God strengthens our hearts – Luke 21:25-28, 34-36, 1 Th 3:12-4:2.

1st Sunday of Advent, Year C; Holy Infant parish. [Note: the parish was doing its "share your Christmas" collection this week. The parish works with various charities who create lists of families who can't buy toys for their children this year. The families make requests and parish families agree to buy the toys. This week people brought the gifts to church and during the offertory, the brought them up and they were arrayed across the sanctuary. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture! By the time I was done greeting people after Mass the people that coordinate delivery had already moved them all.]

Very soon, the sanctuary will be filled with gifts. The primary purpose of this gifts, of course, is the service of our neighbors here in Durham, a practical way of helping them have a livelier more joyous Christmas. Advent is the season to prepare for Christmas, and this is one moment, an important moment in which we help others prepare and thereby help ourselves prepare. But, there are other places we could store them. Everything in the sanctuary is here to help us pray. So, can these gifts help us pray?

Jesus' reign reflects its brightness off of us – John 18:33b-37; Rev 1:5-8

Christ the King, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

My fellow kings, rulers, queens, monarchs, servants, leaders, shepherds! That address makes about as much sense as saying “Merry Christmas” during Advent or even Ordinary Time. That is, it’s premature, but it’s not exactly wrong. You see at baptism, we are baptized into Christ’s priesthood, prophecy and kingship. We’re not kings yet, but we are already part of a kingly royal people and Christ does promise to share his rule, his servant-shepherd-kingly-rule with us in a full way when all the other powers that compete with Christ to try to rule are put down, in the New Jerusalem. And where we are now is that Christ calls us to acknowledge his true kingship while we await its full realization, and to acknowledge that we have been called to share in that, knowing that we await the full realization of that sharing too. But what we have now, is still worth living out.

Jesus shows us sacrifice – Mark 12:38-44, Heb 9:24-28

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

I wonder what emotions we imagine in Jesus when he said those words. I wonder what tone of voice carried his words. When proclaiming the gospel, I tried not to impose one on the words, but that’s really impossible, and shows why the reading aloud of scripture is the part of the process of interpreting. But, it’s a really helpful spiritual exercise to listen out for what tone of voice you hear Jesus’ words in when you read those words. (And incidentally, that’s part of why it’s a really helpful part of preparing ourselves for Mass to read the readings before Mass – you can find them online if you google USCCB lectionary, or the references are printed in the bulletin – because the Spirit can work through your imagination to lend a particular tone, a particular interpretation to Jesus’ words, and that might be precisely the one you need to hear). But, to get back to Jesus’ words… when he saw that woman give all she had to the Temple, is there admiration in his words? Is there sorrow, lament, or anger, that that kind of poverty exists, in which someone only owns a few small coins?

Jesus walks along our way – Mark 10:46-52

30th Sunday in OT, Year B; Holy Infant parish. A shorter than normal homily, as we had a presentation of the status of our building plans too.

The first time I visited Durham was just over three years ago. I was serving at Notre Dame then and me and another priest from my community had been assigned to make applications to doctoral programs during that year, so we’d be able eventually to serve as faculty members at one of our community’s universities. During ND’s Fall break, Fr. Mark and I did a kind of road trip, to check out various schools on the East coast that we might be interested in applying to. We went out to Yale, Boston College and then down to Duke, where I had a wonderful visit and became pretty convinced that this is where I really was called to do my doctorate. That, of course, led to all kinds of worry. Initially, would I get in? But just as importantly, was I sure I’d be able to thrive here as a priest, and as a vowed religious of the Congregation of Holy Cross, while I did these studies that I felt called to?

Jesus pierces suffering – Mark 10:35-45, Heb 4:14-16

Twenty-ninth Sunday in OT, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

Someone recently sent me a short video about a chef called Mark Brand. Mark is a person who was at one point in his life without housing. He talks in the video about how sometimes that meant rotating between friends’ couches; sometimes that meant sleeping rough. He talks very honestly about how sometimes his life did involve making bad decision concerning alcohol and other drugs, and other times when he was able to choose sobriety for sustained periods, but had to deal with people who assumed he wasn’t. Things changed for Mark. He now owns a couple of restaurants. He has a permanent roof over his head, he employs people.

God fills us to overflowing – Mark 10:17-27, Heb 4:12-13

Twenty-eighth Sunday of OT, Year B; Holy Infant

You’ve all probably heard that familiar adage that a pessimist says a glass is half-empty and an optimist says that it’s half-full.  Well, as Christians, we’re not called to be pessimists or optimists. We’re called to be something much more exciting; we’re called to be people of hope. A person of hope doesn’t deal in these half measures: hope proclaims that the glass can be filled.  Christian hope is assured that God can fill us up, that through the blood of Christ out poured, we can be filled to overflowing with holiness and love.  God will fill us.  That’s what Jesus means when he says that “All things are possible with God.”

Jesus brings us back to God’s creative love – Mark 10:2-12, Gen 2:18-24

Twenty-seventh Sunday of OT, Year B; Holy Infant parish.

“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 take this job, to begin this course of study, to play on this team, … 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?