February 16, 2025 at St Agnes and St William Churches in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 17: 5-8 + Psalm 1 + 1 Corinthians 15: 12, 16-20 + Luke 6: 17, 20-26

This translation of Luke’s words here is unfortunate because it fails to tell us what he really means. I do not understand why we keep reading these verses this way: Blessed are the Poor, blessed are you who are hungry, blessed are you who are now weeping. Poverty, Hunger, and Sadness are not blessings. The Greek word that Luke chose here recognizes happiness. This is about happiness – how recognize happy people, and perhaps how to find happiness.

We can get a better idea of what St Luke is doing with the words of Jesus by comparing these verses with Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount.” What we have here is a down-to-earth ground rules for being included in the Kingdom of Heaven. These are much less spiritualized than Matthew’s and so they are much more concrete with social implications. In this Gospel, there is nothing about being poor in spirit. Luke is talking about the economically impoverished, people on the margins pushed there by a society that did not take seriously the responsibility we have for each other. If you are wondering what’s happy about being poor, you have forgotten who God is and how powerful God’s love is for the poor. The rich, on the other hand, have no need of God – and having made a god out of their stuff, they are in trouble. Luke’s audience is the rich. The poor don’t need to be told that they are poor.

To make sure that poverty is not romanticized, Jesus speaks of the hungry and the weeping. The early church, following the example of Jesus, fed the hungry. The measure of how faithful we are in following the example of Jesus and his command, “Feed them yourselves” can be seen in just how seriously and practically we do that today.

Discipleship is not easy, simple, nor is it ever popular. It comes at a high price of scorn, ridicule, sometimes hatred and exclusion. It shows itself when a neighborhood protests a group home for people with disabilities because they fear a drop in the value of their own homes. You stand up for Jesus and you’re going to get hurt and weep. Those of us who dream for the Kingdom of God have a higher vision than this world can imagine.

Woe to those of this world for their narrow-minded, narrow-hearted worldliness. Woe to those whose god is money and possessions. They are never really free, and they are never really happy. Woe to those whose belly is their god. They live in a spiritual famine. Woe to those who live it up with their “eat, drink, and be merry” worldliness. Grief comes to their empty souls when it runs out. Woe to those who get in your face with their hollow piety that ignores those around who are poor, hungry, and afraid.

If we set our hearts and focus our energy just for the things this world values, we will get them; and that’s all we will get. Some in this world may look at us and think that we are unhappy, but our happiness can never be destroyed by a hurricane, a change in the stock market, or by a doctor’s call with bad news.

Today, Jesus is offering a choice between two ways of life: happiness or sadness. A very wise Christian, G. K. Chesterton believed that Jesus promised his people three things: that they would be fearless, greatly happy, and in constant trouble. That last one might seem like a contradiction, unless you know that he also said: “I like getting in hot water. It keeps me clean.”

February 9, 2025 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Malachi 3: 1-4 + Psalm 24 + Hebrews 2: 14-18 + Luke 5: 1-11

To recognize a miracle, or even a person for that matter, you have to have an eye that really sees. Everyone saw apples fall from trees before Isaac Newton did. Yet, he saw an apple fall and came up with the law of gravity. Everyone can see a kettle of water boil, but when James Watt saw that he came up with the steam engine. It would seem that a lot of people everywhere including Peter were seeing what Jesus was doing, but not until that net filled up with fish did Peter stop calling Jesus “Master,” and call him “Lord.” It is always a matter of what you see and how you see.

Luke writes to us today about our calling, our encounter with the Lord. He writes about how and where it is likely to happen and what it will mean. These men are doing what they do all the time, every day. They are not in the Temple or the synagogue. They are not wandering around looking for Jesus Christ. He comes to them in the midst of their normal routine lives. There is nothing unusual or extraordinary. They have been working and they are tired.

We will never really know why they got back on the boat at his request. Your guess is as good as mine. They hardly knew him. They just knew about him. All we know is that they did get back on the boat. Even though they had just caught nothing after a long night, they gave it one more try, and one more try is all it takes. This time, tired from trying without success, they follow his instructions which make no sense at all. Did you notice that he sends them out to the deep water? No shallow stuff here. No easy short-cut. They have to go way out.

This is really not about a net full of fish. This is about what happens to any of us who might get discouraged and want to quit. This is about how Jesus Christ has come among us with an invitation to live in a new way, to do what we do every day with new purpose and hope. They kept on fishing, but soon they will fish in a different way and for a different reason. This is also about the kind of people Jesus chooses to carry on his mission, gathering us all into that boat that takes us to the Kingdom. It is simply ordinary people like fishermen that he looks for. He never looks for people with some kind of sophistication, privilege, or exceptional skills. It is just ordinary people, and it is going to be you and me.

