Sermons on Popes:

Mission And Suffering Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jun 29, 2014

We must not marvel that we suffer pain and persecution when we carry the message of Christ to our culture.

Thursday of the 14th Week in Course Lumen Fidei Pop singers and bands engage in a ritual–they all do. There’s a warmup act, usually a second or third rate band. It’s their Introit and Gloria, except the praise is of the human act to follow. There’s audience ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 10:8-14

Denomination: Catholic

Evangelizing The Cities Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Feb 28, 2015

Just as post-Resurrection Judaism created a culture that rejected the Gospel, so modern society tries to make people incapable of receiving Christ. But we must bear witness, especially in the cities.

Thursday of the Second Week in Lent Joy of the Gospel Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell his key disciples not to disclose their vision of Him transfigured until He would rise from the dead. There was a good reason for that. The Jewish mindset, which had been formed by prophets like Jeremiah, ...read more

Scripture: Luke 16:19-31

Denomination: Catholic

Year Of Faith And Evangelization Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jul 14, 2012

Despite the many forces arrayed against the Church's mission, we must follow the Gospel command to bring the Word of God to everyone.

Monday of 15th Week in Course July 16, 2012 Our Lady of Mt Carmel The Holy Father has announced the year of faith, to begin later this year with the next Synod of Bishops, and he has designated it as a time to dedicate ourselves to the New Evangelization. This may seem untimely. After all, the ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 10:34-42

Denomination: Catholic

The Twin Loves And Saint Louis Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jan 6, 2019

Whatever our state of life, we are called to live and die in love. We are called to follow Jesus and to become saints ourselves.

January 10, 2019 St. Louis of Toulouse Every day we wake up, we wake up to the understanding that our being able to wake up is a divine gift. Every night when we retire saying our night prayers, we make an act of confidence in God, trusting that if we die that night, we are in the care of the ...read more

Scripture: Luke 4:14-30

Denomination: Catholic

Palm Sunday Of The Lord's Passion: Cry Of Dereliction, And Salvation And Healing

Contributed by Paul Andrew on Mar 13, 2025

In marriage, husbands, and wives fulfill your vows in your interpersonal communication. Abandonment prevails in small and large ways. The healing is to deliver the intimacy in your marriage out of what Jesus did for you.

Brennan Manning was an author who later was ordained as a Franciscan priest and who served in the Korean War. He tells the story of how he and his best friend, Ray, enlisted together and served in the same Marine platoon. One night a grenade landed in the foxhole where Brennan and Ray were. Ray ...read more

Denomination: Catholic

Gather Up All Things In Christ Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Oct 28, 2016

We generate history, not by politics and war, but by service to the poor and helpless.

Thursday of the 30th Week in Course 2016 Joy of the Gospel Every time we turn a page in the New Testament, we are–if we are sensitive–struck by how counter-intuitive the Christian message is. Consider St. Paul’s life. He was, by his own account, a super-Jew. He observed every ...read more

Scripture: Philippians 3:3-8

Denomination: Catholic

Take The Risk And Grow Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Aug 27, 2016

Take the risk; take the challenge; take the grace and grow.

Thursday of 21st Week in Course St. Paul’s words to Corinth today are like a commentary on the Gospel. Simon and the boys have been fishing all night, casting and pulling, casting and pulling. All they got was garbage. But at the word of Jesus, they put out into deep water–not the ...read more

Scripture: Luke 5:1-11

Denomination: Catholic

Faith And The Two Meanings Of Works Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Oct 14, 2017

Faith, above all, is a gift of God. Now it’s a gift that he pours out liberally on all humans, but it will not save our souls unless we cooperate with it.

Thursday of 28th Week in Course 2017 Reformation Revolution Saints John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues Our readings today say the same thing in different ways. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans was really the first work of systematic theology. It positions the saving work of Our Lord in the context of ...read more

Scripture: Romans 3:21-30

Denomination: Catholic

Infinite Love For Infinite Sadness Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jun 10, 2017

To enjoy infinite love curing our infinite sadness, we need to live by the moral code Jesus taught, the code of loving even our enemies.

Thursday of 2nd Week in Course 2017 Joy of the Gospel “Our infinite sadness can only be cured by an infinite love.” Those words of Pope Francis ended our reflection last Thursday on the encyclical Joy of the Gospel. Now God’s love is unconditional. He loves even jerks, even sinners like me and ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 5:20-26

Denomination: Catholic

The Word Does Not Accommodate To The Culture Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jun 23, 2012

There is a close relationship between the testimony of Scripture and the witness given by the lives of believers.

Monday of 12th Week in Course June 25, 2012 Verbum Domini Exactly why were the people of God thrown out of the land of God? Exactly why were the chosen people, the Jews, supplanted in the plan of salvation by the Catholic Church? And why, we should all ask, are we now being hammered by secular ...read more

Scripture: 2 Kings 17:5-18

Denomination: Catholic

Sight And Hearing; Faith Knowledge And Love Knowledge

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jan 2, 2014

People need to hear the word of God and to see a vision of His plan in order to nurture both faith and love in their hearts, and to bring Christians together.

Thursday of First Week in Course 2014 Lumen Fidei Everyone who loves the parent loves the child, so we can’t say we love God and avoid loving our neighbor. We are all children of God, so we must love one another. In fact, one of the main reasons we come to hear the word and share the Body ...read more

Scripture: Luke 4:18-22

Denomination: Catholic

Writing Straight With Crooked Lines Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Dec 9, 2017

In the midst of the Reformation, God weaves a tapestry of faith in the lives of weak human beings.

Thursday of the 2nd Week in Advent 2017 Reformation/Revolution When external situations are the bleakest, God acts to fulfill His promises to His people–first in the history of the Jews, and now in the age of the Church. The second and third parts of Isaiah were probably written by his followers ...read more

Scripture: Isaiah 41:13-20

Denomination: Catholic

The Value Of Interreligious Dialogue Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Apr 1, 2016

"Evangelization and interreligious dialogue, far from being opposed, mutually support and nourish one another."

Thursday in Second Week of Easter 2016 Joy of the Gospel Today we hear the story of Peter’s witness before the Sanhedrin in the months following the first Pentecost. To the authorities who had forbade preaching about Jesus, Peter reminds them that the Law of God goes before any human law. ...read more

Scripture: Acts 5:27-33

Denomination: Catholic

Discerning A Turning Point In History Series

Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Dec 13, 2014

Christians must discern whether changes in the culture are actually movements of the Spirit, or not.

Thursday of the 3rd Week in Advent 2014 Joy of the Gospel Yesterday we began the second phase of our Advent preparation. We ceased calling on Christ to return in glory, and we began our proximate preparation for the commemoration of the humble birth of the righteous branch who grew up to reign as ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25

Denomination: Catholic

The Tribulation, Not A Good Thing Series

Contributed by Denn Guptill on Dec 9, 2002

The third part in this series on the end times, it looks at the great tribulation

It started the day everybody disappeared, well not everybody disappeared but a lot of people did. And from there it went from bad to worse. No one was sure who was simply missing and who had been lost in the tragedies that followed the disappearances. Those who remembered September 11th tried to ...read more

Scripture: Revelation 6:12-17

Denomination: Wesleyan