In Sermons:

Dying On A Cross Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 16, 2025

Today we must give thanks for the gift of Jesus. His self-giving knew no limits and doesn’t stop giving even now.

Good Friday 2025 I’ve frequently thought that the best approach to a homily for Good Friday would be to stand and look at the biggest cross or crucifix and focus on the pain and torment Jesus underwent two thousand years ago. I’ll encourage you to do that sometime in the next couple of days before ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 52:13-15, Isaiah 53:1-12, Hebrews 4:14-16, Hebrews 5:7-9, John 19:1-42, John 18:1-39  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic

Priest Forever Making Us Priests Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 15, 2025

He (Jesus) did learn obedience to the Father’s will from what He suffered.

Thursday of Holy Week 2025 (at Matins) The annual feast of Passover, or Pesach, is attributed to the interaction of Moses with the liberating YHWH/Adonai at the time of the Israelite liberation from Egypt, perhaps 1200 years before Christ. A second feast, about six months later, held the annual ...read more

Denomination: Catholic

The Greatest Saint Meets The Greatest Criminal Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 14, 2025

We don’t know what was going through Judas’ mind as he took the bread and wine offered by Jesus as His Body and Blood, but we can be pretty certain that he didn’t think he was doing evil.

Wednesday of Holy Week 2025 Is it possible for the greatest criminal not to know he’s doing evil? Today we have a case study from Scripture on the greatest saint who ever lived, and the greatest sinner. The saint, of course, is Our Lord Jesus Christ. The sinner—and we are all sinners, after ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 26:14-25, Isaiah 50:4-9

Denomination: Catholic

Judas Was Not The Only Betrayer Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 13, 2025

The servant of the Lord described by Isaiah today actually becomes a light, not just for people Israel, but for the goy, the nations. Wherever this servant would be, darkness would flee, and salvation would enter.

Tuesday of Holy Week 2026 None of us, I suppose, has ever lived in a house without electricity for more than a few hours or days. Those would be periods of a weather emergency, or utility blackout. But in a place without utilities, lanterns and candles would be used to extend the period of work or ...read more

Scripture: John 8:12, Revelation 21:23, John 13:21-33, John 13:36-38, Psalm 71:1-6, Psalm 71:15, Psalm 71:17, Isaiah 49:1-6  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic

Could Even Judas Have Been Forgiven? Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 13, 2025

Did Judas have to lose hope? On the third day after Jesus died, when the apostles gathered in the Upper Room, would there have been room for Judas Iscariot? He was, after all, one of the Twelve, chosen by Christ.

Monday of Holy Week 2025 St. John the Evangelist probably had three or four decades or more to contemplate the life and fate of his fellow disciple, Judas Iscariot. He then wrote his clear and crisp description of the man’s moral character. The incident described Mary of Bethany ministering to the ...read more

Scripture: John 12:1-11, Psalm 27:1-3, Psalm 27:13-14, Isaiah 42:1-7

Denomination: Catholic

Disappointed? You Were Looking For The Wrong Messiah Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 12, 2025

It could have been a puppy or a pony or a Red Rider BB gun ® but the day sticks in your mind because you were very disappointed.

Palm Sunday Procession Homily 2025 Take a moment to recall from your childhood a particularly memorable Christmas or Birthday celebration in your family. I bet you have one in which you had wished—and made your wish known—for a particular toy or cuddly and did not receive it. It could have been a ...read more

Scripture: Luke 19:28-40, Luke 18:35-43, Zechariah 9:9, Acts 1:6, Isaiah 56:7  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic

The Name Above All Names At Which We Bend Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 9, 2025

The Son of God was divine already, but He thought it unfair to glom onto that identity. He became the face of the divine compassion and enduring love, God’s hesed, by emptying Himself of all His divine glory, all His divine dignity.

Palm/Passion Sunday The critical reading we are given from Scripture today is not one of the two Gospels, not the triumphant Palm Sunday story of Christ’s entry to Jerusalem and not the story of the Last Supper, Passion and death of Our Lord. No, the reading that is crucial to an understanding of ...read more

Scripture: Philippians 2:6-11, Isaiah 50:4-7, Acts 16:11-40

Denomination: Catholic

The Mercy Of God Locks Up Death And Hades Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 8, 2025

Jesus bears the keys that have locked up “Death and Hades” so that we no longer can fear dying, so that when we close our eyes for the last time here, we can look forward to seeing Our Lord in that New Life.

