Category Archive

Libby Caes April 17, 2016 Acts 9:36-43, Rev. 7:9-17, John 10:22-30 Wonder   One of my most vivid memories of fifth grade is writing book reports. I would end them with something like, “If you want to know more about the book, read it!”   My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Mulberry, made it very clear that she did not like such endings. April 17, 2016             What else do you say??   I am not going to end my homily by telling you to read Wonder! If you haven’t read Wonder and decide you want to, I expect there are …

Third Sunday of Easter April 10, 2016   “Jesus is the Christ – And So Are You!”   Readings: Acts 9:1-20, Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19   THIS IS A ‘COMPARATIVE SERMON’   What I would like to attempt this morning, on this the first time in 41 years that I have the privilege of presiding at the Eucharist, is what you might call a “comparative sermon.”   Over the past 20 years or so, many Christian theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, have come to realize that what is true of every human being is also true of theology, or of …

Easter Sunday                                                                                             Lynne Smith, OSB John 20:1-18   We might ask with Mary this morning: Where is Jesus? In her loss, suffering and grief Mary is distraught: “They have taken Jesus away and we do not know where they have laid him.” She wants this one last connection with him – to care for his dead body. But “they”, the violent forces at work in the world have deprived her even of this. Many forces in our world threaten our connection with Jesus. Violence, suffering, injustice, even busy-ness can cause us to question: Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus when …

I suppose that for the 21st century attention span, this Gospel selection is quite long enough. But I do miss the nicely paired shorts featuring the lost 100th sheep and the conscientious shepherd who sets off to find it, followed by the the woman who sweeps out her house to find a lost drachma and then hosts a spontaneous party when she does. I increasingly identify with this woman, as my family and coworkers can testify. This Lukan crescendo of three joyful “lost and found” parables peaks with today’s beautiful story of a loving father and his two sons. The …

Homily 2.28.2016 Isaiah 55:1-9, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9 Joseph Wiesenfarth   There could be more appropriate and less confusing readings than the passages from Isaiah and Paul that we just heard read.  Isaiah, for example, starts off with what language scholars call paraprosdokians.  A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a phrase or sentence is unexpected, as we see in this sentence:  “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.” Or: “The last thing I want to do is hurt you . . . but it’s still on my list.”  …

Luke 4:1-13                                                        Lynne Smith, OSB February 14, 2016 Walter Wink begins the introduction to his book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination with this statement: “One of the most pressing questions facing the world today is, How can we oppose evil without creating new evil and being made evil ourselves?” I think this question was lurking behind our national debate over water boarding some years ago. When other countries used water boarding, we called it torture. When our country used it, people said it was a necessary means of obtaining intelligence to stop the evil …

Ash Wednesday February 10, 2016 2 Corinthians 5:20 – 6:10, Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-20   In our world of texting and twitter, and the constant volleys and verbiage of politicians and Presidential candidates…we are invited to something very different and profound We are invited to move beyond the external observances of piety and become mystics, living out our relationship to God in secret. We are invited to store up our treasure in heaven. This past Sunday on the Feast of the Transfiguration Steve Zwettler reminded us that God is knowable; we, too, can have a profound and …

I had to smile recently as I pulled up behind a car with the license plate “In Hs Joy”; I’ve added that to my various mantras and pray it for you this morning.   Nehemiah not only describes Ezra as reading the Law of Moses ‘before all who could hear with understanding’, he also actually sites this proclamation at the one place where all could actually hear it! At the Water Gate no one could be denied. Everybody needs clean water to live, as we are recently reminded.   With some precision, we heard of an event not too dissimilar …

The Baptism of Jesus January 10, 2016 Isaiah 43: 1-7 Acts: 8:14-17 Luke: 3:15-17, 21-22 This last week, public television broadcast the movie, Particle Fever; a documentary thriller about the building of the Large Hadron Collider.  With this gigantic atom smasher, physicists are hoping to confirm the existence of the predicted Higgs Boson; the so-called “god particle,” that is theorized to be the cornerstone of the current “standard model” of the fundamental structure of the universe.  Even though I have little real understanding of the science, I was enthralled by the story…couldn’t leave my chair.  I was also impressed by …