Sermon Central
-
Easter Homilies
Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on May 5, 2019 (message contributor)
- 1
- 2
- Next
-
1. The Immensity Of God
Contributed on May 5, 2019
So much of the time, life seems unreasonable.
They Recognized Him Wednesday in Easter Week One of the great stories of the OT is told in the Book of Job, one of our OT saints. This wealthy but pious fellow named Job does everything right, keeping the commandments, worshiping God alone, and he is attacked by Satan, who murders his whole ...read more
-
2. A Sharp Sword, A Polished Arrow
Contributed on Apr 4, 2020
When the God-man is troubled, He is troubled like nobody before or after Him.
Tuesday of Holy Week 2020 A sharp sword, a polished arrow The Church today asks us to contemplate Our Lord Jesus Christ on this Tuesday after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. First we hear the words of Isaiah, written hundreds of years before as a contemplation of the ideal Israel, who was ...read more
-
3. "They Have Taken Him”
Contributed on Apr 12, 2020
Through her tears she saw angels asking her “why are you crying?” What kind of idiot question is that? “The so-and-so’s who murdered Him now have stolen His body and I don’t know where He is.”
Tuesday of Easter Week 2020 “They Have Taken Him” There are very few Gospel scenes more touching than the one we just heard. Mary Magdalene–from whom Jesus had cast multiple demons–owed everything to Jesus. But she had stood with His Mother, Mary, and the disciple John, and had watched the Romans ...read more
-
4. Sharing In A Time Of Economic Emergency
Contributed on Apr 19, 2020
At the time when we are most tempted to hunker down and hoard our resources for ourselves, I think the Lord is calling us to be generous with our churches and charitable institutions.
Tuesday of the 2nd Week in Easter 2020 The disciple Joseph Bar-nabas is one of the key players in the Acts of the Apostles. As the reading tells us, Joseph was given the name “Barnabas” by the leaders of the first church, the church of Jerusalem. Why? I had an experience when I was principal of a ...read more
-
5. Growing Pains
Contributed on May 2, 2020
This sheltering interlude is a time when we should be, and many of us have been, acquiring more understanding of our faith.
Tuesday of the 4th week of Easter 2020 “Growing Pains” When the authorities in Jerusalem, a few years after the Resurrection of Christ, determined to wipe out the new Jesus cult that was attracting so many converts, their persecution had an unintended result. The Jesus contagion spread all over ...read more
-
6. Through Many Tribulations
Contributed on May 8, 2020
Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. But we can take courage from the examples of Jesus and St. Paul.
Tuesday of the 5th Week of Easter 2020 Today’s tale from the Acts of the Apostles needs some back-story for those who weren’t at Mass yesterday. The scene is Lystra, a village in southern Anatolia, sometime in the year 48, about 15 years after the Resurrection. It was part of the Roman province of ...read more
-
7. Do You Really Think This Covid Catastrophe Is The Worst?
Contributed on May 16, 2020
Listen to the Spirit saying in our hearts, “you think this is hard to bear? You have not yet begun to feel the effects of sin in your world.”
Tuesday of the 6th Week of Easter 2020 Most of the time we go about our lives without anything big troubling them. In fact, most days we could, if we wished, live our lives as if nothing will ever trouble them. The lack of huge events from outside our own will as we go from day to day means that ...read more
-
8. Viruses, Afflictions, And Accomplishing Our Course
Contributed on May 23, 2020
The honor we seek is the honor given to Jesus and St. Paul and all the other saints: Humility, tears and trials.
Tuesday of the 7th Week in Easter 2020 Do you remember the first time you did something exceptionally good, and your mom or dad noticed it and gave you a hug and told you “child, that was really wonderful”? Even if you don’t remember that exact moment, you can recall at least one time when ...read more
-
9. Belief In Afterlife And The Ascension Of Jesus
Contributed on May 24, 2020
If the Harvard professor really believes that his existence is extinguished at the moment of death, what does he make of today’s solemn feast of the Ascension?
Ascension Sunday 2020 What if you see? Recently, a prominent obviously atheist Harvard professor tweeted, “belief in an afterlife is a malignant delusion, since it devalues actual lives and discourages action that would make them longer, safer, and happier.” The problem with such a statement, ...read more
-
10. Squirming In The Lap Of The Trinity
Contributed on May 28, 2020
When we are baptized into Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, we take our place within the embrace of the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 131–a homily for today Today’s psalm, “O Lord, my heart is not proud,” is the kind of prayer-gem that can stimulate hours of meditation. If you pray it quickly, it takes less than a minute, even with a “Glory be. . .” But let’s start with the declaration to God right in the middle: “Like a ...read more
-
11. Lord, Wouldn't This Be A Great Time For You To Return?
Contributed on May 30, 2020
But when that trumpet blows and the game of life is complete, Christ’s forbearance is done, and those who have been procrastinating in their conversion will be lost.
