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
KUALA LUMPUR | 2018
Our Lord invites His apostles and all of us to simply waste time with Him. Time with the Lord is never wasted time. We can imagine the apostles tired and weary after a long day of preaching and ministering, coupled with the emotionally draining news of the death of St John the Baptist. They must have been overwhelmed by the mobs that thronged the place.
The gospel tells us that they were so busy, the “apostles had no time even to eat.” How many of us relate to that? I know I do. Or, mothers know how it feels when your little ones don’t even give you two minutes…
Related Homilies
A New Brand of Clericalism (2015)
From Activism to Contemplation (2012)
B.C. CATHOLIC | 2021
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” God says in this Sunday’s First Reading.
“It is you who have scattered my flock and have driven them away.” He promises to “raise up shepherds” so that his people “shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing.”
The image of shepherding occurs throughout the Bible, as in the Gospel Acclamation and Reading. However, it has two parts. One is the image of a loving shepherd searching for lost sheep and leading them …
A CONCORD PASTOR COMMENTS | 2018
The scriptures this weekend are all about shepherds who mislead and scatter their people and the person designated to preach these scriptures is – your shepherd. This is what we call a conflict of interest. I am, perhaps, the person least qualified to be objective about these passages and yet it’s my job to preach them.
Jeremiah takes on kings, prophets and priests, Israel’s shepherds, who have misled and scattered the people. And in the gospel, Jesus is moved with pity for the crowds following him because they seem like a flock abandoned by their shepherd…
Related Homilies
Jesus Our Shepherd. (2015)
Pastoral Accountability (2009)
SINGLE HUMANITY | 2018
THIS HOMILY FOR 17th SUNDAY B – JULY 25, 2021
In the readings of this Sunday we find a situation that can be stressing; the kind that quite a good number of people are going through: confronted by so many needs but very limited means to respond to them. However, in the end everyone has more than enough bread to eat. How, then, does the word of God exhort us to face such struggles of our daily life?
Looking at the readings of this Sunday, I can’t help evoking this psalm: “Bless the LORD, O my soul…
Fr. Chama’s homily is divided into the following sections:
Bless the Lord my soul…never forget…
First Fruits
Breakthrough in a Christian Community
Bread for common person
I’m called to be a blessing for my neighbour
DIOCESE OF ST. PETERSBURG | 2021
God wants to direct our lives. Jesus felt so bad for the people in today’s Gospel because they had no one to shepherd them. He mourns also for us. The world can be a confusing place. Life can be confusing. Governments like those mentioned in the first reading, often demand that people violate their consciences for what they claim in the greater good. Historically, this has always resulted in the people participating in hidden, immoral agendas. We witnessed this happening the last century with the two extremes of fascism and communism. Most of the people of Germany did not have full knowledge of what the Nazis were doing to the Jews and others in the concentration camps. But they had a share of the guilt because in the name of national pride, they allowed bad shepherds to guide them. At the same time, there were good shepherds….
Related Homilies
Justice and Integrity (2018)
The Twenty-third Psalm (2015)
Leadership (2012)
Turning off the Sound and Turning on the Lord (2009)
Justice and Integrity (2006) – PDF
CATHOLIC PREACHING | 2000
What Jesus was teaching the apostles by this lesson of pulling them aside and taking them out into the middle of the lake to spend time resting with him and talking with him was prayer. Alongside every missionary activity, alongside every aspect of human life, there has to be time for prayer. Prayer is to the spiritual life what breathing is to the physical life.
We can only hold our breath for so long before we either take a breath or start to die. Similarly with our whole Christian lives. Either we pray — really pray — or our souls start to atrophy because they no longer receive the spiritual oxygen that they need from prayer to keep going.
Related Homilies
Good Shepherds and Good Sheep (2003)
Our Missionary Who, What and How (2006)
Receiving and Sharing the Good Shepherd’s Compassionate Teaching (2015)
BUILDING ON THE WORD | 2003
We get behind an elderly person on the freeway, driving ten miles below the speed limit, and again we have a choice of whether to lean on the horn and yell something out as we pass or have compassion. Compassion allows us to understand that here is a person struggling to stay active and independent, and that we are likely to face that same struggle sometime in our future. When we hear of somebody who is stricken by AIDS, we have the choice of judgment against that person because of their carelessness or lifestyle or compassion because we know our own fragility. We know that one way or another we will have to deal with disease and sickness in our own life. As we watch the evening news and see Iraqis protesting against American troops in their country, we have the choice of judging them because they’re not thankful for having us remove Saddam Hussein who was oppressing them or having compassion because we understand their decades of oppression and poverty and their desire to self-determine their future.
