Videos from selected homilists; Transcript excerpts from Fr. Hawkswell, Fr. Fleming, Fr. Chama, Msgr. Pellegrino, Fr. Sigma, Fr. Kavanaugh’s homilies; Bishop Barron podcasts; Life Issues; Doctrinal Homily Outlines
Msgr. Raymond G. East (Pastor, St. Teresa of Avila Parish) preaching homily for 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time in the Crypt Church at the National Shrine (Washington D.C.) on June 17, 2018.
June 13, 2021 | June 17, 2018 | June 14, 2015 | June 17, 2012
Give witness through your word and teaching that your God is the God of love, the triune God.
B.C. CATHOLIC | 2021
Biologists describe the growth of trees in terms of seeds, sunlight, water, temperature, and cell division. Historians describe Israel’s history in terms of food, land, power struggles, war, and peace.
However, the First Reading says that it is God who does all this. Does that mean biologists and historians are wrong?
No. What biologists and historians do is describe the patterns according to which God works in the world.
We do not have to understand biology or history. However, we must understand the relation of God to the world.
As an analogy, think of the world as God’s card table. We can see the cards, but not the player. What scientists do is observe the cards and describe the patterns according to which the player plays them. The cards do not “play themselves.” No card can, of itself, cause the play of any other card. It is the player who determines everything, not one card falling to the table without his knowledge.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA | 2021
This entire year has plunged many into an existential crisis. Plans have been disrupted, some even cancelled, anxiety levels have escalated as we struggle to comprehend and navigate a future that remains uncertain. One thing that many have learnt during this year is that, we are not in charge. Before this, we had bought into the myth that through hard work and a can-do (Malaysia Boleh) attitude, we can control our own lives. We can master our own destiny, captain our own ship, and set a course for the future. But we’ve realised that control is an illusion. The good news is that God is still in charge. You just need to get out of the way.
Today’s gospel treats us to two parables instead of one: the parable of the growing seed and the parable of the mustard seed. You may have heard it explained to you that parables are short stories which our Lord likes to tell His audience and how we wished that all our priests would confine their homiletic material to similar anecdotal wonders, instead of meandering off into some inexplicable theological maze where everyone gets lost. This is the popularly held view. But though their content seems simple and the message simpler still, they actually do contain something far more profound. That is why the learned of Jesus’ time often found difficulty in comprehending His message and why our Lord had to explain the meaning of these stories to His own disciples, who should have known better.
Humble Beginnings, Surprise Endings (2018)
In Him, We Can (2015)
‘Bing Bang’ and Mustard Seeds (2012)
SINGLE HUMANITY | 2018
There are times and situations where we are in a hurry to see the fruits of our labour. Other times too, we wonder: when will this person change? When don’t see the fruit or when the person doesn’t change as soon as we expect, we are frustrated. How do this Sunday’s readings assure us? What can we learn from the patience of organic farming?.
It’s common to find in some farm shops foodstuffs labelled “organic”. What they want to show is that those products have been produced in the manner that respects the environment: no chemicals and no manipulations. Often, such organic products take relatively long time to grow, involving a prolonged period of work. Then you understand why they are likely to be a bit expensive. Behind the label “organic” isn’t there something godly and evangelic?
Looking at myself, others and the world we live in I can imagine the mark that God has stamped on us: “It’s organic”. His patience for Adam and Eve who distanced themselves from his love, and for Israel who broke the covenant many times just show that those practising organic farming, probably, they copied it from God.
Fr. Chama’s homily is divided into the following sections:
DIOCESE OF ST. PETERSBURG | 2021
There are many times that we expect too much of ourselves and others. To make matters worse, we expect too much to happen too soon. Sometimes parents expect their 15 year olds to act like 21 year olds. Sometimes we get thoroughly disappointed in ourselves because we are not the perfect people we like to imagine ourselves being. Sometimes we are impatient with how we or others are progressing in life. We may be upset with our home situations, our marriages, our families, our jobs, or what have you. What we have to understand is that none of us are self-made men and women. If we trust in God, He will give growth. This growth might be very subtle, nothing we can put our fingers on. But after a while it suddenly occurs to us: God has brought us a long way. If we trust in God the growth that He gives us will be more than we could imagine. We are all small seeds, but God can make of us great trees. However, if we think that we can do everything ourselves, and if we don’t trust in God, we won’t get anywhere. None of us can make ourselves or others grow.
