Homilies

Sixth Sunday of Easter Scripture Readings Today’s Scripture readings all have the Holy Spirit, as it were, lurking in the background. In the passage from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter and John travel to Samaria so that the Samaritan converts to Christ might receive the Holy Spirit. In the second reading from the letter of…

Pentecost Scripture Readings As Christians, on this Feast of Pentecost, we commemorate the gift of the Holy Spirit that came upon Jesus’s Apostles. We heard about that day in our first reading from Saint Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. In that telling, it happens fifty days after Christ’s resurrection. That’s the Acts of…

A Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter — Lectionary Readings (Year A) “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” …

Fifth Sunday of Easter Scripture Readings On first reading, you would think that this passage from John’s gospel is about heaven. In one sense, as I’ll explain, this is true. However, we know that when we read the mystical gospel, we have to be prepared for some seemingly obtuse sayings that can lead us to ever…

Fourth Sunday of Easter Scripture Readings We must never be surprised at the subtleties we find in our Scriptures. Of all the writings that appeared in the first century explaining the life and work of Christ and his disciples, only a very few were chosen to be included in the canon of Scripture. They were chosen…

Third Sunday of Easter Scripture Readings As I hope you’ve noticed by now, gospel stories are seldom about what the authors are describing. They’re prophetic in the sense that they always have deeper meanings. That’s why Scriptural literalists tend to stick to the letters of Saint Paul or even the Hebrew Scriptures — what we call…

Second Sunday of Easter Scripture Readings “The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Since that day (and John tells us it was the day of Christ’s Resurrection), people have wondered and speculated what it must have been like to be among the disciples in that room that evening. Just about all we can surmise about…

Homily for Easter Sunday, 2023. Readings from the Catholic Comprehensive Lectionary: The Longest Day, by Mary Ann Perron; Baruch 3:14, 32, 38, 4.1b, 2; Matthew 28:1–7. The blessings of Easter joy be with each of you! Every year we celebrate Holy Week in somewhat the same way but always distinct…

Easter Vigil Scripture Readings The gospels present a description of the Resurrection that is anything but clear. Because there are four different stories told from the perspective of the four different gospel writers, it’s not possible to come up with anything like an historically accurate narrative, or even to surmise which of the descriptions…