Being and Doing

by Richard J. Ounsworth O.P. | 2022

When a reading at Mass, especially the Gospel, has a reference like today’s, it always raises a question in the mind. To save you going to the end of the sermon, it is Luke 3:15-16,21-22. The question is obvious: what happens in verses 17 to 20?

There is no conspiracy. The Church is not trying to conceal the content of these verses, but only I suppose to spare Mass-goers from having to listen to more of the passage than might be directly relevant. The answer to our question is that, between the verses in which St John the Baptist points towards the coming Christ and those in which Jesus is in fact baptised, St Luke gives us what we might call a ‘flash-forward’. This is quite an unusual technique, being the opposite of the more common flashback: we are told that, in response to the preaching of John, Herod had him arrested, a fact told to us in slightly different ways also in Matthew and Mark.

RELATED HOMILIES:
Cleaving the Darkness (2021)

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The Most Important Relationship In Your Life – Bar None…

A CONCORD PASTOR COMMENTS | 2019

This feast of the Baptism of the Lord,
coming as it does at the beginning of a new year,
is a golden opportunity for each of us to review:
our relationship with God.

In God’s eyes: you and I are good; we are pleasing to God.
Along with Christ, we are God’s beloved.
No, we’re not perfect – not even close –
but God delights in each of us in spite of our faults.

You see, with God – love comes first. Love comes first…
And when we fail that love,
when we reject that love, when we abuse or ignore that love
what comes second from God is – mercy.

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The New Retirement

BUILDING ON THE WORD | 2004

Today our society is radically redefining the meaning of retirement. That’s right. This homily addresses retirement from the perspective of faith. And before all of you in your teens and 20’s and 40’s tune me out, I want to promise that what I say applies to everyone in this church today. Because the development of retirement is changing the shape of all our lives. Today because of better nutrition and medicine Americans are living longer and better than any other people in the history of the world. Over the last fifty years the average American has gained ten years of productive life. That is an unheard of advancement in the length and quality of living. It changes the shape of what all of us are moving towards and how we need to prepare for it. The old pattern used to be this: You grew up; you raised a family; you worked hard; you retired; you played a little golf and perhaps moved to Florida; and it was over. Today, people retiring in their 60’s are facing 20 to 30 years of productive life. Now that is too long simply to play golf. (For some people! I don’t want any emails on this!)

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Waiting for the Final Gift
Signs of Life
Jesus Always Understands

The Baptism of the Lord

CHRIST IN THE DESERT MONASTERY | 2019

From Luke’s Gospel reading, people flocked to John the Baptist to seek a way to be faithful to God, or, in other words, to prepare to receive Him.  There are Old Testament precedents of men and women preparing to receive a king, notwithstanding Jesus.   Think of the preparation of Esther.  “Now when the turn of each young lady came to go in to King Ahasuerus, after the end of her twelve months under the regulations for the women–for the days of their beautification were completed as follows: six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and the cosmetics for women …She would not again go in to the king unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name…And Esther found favor in the eyes of all who saw her” (Es 2:12-15).  A person can do a great deal of changing in 12 hours, let alone a year and a half!

We are invited to believe in Jesus as the one, unique and only God.  And He has come to save us.  If we are baptized in Him, let us share His mercy and walk with faith.  Let us steadfastly order our lives to be better able to receive His mercy.  For if you desire to receive the Lord, then be prepared to change.

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Christ is Not a Lone Cowboy

DIOCESE OF KNOXVILLE | 2013

Christ is not a lone cowboy who rides into town one day and by his own power gets rid of the bad guys.  Rather, in Christ, we find humility, obedience, joy and love at work.  The Son emptying himself, the full humanity of Christ clinging to the will of the Father, the joy of the Father in his Son, and the love of Holy Spirit flowing between Father and Son and through the Son to bring forth miracles and accomplish the salvific event.

It is not “will to power” that accomplishes the salvific event but rather humility and the obedience of love.

Wherever the Son is, there also is the Father and the Holy Spirit.  In Christ, we find the whole Trinity at play.