If the Kingdom of God is going to come, if there is to be peace, mercy, and forgiveness, if there is to be joy and hope in this world it will be because we have been ready to do what he asks of us even if it makes no sense. It will be because we did not take the easy way, but were willing to go way out into the deep, and most of all, because we never gave up.

February 2, 2025 at St William and St Agnes & St Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Malachi 3: 1-4 + Psalm 24 + Hebrews 2: 14-18 + Luke 2: 22-40

Is this about Jesus or about Mary and Joseph? It could be about the Temple and keeping the rules. It might also be about the Holy Spirit. Scholars have focused on all of these options as Luke closes this introduction that we call, “The Infancy Narrative.” It may be a bias I have after moving well into my 80s, but I’m beginning to pay more attention to these two old-timers who appear at the end of this introduction, and as I look around in here, that might not be a bad idea for many of you too. At the same time, some of you who still enjoy some measure of youth might just take a closer look at these old-folks here and in this Gospel. It is not by chance that Luke began this story of Christ’s birth with two old-timers, Elizabeth and Zechariah and then closes it with two more: Simeon and an 84-year-old named, Anna.

Theirs is a story of patient hope, of promises fulfilled, and it all happens in the Temple. In this story we learn about how universal salvation is found in Jesus Christ. Every barrier gets abolished: ethnic, racial, social, political, economic and religious. In Simeon’s song, the light of revelation bursts upon all people, and it all starts because an old couple who seemed too old to bring life show what can happen when commitments are kept and there is obedience to God’s will. Even a little doubt or hesitation on the part of Zechariah at the start cannot stop the Good News Simeon and Anna proclaim.

Those of us, like those old ones before us, know that this Gospel story, is our story and it is not all sweetness and light. There is falling and rising, brokenness and healing, sorrow and joy. We know that none of this can keep us from the glory of Christ who lifts us from the waters of Baptism to feed us on his very Body and Blood. We come to this Temple again and again because we know that this is the place where we shall see our salvation.

Younger people, look at us. Listen to this Gospel, to Anna and Simeon. There are old people in this church whose lives bear witness to every terrible thing Simeon and Anna predict. Some have been abandoned by those they love, some have buried their children, some have faced hunger, war, and terrible sickness. Yet, they are here because they know something they want you to know. Just like that new young mother and Joseph found their way to the Temple, so must you if you want to see God’s promises fulfilled. Those two young new parents learned something from those two old people.

There are some who look and laugh at older folks who don’t seem to know how to find their way around the internet, take selfies, or answer a text. But they know something greater and much more lasting. We long for and hope for a day when young people will quit looking at the little screen on their phone expecting love and intimacy to be found there, and learn what we know, that this is the place and this is the people where forgiveness and mercy will always be found even without a Wi-Fi connection.

This is a day of rejoicing. It is a day to be moved once more by the Holy Spirit so often revealed in Luke’s Gospel. May that Spirit still alive in the hearts of God’s faithful inspire the lost and the lonely, the shy and the fearful, to grow and become strong, filled with wisdom because the favor of God rests upon us all.

January 26, 2025 at St William and St Agnes Churches in Naples, FL

Nehemiah 8: 2-4, 5-6, 8-10 + Psalm 19 + 1 Corinthians 12: 12-30 + Luke 1: 1-4, 4:14-21

At the risk of starting some domestic quarrel in your homes, I share with you a quote from Margret Thatcher that I think touches the heart of today’s Gospel. “If you want a speech written, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.” Now, you can argue the truth of that at home, but I would like you to consider it in terms of this Gospel and our mandate to assume the ministry of Jesus Christ.

We find Jesus in the synagogue reading a passage from a prophet who provided clues for the recognition of the Messiah and the beginning of a new age. Basically, that Messiah would be recognized by what he would do more than by what he had to say. After the reading, Luke tells us that Jesus sat down as any rabbi would to begin teaching. His homily that day is shorter than this one, and it is really summarized in one word, the first word, “Today.”  

Politicians begin their term of office with an inauguration speech. In every way, this is what we have from Jesus as he now reveals his mission to the world which is basically to make visible and tangible the inner heart of God, who desires healing, wholeness, and justice. With that, Luke tells us that the eyes of everyone were fixed on him surely because they thought it was all for them, for this place so privileged and gifted with this home-town wonder boy.

