Martin Luther King Jr. – Life on the Chrism Trail

Homily for the Vigil of the Epiphany of the Lord

Mass on the Occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 7, 2023
St. Michael Church
Bedford, Texas

Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13
Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12

The solemnity of the Epiphany is about God’s self-revelation that both offers and requires the gift of faith. Through the solemnity of the Epiphany, God invites us into the mystery of the Truth, the Truth that we seek to discover through reason and science and the fuller Truth that we come to know through the gift of faith. One Truth, two paths: faith and reason. The Magi, whom we meet in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew are not simply people who have a warm spiritual experience in seeing the precious Baby Jesus, they are people who have followed their path laid out by reason and the science of their contemporary times and then receive the revelation that the Infant Jesus is truly the Son of God, worthy of nothing less than worship.

Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mass for Peace and Justice in commemoration of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.

January 22, 2021
St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Church
Arlington, Texas

Nehemiah 8: 2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19: 8, 9, 10, 15
Corinthians 12: 12-30
Luke 1: 1-4, 4:14-21

When the Jews returned from exile after 70 years in Babylon, they were faced with many hardships as they tried to rebuild their lives. They tried to rediscover their faith and truly hear the Law of the Covenant that God had initiated with their ancestors but that they had forgotten because of their oppression and the suppression of the practice of the rituals and customs of the Covenant.