Related Homilies
The Power of Compassion (2009)
Judging with Compassion (2012)
Giving Away, Giving Thanks (2015)
“And Also with You” (2018)
THE REASON FOR OUR HOPE | 2018
Isn’t it great when Jesus is nice to us and He calls us to rest today? He says, “Come by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a little.” This is the time that God takes us and calls us to have refreshment in Him. But, we all want to do that. The problem is that people do this rest stuff for selfish reasons and try to be alone from everybody, and they don’t get refreshment. Remember, it begins with Jesus today. They gathered around Jesus and then He told them, together, “Come by yourself”, and He is saying, “With Me” to a deserted place. And rest.” And, too often, people isolate themselves. I just need to get away by myself! And, then you get away by yourself, and you’re not refreshed because it makes you lonely; it makes you isolated, so people run to the internet and they’ll get people on Facebook; they have these friends on Facebook. And none of those friends makes you feel any deeper in friendship, except it makes you feel more isolated and lonelier. That if we do any of this stuff alone, it doesn’t refresh us. So what Jesus calls us is to find refreshment with Him and the community.
SUNDAY WEB SITE | 1997
Every once in a while, my uncle in Galway, Ireland, would refer to a particular type of priest as a “boy-o”: “yeah, he was a real boy-o.” After many visits to his farm and endless badgering, my uncle finally told me what he meant, reluctant though he was to say anything disrespectful of “the priests.”
A boy-o was the kind of priest who, if he saw that you had two fine geese, would say, “That’s a fine goose you have there,” and expect the other to be delivered to his door on the morrow. A boy-o always made you feel like an imposition, so burdensome were his tasks. A boy-o came to be served rather than to serve. A boy-o could cause people to fear and tremble in their pews, if they ever entertained an idea other than his own. A boy-o could divide a parish, humiliate a sinner, and even make you wonder about God.
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS | 2021
Every human person in today’s world seeks to find meaning to his or her life. People particularly young ones are often discouraged when they are unable to perceive the way of life and aim to search for it in wrong and absurd ways. According to the theologian Paul Tillich the word God translates as the depth of our life, the source of our being, and our ultimate concern, what we take seriously without any reservations. So our search for meaning connects with our search for God. Every human person has a purpose to fulfill in life. All have a specific task and are individually called by God for a task or a mission. The call that God gives is personal. We will not comprehend the mission easily unless we are totally attentive to his calling just as young Samuel was and respond as Isaiah or Jeremiah prophet did. Our entire person must be totally attentive to his invitation.
Sermon for July 18, 2021 (13:24)
A NEW SHEPHERD; A NEW KINGDOMby Bishop Robert Barron . July 19, 2009
We should never seek our final security in the things that worldly rulers and kings can provide. It is only through the shepherding of Christ that we find our way to good pasture.
THE CROSS IS OUR PEACEby Bishop Robert Barron . July 23, 2006
We continue our reading of Paul’s extraordinary letter to the Ephesians. We hear that the cross of Jesus has broken down the wall of enmity which divided Jews and Gentiles. At the very center of Christianity is the conviction that the death of Jesus on the cross represented God’s victory over all the dark forces that divide us. What looked like ultimate defeat was in fact God’s triumph over the power of division.
SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERDby Bishop Robert Barron . July 20, 2003
Another homily from Fr. Robert Barron and Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
Friends, in today’s Gospel, we hear the marvelous story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus—an icon of tremendous power and a sacred picture of the spiritual life and the process of salvation. We all find ourselves, in our need of Christ, in this image, as our own blindness distorts our vision of spiritual reality and the meaning of life.
We all need to get away, to be by ourselves, to have our time of quiet. For in life, the danger from constant action is very real — it prevents reflection and often pushes us towards wrong priorities.
How many of us long for quiet moments? A busy mother enjoys a bit of quiet when the children have left for school and she has some time for herself. A teenager seeks refuge in her own room. A working father’s quiet moment may be napping on the sofa on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I know some people who drop by the Eucharistic chapel daily and spend some quiet time before the Blessed Sacrament.
Jesus is that promised Good Shepherd who knows each one of His sheep, who offers his life for them and who wishes to gather them together as one flock with one shepherd. He is the shepherd who has come not to be served, but to serve, who in the paschal action of the washing of the feet leaves to His disciples a model of service to one another and who freely offered himself as the innocent lamb sacrificed for our redemption.
We are in search of leaders who care. We identify with the hopes of Israel to whom Jeremiah prophesied, “I will appoint shepherds who will take care of them. No longer will they fear or be terrified. No one will be lost” (Jer. 23:4). In the dark periods of their history, the people of Israel had their share of inept and corrupt kings. It was the prophets who kept their hope alive for deliverance by the coming of a messiah. Contrary to expectations of a military conqueror, the messiah came as a humble servant.
Sheep on the dyke by PHILINE VAN DER VEGTE; This is a painting of the sheep on the dyke that protects us from the water in North Holland. It is a fairly typical view. I like the way the sheep and clouds become almost one.
The only lectionary translation approved for Mass in the United States; also used in Catholic dioceses of the Philippines.
This lectionary translation is used for Mass in dioceses for the majority of the English-speaking world outside the U.S. and Canada.
The Revised Common Lectionary NRSV translation is used in Christian worship. Text provided by Vanderbilt Divinity School.
TOMORROW'S REFLECTION
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