Pentecost Tuesday 2020 You may have noticed that we reached back into Peter’s second letter to the passage coming right before the one prescribed for today, to grab some context that was lost when we celebrated the Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, yesterday. The Church has been waiting for the ...read more
-
12. Mary Mother Of The Church
Contributed on May 31, 2020
Let’s imagine that Mary is a contestant on something like “the Price is Right” or some other TV game show, and the announcer is announcing what she will win when she chooses the correct door.
Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church 2020 Today we heard the familiar stories of the fall of humanity, and the redemption of humanity. The first concerns the first Adam and the first Eve, who disobeyed the Lord and lost original innocence. The second involves the second Adam, Jesus, God and man, ...read more
-
13. Who Really Is Responsible?
Contributed on Apr 16, 2021
It took some time to process the traumatic and surprising events of Holy Week
3rd Sunday of Easter When something traumatic happens in your family, perhaps a death or serious injury, do you find often that there’s at least a temptation toward chaos? This is especially true if one of the key linchpins in the family is taken out of commission for a time, or even permanently. ...read more
-
14. He Is Lord And Christ, But What Does That Mean?
Contributed on Apr 11, 2023
Jesus poured out everything–His knowledge, His dignity, His very human life-blood to the last drop on Calvary. He held back nothing so He could give it all to us
An Easter Homily One of the first phrases out of St. Peter’s mouth on the Day of Pentecost, the day in which the Holy Spirit filled the disciples of Jesus and they broke out in tongues and prophecy, is “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and ...read more
-
15. The Seventeen Percent Or The Seventy-Two?
Contributed on Apr 13, 2023
Frodo from Lord of the Rings is great fiction, but Jesus is the Risen King of the Universe.
Sunday After Easter 2023 A couple of years ago, Rasmussen surveyed Americans and found that seventy-two out of every hundred Americans believe that Jesus is Son of God and raised from the dead. Seventeen percent definitely deny that. Thomas the Apostle, after being told of Christ’s physical rising ...read more
-
16. Bearing With One Another, And What It Does Not Mean
Contributed on Apr 16, 2023
Christ’s appearances shocked and surprised His disciples.
Sunday After Easter Office of Readings (Col 3: 1-17) We have been, as St. Paul attests, raised up in company with Christ, and must set our heart on what pertains to higher realms, things above rather than things of earth. Now as earthly creatures, coming from other earthly creatures and set in the ...read more
-
17. I Am, Fear Not
Contributed on Apr 18, 2023
All resources are finite, and so when food and other sustenance was given to the Christian community’s widows, the goods ran out.
Saturday of the 2nd Week in Easter 2023 There are some things that human beings do without thinking very long or hard before doing them. You can imagine the power and gas going off in a severe winter storm and then burning clothes and furniture in the fireplace to keep warm. Or one might find a ...read more
-
18. Where Is Jesus And How Do We Recognize Him?
Contributed on Apr 22, 2023
We want to live in confidence in this God of resurrection, and so we believe in God, hope to be united with God eternally, and love each other so we can accomplish those tasks.
Third Sunday in Easter 2023 As the Church moves more deeply into the Easter season, we are presented this year with the awesome story of the two disciples walking together to Emmaus, away from Jerusalem, away from the grave of the man they had followed for perhaps three years. They were ...read more
-
19. Different Sheep For A Very Different Shepherd
Contributed on Apr 28, 2023
We must think of Jesus as Shepherd in a new way, lest we just think of a fellow in a robe and beard cuddling a little lamb.
Fourth Sunday of Easter 2023 We have a great privilege this week. Today is, as most of you know, Good Shepherd Sunday, and not just for us Catholics. But in the weekly readings, we are also given texts telling us more about our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. Still, lest we just think of a fellow in ...read more
-
20. The Purpose Of Our Celebration
Contributed on May 2, 2023
To know the Father it is necessary to know Christ, and from that Passover on, they will know and see the Father.