Sunday of Divine Mercy 2025 When the Church gets really excited about one of God’s wonderful works, She commits Liturgy over and over. So last Sunday was our celebration of Christ’s Pasch, His rising from the dead, and for the entire week we have been celebrating that same Mass every day. This ...read more

Scripture: Acts 5:12-16, Psalm 118:2-4, Psalm 118:13-15, Psalm 118:22-24, Revelation 1:9-13, Revelation 1:17-19, John 20:19-31  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic

Jesus Is God And The Crowd Doesn't Like That Truth Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 7, 2025

Jesus has just declared that the Father and He are one, one in intention and one in mind and heart. The Jerusalem crowd that Jesus has been preaching to heard His words as blasphemy, and that offense carried the death penalty.

Friday of the Fifth Week in Lent 2025 Today’s Gospel reading from St. John continues the narrative we heard yesterday from an earlier chapter. You may recall that incident. Jesus declared that Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Jesus. Almost certainly that means the birth of Isaac and perhaps even ...read more

Scripture: Jeremiah 20:10-13, Psalm 18:2-7, John 10:31-42

Denomination: Catholic

Not So Important Where The Messiah Came From Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Mar 31, 2025

In two weeks we will be celebrating the three days that shook the world, and the Friday we call “Good” because it led to our redemption.

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent 2025 As St. Paul and others spread the joyous and demanding Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the Roman world, and even beyond, they read from the Scriptures. But the story of Jesus was available orally. The Gospels in writing were not set down on papyrus right ...read more

Scripture: John 7:1-2, John 7:10, John 7:25-30, Psalm 34:17-21

Denomination: Catholic

Merciful, Merciful And Gracious Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Mar 30, 2025

We confess our sins with true repentance and determination not to sin again, and we are forgiven. Freely. That is God’s self-definition. He needs nothing from us, no. His love for us is constantly being thrown back in His Holy Face by us sinners, but He keeps summoning us to be loved.

Fifth Sunday of Lent 2025 On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, which some of us grew up knowing as “Passion Sunday” or the first Sunday of the Passion, the Church is getting really serious about the identity and mission of Jesus as Christ/Messiah. Isaiah speaks for God, declaring “Remember not the former ...read more

Scripture: Deuteronomy 22:24, Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 126:1-6, Philippians 3:8-14, John 8:1-11  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic

Dysfunctional Families All Over The Place

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Mar 26, 2025

By seeking the Lord, we will find Him, in word and sacrament, each week as we gather here. By His power our sins are forgiven, and we are filled with His grace, His very life. We can smile always because of God’s deliverance.

Fourth Sunday of Lent 2025 Forty years did the people of Israel travel here and there through the southern desert. That was time enough for their nation to become the butt of jokes for all the people around them. It’s true that when Joshua took command from Moses, now taken to God, the Lord dried ...read more

Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, Luke 15:11-32, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Psalm 34:2-7, Joshua 5:9, Joshua 5:10-12  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic

Truly God And Man

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Mar 25, 2025

Old Herod was not even a Jew, but he sometimes paid attention to Torah, since he was “king of the Jews,” He even thought of himself as the true Messiah.

Word Made Flesh March 25, 2025 This day, this most critical of solemnities, was supposed to take place in a castle or palace, or some really important place in Israel. The Messiah was imagined to be conceived in an independent Israel, and that Messiah, the natural son of a king and queen was ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 7:10-14, Isaiah 8:10, Psalm 40:7-11, Hebrews 10:4-10, Luke 1:26-38  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic

Hosea--Is He A Loser And Chump? Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Mar 24, 2025

He fell in love with a woman who found herself lovers, lots of them. She was frequently unfaithful. Despite her infidelity, Hosea took her back time after time.

Friday of the Third Week in Lent 2025 The prophet Hosea, if he lived in our modern culture, would be called a total loser, an inveterate chump. He was prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel and ministered during the reign of King Jeroboam II in the middle of the eighth century before Our Lord. ...read more

Scripture: Mark 12:28-34, Psalm 81:6-11, Psalm 81:14, Hosea 14:2-9

Denomination: Catholic

Memory And Identity

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Mar 19, 2025

Why was God not pleased with most of His redeemed people?

Third Sunday in Lent 2025 The richness of today’s Scripture readings makes it important for all of us, preacher and congregation, to take time during the week to reflect on the many messages God is sharing with us, His people, as we finish the first half of the Lenten season. If we pay close ...read more

Scripture: Luke 13:1-9, 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 1 Corinthians 10:10-12, Psalm 103:1-4, Psalm 103:6-8, Psalm 103:11, Exodus 3:1-8, Exodus 3:13-15  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Catholic