The cross on which Christ died may not have looked exactly like our familiar crucifixes. It did indeed have a vertical support and each of the condemned carried his horizontal beam to the place of execution—so the basic configuration we know is an appropriate approximation. But no one who had witnessed that torturous form of […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the 23rd Sunday of the Year
Do you perhaps remember, as you were growing up and setting out on your own path, how threatened your parents felt by some of your choices? Perhaps as a parent of adult children, you today feel challenged or criticized when they do not replicate your own conduct. On a purely mundane level that happens in […]
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for the 21st Sunday
Our faith in the humanity and divinity of Jesus can sometimes run up against vexing questions. An example is Jesus’ foretelling of the end of the world that he concludes by stating: But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Surely, if […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the 20th Sunday of the Year
Twentieth Sunday, Year C, 18 August, 2019: Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10; Hebrews 12:1-4; Luke 12:49-53 Don’t we know from experience that if we honestly attempt to live the Gospel, we find ourselves at odds with conventional values, expectations and even our own desires? An alternative is flight from my inner conflicts, creating scapegoats and villains, […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday
Eighteenth Sunday, Year C, 4 August, 2019: Qoheleth 1:2; 2:21-23; Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11; Luke 12:13-21 I believe this Gospel is a very timely. We live in a religious culture that can distort the Gospel into a way of achieving prosperity. Some believe that if we behave and follow the prescribed norms, God will reward […]
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for the 16th Sunday of the Year
The great mystic, Teresa of Avila, used to lament the fact that her soul was like a dirty and unkempt inn wherein she, nevertheless, welcomed her Lord. However, unkempt or not, she welcomed him whose coming and abiding within her would—as he did in the temple—cleanse her of all defilement and transform her! I am […]
Fr. James’ Homily for the 15th Sunday of the Year
The parables suffer from our familiarity with them. That familiarity, however, may be more superficial than intimate. It is important to remember that the priest and the Levite mentioned in today’s Gospel were bound to fulfill their cultic obligations for the good of the people, obligations they couldn’t fulfill should they be defiled by a […]
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for the 14th Sunday of the Year
The German word “Schadenfreude,” is one we have come to use in those situations where the misfortune of another brings us pleasure—albeit one we will not openly admit to. Similarly, we have probably all had the experience of hoping for the downfall and punishment of some villain portrayed in a film or novel. In daily […]
Abbot Joseph’s Homily for Corpus Christi
In the long history of Christianity heresies have sometimes been associated with Christians unwilling to live with mystery and thus seeking (with puny human intelligence) to comprehend and describe the infinite. And although this tendency has been more pronounced in the great mysteries of the Trinity and the person of Christ, it has not been […]
Fr. James’ Homily for Trinity Sunday
In dogmatic theology we refer to the Trinity as a “procession,” that is to say, something or someone that “proceeds”. In the Creed we speak of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, and this, in fact, refers to John’s Gospel, at the end of Chapter Fifteen: the Spirit of Truth that proceeds from the […]