God Gives the Growth (2018)
BUILDING ON THE WORD | 2003
As we live any day or our life, we should never discount the small things we can do: a word of love or support to our spouse, a few moments to affirm a son or daughter about something they are good at or something that they have achieved, a phone call to a friend who is grieving the death of a loved one, or even a thankful smile instead of a vacant stare as we approach the cashier in the supermarket. These are all small things, tiny things, things that could seem to have no significance. Yet they can be important because God can choose to use them to build up some person in our lives and to increase the goodness around us. We should never discount doing small things in the course of every day.
But neither should we overlook the importance of receiving small things each day. For each day there are people in our lives who give us signs of love and support. How much richer our lives would be if we were open to accept those signs and take them in: the smile of our 3-year-old as we come home from work, the person who breaks to let us into traffic, a friend who says to us, “How are you? How are you really?” All of these are signs that God is using to show us that we are loved and that there are reasons for hope.
God is Still Working (2015)
THE REASON FOR OUR HOPE | 2015
Today we want to focus on the Second Reading and the Second Reading is where Paul talking about how he would rather die and be separated from the body so he could be with the Lord. Then he says, the one core in there that I want us to focus on that says, “Therefore, we aspire to please Him.” Everything we need to do is to please God. We need to look at our core intention, our heart and so this is what I really want us to focus on for a moment. I want you to be focusing on this week. What is your core intention when it comes to your Almighty God? Is it fear or is it love? Now, Paul sat there and said he’d rather die. Now, I’m sure if I asked how many people here by the raising of their hands would rather die this afternoon than go do something else, I’m sure there wouldn’t be many people who would raise their hands. There might be a few of you. I know, shut up. Most of you, the reality is, would go, “No, no, no. I don’t think I want that.” But, Paul says, “I desire to please Him” because one day I’m gonna stand before Him.
SUNDAY WEB SITE | 1997
The reign of God, this matter of faith, hope, and love, this kingdom for the ages, need not measure well in isolated moments. It is a living and growing thing.
So also our lives. Life is slow and subtle. Love takes time to show and grow. In life, little acts count. In fact, that is what a life is all about, a long parade of moments deceptively inconsequential.
Children grow before our eyes. But they age imperceptibly. We recognize growth only after it has happened. The full truth of the child is seen after the child is child no more.
We ask ourselves: have we made progress? We are almost never aware of it. Only with effort and discipline do we become fully conscious. If we keep a journal, now and then we are startled when we peruse past entries. Worries, fears, preoccupations of the previous year seem to have evanesced. The greatest terrors and strongest urgencies of five years ago now surprise, embarrass, or encourage us. Was this me? Why was it that I could not gauge it as it was lived?
THE MUSTARD SEED PRINCIPLEby Bishop Robert Barron . June 17, 2018
Our Gospel for today features one of Jesus’ most beloved parables: that of the mustard seed. How does God tend to work? What does the building up of the Kingdom typically look like? From the very small to the very great—and usually by a slow, gradual process. God, it seems, tends to operate under the radar, on the edges of things, quietly, clandestinely.
WALKING BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHTby Bishop Robert Barron . June 14, 2015
Sometimes God does things we can’t understand. This is where our need to walk by faith and not by sight comes in play. We trust in God’s purpose, and his purpose often manifests itself in the least likely of sources-the mustard seed, for example. A young man on a cross, dying alone and mocked, was the mustard seed out of which a global religion, one billion strong, grew. This is the story of so many other influential Christians, such as Francis of Assisi, Charles Lwanga and Mother Teresa. They could have been easily overlooked, forgotten, ignored, but instead they sprouted into among the most revered in our history. This is a lesson of not giving up. It’s a lesson of walking by faith, and not by sight.
Friends, I’m going to be blunt with you: today’s Gospel is really challenging. It cuts right to the heart of the ethical implications of the Gospel. There’s something of a “be all, end all” quality about Jesus, something of an either/or. As he says, “Whoever is not with me is against me.” What follows from this is what I call the principle of detachment and clarification of motives. If Jesus is unambiguously the center of your life, then everything else has to find its place in relation to him. If the good things of the world become more important than following him, then something has gone off-kilter.
A big task indeed lies ahead of us. But work we must. At home, in school, at our workplace, in our community. And as we work, let us be patient. In His own time, God will bring our work, His work, to fruition.
The only way to reach the lofty heights of infused mystical contemplation is to become a tender shoot. Most people aspire to be the towering cedar tree, and so they are never planted by the Lord on the high and lofty mountain of infused contemplation.
Sunday Readings