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Continuing the Mission

DIOCESE OF ST. PETERSBURG | 2022

Most of us grew us with goals and ideal we wanted in life. Maybe we wanted to go to college and get a great job and then get married and raise a beautiful family. Maybe college wasn’t part of it, but the rest may have been (at least for you, not me.) Maybe some of us wanted to enter into a life of service to the Lord and to his people.

As time goes on, we all refine our goals. Maybe a person does not just want to become a doctor, but wants to become a cardiologist. If you were blessed with marriage and then doubly blessed with children, you quickly wanted more in life than just to have a husband, a wife, or a family. For example, when your love became infinitely more than infatuation, you were determined to do anything, make any sacrifice for your spouse. When you brought your children home from the hospital, you quickly moved from wanting to have them to wanting to have the very best for them. Perhaps you hear about those who travel around the world routinely, and wish that you could do that, but in truth, you would rather provide the best for those who continually steal your heart and complete your life.

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Loving with God’s Love

DIOCESE OF SACRAMENTO | 2022

BAPTISM OF THE LORD (January 9, 2022) — The deepest need of every human being is to be loved – and to love in return. There is no other human emotion or reality that is more important than this. Infants and children who are not loved, may atrophy, die, or become badly damaged as human beings. Not to be loved adequately, can lead to almost every kind of obsession or addiction imaginable. On the other hand, people who have always been loved are, usually, well integrated human beings. There is a wonderful balance in their lives. And they see life itself and reality with a very broad perspective.

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Water Spells God

KUALA LUMPUR | 2013

Whenever we come to Church to celebrate the great sacrifice of Jesus during mass; whenever we make the sign of the cross; whenever we come humbly as penitents to confess our sins; whenever we recite the creed, the symbol and summary of our faith; whenever we touch and are blessed with holy water, we are reminded once again that we are redeemed from the chaos of sin through our baptism and inserted into the order of God’s Kingdom sacramentally made present in the Church. Baptism is the sign that God’s authority has triumphed over the chaos wrought by sin. As St Hippolytus reminds us, “whoever goes down into these waters of rebirth with faith renounces the devil and pledges himself to Christ. He repudiates the enemy and confesses that Christ is God, throws off his servitude, and is raised to filial status. He comes up from baptism resplendent as the sun, radiant in his purity, but above all, he becomes a son of God and a coheir with Christ.” He becomes a new creation.

Yes, you may find yourself in a state of chaos, but do not despair. God majors in taking care of chaotic situations. He can bring peace and order where confusion and disorder reign. In baptism, Christ has already overcome the world, the devil, sin and death.

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CHRISTMAS HOMILY: True God of True God

Transformations of the Body

SUNDAY WEB SITE | 1997

[Jesus’] baptism is at the heart of his mission to heal us. He enters even the wounds of our self-rejection, without having made the rejection himself. He accepts full solidarity with us even if it means being seen as sinner. Jesus’ baptism is one of his earliest great transformations of our human condition. The first was that the Word itself could take human flesh.

All the further implications would follow: that he would be tempted to reject this mission of transformation; that he would undertake all manner of healing and disarming of devils; that he would announce a kingdom to transmute all blindness, poverty, imprisonment, and darkness; that he would, at last, suffer the very fate of sin in death.

Declaration of Love

SINGLE HUMANITY | 2019

To hear someone, declare to you: I love you is just overwhelming. In fact, it marks a turning point in a relationship. Isn’t there something similar in the baptism of Jesus? Let’s see then how this can be a turning point in our lives.

Regardless of where you are reading this post from, with all cultural differences; love is an experience common to human beings. It makes us live. We love, and we want to be loved. It’s disarming to hear someone say to you: I love you. Such simple, short phrase has shaken up many lives. Probably yours too.

In fact, it marks a critical stage in the life of a teenager, easy to notice. Apparently from nowhere, your child just can’t eat as usual -no appetite; in class, as a teacher, you notice a pupil completely absent minded -gazing into emptiness; or perhaps it’s in the library where you spot a student, minutes are passing but she’s still on the same page. What’s the matter? You may wonder; there may not be any problem at all. They may simply be under charm, someone declared love to them. It’s not only for teenagers, it can catch you at any age.