were confused and overcome by the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection, decide to return to more comfortable surroundings. Peter and a half-dozen others go back to what they know how to do best, in a sense, they try to return to their former way of life … they return to their boats and nets to go fishing. They fish all night long but come up empty. Their experience of Jesus and His love for them is so intense that they cannot return to the way things were before.
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Life on the Chrism Trail 
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