Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Peter and Paul. Each of them went through their times of confinement, of social isolation. There were each imprisoned for their preaching of the gospel. In the first reading, we heard that King Herod arrested Peter and put him in prison. Yet, according to that reading, Peter in prison was supported by the prayers of the church, ‘the church prayed to God for him unremittingly’. The Lord came to him in his imprisonment through the prayers of the faithful. The Lord came to him in an even more dramatic way through an angel…
Homily for the Solemnity of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist
Many of the questions that people ask in the gospels are worth pondering. In today’s gospel reading, we find one such question, ‘What will this child turn out to be?’ The question was people’s response to the unusual circumstances surrounding the birth of John the Baptist. His father, Zechariah, had insisted that his newborn child was to be called ‘John’, even though no one in the family ever had the name ‘John’. However, this was the name the angel Gabriel had given to the child who was to be born of Zechariah and Elizabeth when Gabriel appeared to Zechariah. Zechariah,…
Homily for Tuesday, Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, year B
Mt. 5:13-16 This morning’s gospel reading follows on immediately from the account of the beatitudes, which was yesterday’s gospel reading. Jesus is saying that those who live out the attitudes and values portrayed in the beatitudes are, in reality, salt of the earth and light of the world. The way of life to which Jesus calls us is with a view to the whole earth, to the whole world. Jesus always had the world in view when he called his first disciples, and when he calls us. He calls us to follow in his way, to live by his values…
Homily for the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
Mark 6:17-29 We may be familiar with the expression, ‘speaking truth to power’. It can often be a dangerous business. John the Baptist spoke God’s truth to the powerful Herod, telling him that it was against God’s law for him to marry his brother Philip’s wife, as he had done. For speaking this truth, John incurred the anger of Herod’s wife, Herodias, and her resentment towards John was a factor in John’s unjust persecution. However, the other factor in John’s execution was Herod’s own moral cowardness. The gospel reading says that Herod knew John to be a good and holy…
Homily for Tuesday, Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time
2 Thess 2:1-3a, 14-17 Mt 23:23-26 There is a verse in one of the prophets of the Old Testament, the prophet Micah, which many people feel drawn to. ‘What is it that the Lord requires of you but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?’ To do justice is to give people what is their due as human beings and as images of God. To love mercy is to show mercy to others in the sense of forgiving others and serving them in their need. To walk humbly with your God is to be…
SAINT OF THE DAY: POPE SAINT PIUS X
On June 2, 1835, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto saw the light of earth at Riesi, Province of Treviso, in Venice; on August 20, 1914, he saw the light of heaven; and on May 29, 1954, he who had become the two hundred fifty-ninth pope was canonized, SAINT PIUS X. Two of the most outstanding accomplishments of this saintly Pope were the inauguration of the liturgical renewal and the restoration of frequent communion from childhood. He also waged an unwavering war against the heresy and evils of Modernism, gave great impetus to biblical studies, and brought about the codification of Canon Law.…