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter 2023 When contemplating this reading from the fourteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, it is very important to realize that this is taken from Christ’s last prayer and teaching at the Last Supper, the beginning of Jesus’s own Passover. Jesus has just told his ...read more
-
21. Living Stones--Living In Reference To The Cornerstone Christ
Contributed on May 4, 2023
The Church must always be moving forward into the future, so into the sunrise, with and for Christ.
Fifth Sunday of Easter 2023 “The cornerstone is an important part of any masonry foundation. It is the first stone that is set in the construction of the foundation and all other stones are set in reference to this stone.” If you haven’t figured out what the cornerstone of the Church is, please ...read more
-
22. Nothing Can Be Allowed To Stand In The Way!
Contributed on May 9, 2023
Nothing could stand or be allowed to stand in the way of spreading the Christian gospel.
Saturday of the 5th Sunday of Easter 2023 St. Paul’s mission to the Jews and the Gentiles took him several times into the Roman province of Asia, an area we now assign to Turkey. The area of Mysia, which is just south of the Sea of Marmora, has in it the city of Troas, which is close to the ...read more
-
23. The Holy Spirit Is With And In Us As We Share Christ
Contributed on May 11, 2023
The Holy Spirit equips the whole body of disciples to continue the work of Christ.
Sixth Sunday of Easter 2023 For several weeks now, after the Paschal celebration, we have been hearing the last teaching of Jesus from the Gospel of John. This long speech and promise is positioned by John at the Last Supper, but it would also make sense in the period between Easter and Christ’s ...read more
-
24. A Good Evangelist Always Listens
Contributed on May 16, 2023
He was convinced of the truth of the Gospel, and felt alright recruiting people to Christ despite what he did not know about His teaching.
Saturday of the 6th Week in Easter 2023 There are Christians who sincerely believe that the early Church existed only in local congregations who typically met in the homes of members. In other words, that shortly after Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father, after He had told His apostles ...read more
-
25. Christ, Have Mercy
Contributed on May 18, 2023
We can be another John, or centurion, or Caiphas, or common soldier. It matters not. What really matters is our response.
Insights on Forgiveness Easter 2023 The shortest chapter in the Holy Bible is right smack in the middle, and right in the middle of the book of Psalms, the songbook of the Second Temple and of the Church. It is Psalm 117, Laudate Dominum, and can be recited in less than 30 seconds. Praise the ...read more
-
26. All The Way To The End
Contributed on May 23, 2023
Today’s readings from the NT close out both the book of Acts and the Gospel of John.
Saturday of 7th Week in Easter 2023 Today’s readings from the NT close out both the book of Acts and the Gospel of John. The apostle John was almost certainly the disciple who lay against Christ’s breast at the Last Supper, and here, right at the last paragraph of his Gospel, he repeats what can ...read more
-
27. Forgiving Sins Is Also A Spiritual Gift
Contributed on May 25, 2023
Our biggest problem can be fixed by repentance and confession. We can be healed through this charism of the Church.
Pentecost Sunday 2023 Today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles is so striking, with its description of the Holy Spirit’s descent in the form of fire, and the resulting prayer in tongues, that it tends to overwhelm the rest of the Scriptures. So let’s look at today’s psalm 104 to ...read more
-
28. The Paschal Mystery And Our True Ends
Contributed on Mar 28, 2024
Raised with Christ means being moved into a new level of existence, an existence that is best studied in the Book of Revelations, the Apocalypse.
Easter Sunday 2024 (The Paschal Mystery) God is entirely transcendent. God is so different from us that there is no way we can comprehend Him, that is, get our arms around Him. We are a combination spiritual and material beings, body and soul. God, Who is Most Real, is also Immense. We understand ...read more
-
29. Jesus The Extremist--We Should Be Extremists Too
Contributed on Apr 2, 2024
Our faith and the natural moral law written on our hearts, and basic human biology all agree
Saturday of Easter Week 2024 There’s a word I see in almost daily use by our national media and politicians. When a writer or speaker wants to discredit someone else, he uses the word “extremist.” You’ve seen it used by adherents of both sides of any debate, but it seems to me more likely to be ...read more
-
30. How God's Mercy Acts Through Our Faith And Love
Contributed on Apr 3, 2024
We love God and because of that we obey His commandments, so we are bound to love the children of God by obeying His commandments.
Second Sunday of Easter 2024 (Sunday of Divine Mercy) This is the Sunday of Divine Mercy, but isn’t every Sunday a celebration of the mercy of God? Our psalm today cries out “His mercy endures forever.” God’s mercy, which in Hebrew reads as hesed, is everlasting. In fact, this statement, that ...read more