Homily for the Lunar New Year
February 15, 2026
Our Lady of Fatima Church
Fort Worth, Texas
Genesis 1:14-18
Psalm 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Philippians 4:4-8
Matthew 6:25-34
We come together today to worship God in the offering of the Mass. We do so because God has revealed Himself fully to us through the Sacred Scriptures and fully in the gift of His Son Jesus Christ, who taught the Apostles and His earliest disciples to do this in His memory. We come together as members of His Holy Catholic Church in communion with the Church throughout the world.
Read more…
Homily for the Memorial of Saint John Bosco
January 31, 2026
Theological College
Washington, D.C.
Philippians 4:4-9
Psalm 103:1bc-2, 3-4, 8-9, 13-14, 17-18
Matthew 18:1-5
Today the Church offers us this liturgical Memorial of Saint John Bosco, a saint of the nineteenth century who was renowned for his humble dedication to the care and education of orphaned and abandoned boys and adolescents. He and his brother Salesians accepted the responsibility of care for these young men whom the world considered to be a burden on society.
Read more…
Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 1, 2026
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13
Psalm 146
1st Corinthians 1:26-31
Matthew 5:1-12a
“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach…” There are two groups depicted in today’s Gospel: the crowds and the disciples. Jesus teaches His disciples, and they listen because He has called them by name, and they belong to Him. A crowd is without identity and thrives on frenzy. Crowds are pieced together by individuals who out of fear or indifference have jettisoned the responsibility that accompanies belonging as a lawful member of society in exchange for fitting in with the prevailing mood of the time. The disciples are governed by faith in God as Christ’s Church.
Read more…
Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
World Mission Sunday
October 19, 2025
St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church
Prosper, Texas
Exodus 17:8-13
Psalm 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Luke 18:1-8
In 1926 Pope Pius XI decreed that each year on the penultimate Sunday of October, the Church would keep a day dedicated to World Missions to remind all Catholics of our shared responsibility to promote the spread of the authentic Gospel in every conceivable way. We can and should support missionary work with our financial gifts, but even more we must seek to live as faithful disciples and loving friends of the Lord Jesus and so bear witness to everyone we meet that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Read more…
Homily for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Celebration of the 130th anniversary of St. Joseph Parish
August 31, 2025
St. Joseph Catholic Church
Rhineland, Texas
Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29
Psalm 68:4-5, 6-7, 10-11
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24a
Luke 14:1, 7-14
“God in your goodness, you have made a home for the poor.” Our responsorial psalm for today’s Mass, taken from Psalm 68, describes the essence of the prayer life of Father Reisdorf’s vision and labor in the foundation of this parish and the community of Rhineland that this parish has served for one hundred and thirty years.
Read more…
Reflection for Vespers for Thursday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Oath of Fidelity for Candidates for Diaconate Ordination
August 7, 2025
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Psalm 72
Psalm 72
Revelation 11:17-18; 12:10b-12a:3-4
1 Peter 1:22-23
Every time we pray vespers, we pray the Magnificat, the song of praise sung by Our Lady at the Visitation of her cousin Elizabeth. Her song is a song of hope in God’s triumphant intervention into human history, and it reveals her to be filled with God’s Grace, her trusting dependence and complete communion with God and calls us to our own reliance on His grace in our own vocations. Like so many other graces from God, we can take for granted the message of the Magnificat that we pray every day.
Read more…
Homily for the Mass for the Convocation of Teachers of the Schools of the Diocese of Fort Worth
Memorial of Saint John Vianney
August 4, 2025
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church
Keller, Texas
Numbers 11:4b-15
Psalm 81:12-13, 14-15, 16-17
Matthew 14:13-21
Sing with joy to God our help!
In our Gospel reading, we see the disciples come to Jesus with what they surmise to be a problem. The disciples tell Jesus, “This is a deserted place, and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.”
Read more…
Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time
February 15, 2025
St. Bartholomew Catholic Church
Fort Worth, Texas
Jeremiah 17:5-8
Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6
1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20
Luke 6:17, 20-26
Jesus cautions us that prestige, power, and complacency can prompt us to lose our way with Him. To be a disciple of Jesus involves our dying to these selfish preoccupations so that the life of Christ can exist in us that we might raise with Him from the dead on the last day. His teaching on the Beatitudes in today’s Gospel requires us to invert the sense of values and purposes that our contemporary world espouses for meaning and happiness — power, financial success, and pleasure. These values only seem to promise freedom and to bring security to the individual. This teaching of Jesus in His Sermon on the Plain invites His disciples to risk estrangement from this world by trusting Him and by following Him in the way that He lives and loves. This way of life and love that involves surrender and trust is most clearly manifested and made present in the sacramental vocation of marriage with its graced and promised intentions of permanence, fidelity, and openness to God’s gift of children.
Read more…
Life on the Chrism Trail 
You must be logged in to post a comment.