Archive for the ‘Homily’ Category

Our Cathedral in San Jose invites a lay person each year to lead a reflection at the noon hour on Good Friday as a prelude to the Liturgy of the Veneration of the Cross led by the Bishop later in the afternoon. This year, I was invited to do this. We adapted the Office of [...]

Msgr. Andrew Varga, pastor of St. Luke Parish in Westport, Connecticut, sent in this terrific homilette on Spy Wednesday. So… Here we are… Six weeks ago to the day we stood here with smudges of ash on our foreheads. We were well-meaning and eager to make a promise to ourselves and to all the church [...]

A homily for the third Sunday of Lent Today, through our ancestors in faith, Moses and the Unnamed Woman of Samaria, the Church’s liturgy calls us to reflect on water—living water. But all week everything in me has resisted—a lot! NO, NOT NOW! The images in my mind are of too much water. Too much [...]

I think all of us at some point in our lives have someone—maybe our parents, a teacher, a certain group—someone we wanted so much to just love us as we were. We want someone who knows everything about us, all the good stuff and all the bad stuff, and who still wants us anyway. But [...]

Walter Burghardt, SJ, died Saturday at the age of 95. Though he wouldn’t have remembered, I met Burghardt more than 30 years ago, when I was 19, at a liturgy conference at the University of Notre Dame. As many of you know, and as I was ignorant of at the time, Burghardt was the model [...]

In the August 27, 2007, issue of America, Cardinal Godfried Danneels writes about liturgy 40 years after the Council. The entire article is deserving of a careful read, but here are my favorite lines: How many celebrants consider the homily to be the climax of the liturgy and the barometer of the celebration? How many [...]

These approaches to preaching mystagogically are defined by Jan Michael Joncas in Forum Essay, Number 4: Preaching the Rites of Christian Initiation (Chicago, Illinois: Liturgy Training Publications, 1994) 95-117. The five approaches outlined by Joncas are: hallowing cosmic symbols; exploring anthropological patterns; celebrating biblical history; analyzing beliefs and behaviors; and revealing the future present. According [...]

The stories of the man born blind, the woman at the well and the raising of Lazarus from the dead are a set of readings that must always be proclaimed whenever we celebrate the Scrutinies. Why then are today’s readings so important for those who are preparing for initiation? Why are they so important for [...]

Have you ever been in love with someone you weren’t supposed to love? Someone your parents or your friends disapproved of? In the first two paragraphs of today’s Gospel, Jesus does some astounding things. He goes to Samaria. He walks up to a well where a woman is drawing water. He sends off his disciples [...]