God shows his love for us even when all we see is gruesome – Mk 15:42-45

Continuing my Old College series on the the Seven Sorrows of Mary with taking the body down from the cross.

As it had already become late, since it was the day of Preparation (before the Sabbath),

Joseph of Arimathea, an honored member of the council who was also waiting for the kingdom of God,

Dared to go to Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus.

Pilate was amazed that he was already dead and called to the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died.

When he had found that out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

~~

How do you have hope, when all you have is a dead body?  When you see suffering, when you see the marks of thorns, nails, whips, and you feel their effect in the graying stiffening smelling corpse that’s all you have left, how can you have hope?  When you know that on a deeper level than physical causes of death, that the real cause was human hands, the hands of sinners, created in the image and likeness of God but fallen… just like you, how do you have hope?

What is a homily?

Fall break gives me two weekends free of preaching, and I didn't want to leave this blog fallow for that long, so here's an article I once wrote to answer the question in the title: "What is a homily?"

At Mass, you are told to lift up your hearts.  God wants your hearts uplifted; He wants them on fire with the love in which and for which you were created.  If this command is given at Mass, there must be some means provided by which you may be formed (or, better, re-formed) into creatures who have their hearts lifted to their Creator.  He must be trying to lift your hearts.  The aim of the Eucharistic homily is to enable your hearts to be lifted.

God in His holiness forgives us – Hos 11:1-6, 8-9

Hosea 11:1-6, 8-9; Morning Prayer at Old College Retreat on the Sacred Heart.  I used the NABRE translation, because it's a very hard passage to translate and I didn't have time to do it myself.  I did re-translate a few things, including nehpak ("[my heart] was overwhelmed") to "overthrown."

Hosea knew what it meant for a city to be overthrown.  He knew what it looked like for enemy forces to outflank troops, to press hard and conquer.  He lived most of his life threatened by exile and slavery at Assyrian hands, living among a people that had imposed the same on others.  When he talked about something being overthrown he knew what kind of violent destruction he was talking about.  When he says that God’s heart is overthrown, that’s not throw away language.

Jesus brings us back to God’s creative love –Mark 10:2-12.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B).  Homily for Liturgical Celebration class.  The practice context was a parish where I didn't know anyone, having been asked to substitute for a pastor on vacation.

“Go back to the beginning… how did this all start?”  When something that was meant to be wonderful starts to taste bitter, that can be just the question to ask.  What was it that so exited me and led me to begin this course of study, to play on this team, to take this job… to marry this person?  How can I bring that initial fervor to life again, in the more mature way that’s needed to deal with our more seasoned problems or our creeping ennui?

God went to the cross for us – Jas 5:1-6.

Preaching on the second reading from today's Mass; Sunday Vespers, Moreau Seminary.

Thanks be to God?  Do you see God in this reading? Because I have to admit that when I first looked at the text I’d been assigned to preach on tonight, the happiest thought that came to me was that at least I wasn’t being asked to tell you to cut body parts off.  But we have to find God in this reading from James, because the people we minister to are relying on us to help them point to and name the action of God in their lives and if we can’t do that with sacred scripture, we’re in trouble.

God forges community from the cross – Jn 19:25-27

Continuing my Old College series on the the Seven Sorrows of Mary with the Crucifixion.

There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother’s sister, Maria the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalen.

Then Jesus, seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing by, said to his mother:

“Women, behold your son!”

Then, he said to the disciple:

“Behold your mother!”

And from that hour, the disciple received her as his own.

~~

Goudou Goudou: that’s the word in Haitian Creole for ‘earthquake.’  Prior to January 2010, there was no Haitian Creole word for earthquake.  Language was not the only thing that changed on that day that knocked Haiti down.  Haiti was not doing well before the goudou goudou and it’s not doing well now, but things have changed.  This summer I spent some time there and met some amazing groups of Haitians that, with outside support, have come together in the face of horrific disaster to work together to improve their community.  I met people that never realized they were a community, with deep responsibilities to each other, until disaster hit.  I would never want in any way to romanticize, sugar-coat or over-spiritualize what happened when the earth shook in Haiti.  But from that very real cross, God forged community.

God commands life – Luke 7:11-17.

The Widow of Nain; Sunday-length homily for preaching class.

What are you carrying? … Is it heavy?  Is it in your arms, or on your back, or is a friend holding it for you right now?  What are you carrying?  I’m not asking you to answer out loud, because I want you to think of something you wouldn’t want to tell this whole group.  Because most of us have something that weighs us down.  A memory, a fear, an injustice suffered or inflicted, an incompetence or a deception.