Homily for Palm Sunday
April 13, 2025
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14-23:56
Among the many lessons I learned from the dedicated ministry and vocation of the Franciscan sisters who taught me in grade school was how to prepare each night for death by making an act of perfect contrition. The sisters were clear that preparation for death was not just preparation for an event but was truly preparation to meet Jesus who loved each of us unconditionally as our friend by giving us the gift of life eternal through His death freely offered on the Cross. The sisters wisely instructed us that an “act of contrition is not a magic formula, it is an honest conversation with a friend — Jesus.” She added, “simply speak the name of Jesus in love to Him, with sadness for your sins, confidently say ‘My Jesus, have mercy.’” I have found that these four simple words are helpful for meditating on God’s love and mercy.
Read more…
Homily for Palm Sunday
March 24, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 21-22
Philippians 2:6-11
Mark 14:1-15:47
Death on its own terms is an annihilation. It is a total and violent obliteration of every part of life that leads up to it. It ends friendships, it makes widows and widowers, it makes orphans, it closes the future, it bluntly ends life. Many nonbelievers, even those who enjoy life, in their more honest moments will speak out loud the unmentionable: death mocks our every action and achievement; it mocks all our hopes; it casts a shadow on everything we do and enjoy in life. Death haunts and terrifies us.
Read more…
Homily for Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
April 2, 2023
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22
Philippians 2:6-11
Matthew 26:14-27:66
Throughout Lent we have been following Jesus on His journey to Jerusalem. We have done so like the first disciples but with the difference being that we know and are confident of His victory. Yet, even with this confidence born of faith we have traveled with Him to the heights in the shadow of the cross – His cross and our share in the cross. Perhaps we have struggled with our Lenten resolutions. Perhaps we have not tried very hard to maintain them. Perhaps we have approached them in a spirit of self-improvement and have failed in the face of what seems to us to be the futile inevitability of sin and selfishness. Nonetheless, we stand here today with an unavoidable decision to remain with the initially enthusiastic but eventually fickle and defeated crowd, or to proceed with Jesus to the victorious culmination of His Passion and Resurrection.
Read more…
Homily for Palm Sunday
April 10, 2022
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas
Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14-23:56
The Passion Narrative of the Gospel of Saint Luke shows us the wisdom, gentleness, and compassion of Jesus in His complete gift of self for our salvation. The Gospel tells us that Jesus entered Jerusalem and heard the shouts of the crowd yelling “Hosanna to our King!” He is not embraced but rather He is grasped at by a people who have been expecting a king and Messiah with their own agenda in mind. Most of this agenda included their political purposes to overthrow their oppressors and to turn the tables by leading them in revenge to oppress their oppressors. They remain God’s chosen people who had been offered a covenant by God and, in Jesus, God is now offering them the fulfillment of that covenant.
Read more…
Life on the Chrism Trail 