When they find out next week, what it really means, things change.

That first word of his instruction still rings out in this place, “Today.” Tomorrow will not do. Next week, when I have more time, or when I can get some help is not what he says.

Reciting the Creed, or a lot of memorized prayers, is just talk. If this world is ever to know that inner heart of a loving God, it will not be because we talked about it. Justice, healing forgiveness, and the unity that wholeness will provide will only come because of something done.

The acid test of deeds over words never changes. Actions do speak louder than words. Jesus was a doer. His actions matched his word, or to put it another way, his words always materialized into action. Listening to this Gospel TODAY ought to raise a much-ignored issue today whether our faith has anything to do with justice, economics, poverty or any other social/political issue.

If the work of Jesus Christ has begun today, then his words are real and we make our faith real when we allow it to enter into our real world. There is no issue facing this world that can escape the scrutiny of the faithful. When we oppose murder on death row or in a hospital delivery room we reveal the inner heart of God. You know, we have a right to punish, but we have no right to kill. People of faith examine economic policies for signs of service rather than self-serving greed.

The Kingdom of God and our share in that Kingdom begins on the day when we say, “Now.” No more waiting, no more stalling, no more excuses. Today is the day when everyone of us stops talking, dreaming or promising something and starts doing something about forgiveness, unity, wholeness, and justice.

January 19, 2025 at St William and St Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 62: 1-5 + Psalm + 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11 + John 2: 1-11

Until the wine was gone, no one looked for or noticed Jesus. There is nothing here to suggest that he was somehow a special or honored guest. He just came along with his mother. No one acknowledged his presence until the wine ran out. There’s no surprise here. That old wine was still wine, and the old wine was enough to keep them from seeking Jesus. Sometimes it is the old, not the empty that gets in the way of seeking the Lord. Old attitudes, old ways, old habits and hurts, old information, old rituals and rules create a very dry religion. Many people never think of Jesus or look for him until something runs out.

But the issue here is not really about being empty or running out. The issue is whether or not we go to Jesus to be filled. His mother knew where to go. Pay attention to her. She has no idea how Jesus will respond, what he will need, or when he will act. She doesn’t know how, what, where, or when. But, she knows who. She is perfectly confident that he will do something because she asks. And why not? She raised him.

There is much being revealed to us through John’s Gospel today. He reminds us that if we want the Lord to move in our lives, we must be willing and prepared to do what he says. Sometimes it makes no sense. They have no wine, and he’s talking about water! Yet, those servants do what he says. Compliance or Obedience to uncommon commands often yields uncommon results.

He takes the water they have and makes the wine they need. For me this says: “Quit looking at what you do not have and put what you do have in his hands.” What we have may not be what we think we need. Maybe it’s just water. But, if we bring that to Jesus something miraculous might happen.

In John’s Gospel, there are no miracles. There are only signs. This is not just a word switch. These signs show us some aspect of his identity. He raises the dead and says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” He gives sight to a blind man and says, “I am the light of the world.” He feeds five thousand, and he says: “I am the bread of life.” In the end, as John concludes this sign, he says it’s all about glory leaving us to ask just what is “glory” anyway? What Jesus revealed as glory was not the earthly glory of a king or even the heavenly glory of his ascension. John uses this story of a wedding at Cana to illustrate what he means by glory. The glory we see at Cana is a glimpse into what God is like. That’s glory. God cares for us when we run short. God gives us Jesus Christ who can and always will give us what we need when we need it. Not necessarily the way we want it and when. Yet, if go to him and are obedient in what he asks of us, all will be well; and God’s glory will break into our lives leaving us to continue celebrating this life.

January 12, 2025 at St. Agnes & St. Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 40: 1-5,9-11 + Psalm + Titus 2: 11-14, 3:4-7 + Luke 3: 15-16, 21-22

The fact that Jesus was Baptized by John was a problem for the earliest church as followers of John may well have outnumbered the followers of Jesus at first. We know that they were certainly wide-spread throughout the region before the Gospel of Jesus Christ made its way around the sea. All of the Gospel writers focus some effort to affirm that Jesus was greater than John.

The fact that Jesus was Baptized by John ought to be a bit of a problem for us too, at least at some point, if you think about it at all. How could and why would the sinless Jesus Christ come to John for Baptism? What would he have to repent about? Again, as I say to you often, “This is not history.” Do not ask if it really happened? Ask what it means, what is God saying to us? This Gospel passage is not telling us something that happened a long time ago. It is revealing something important to us – important enough for God to speak out loud. We might get the clue that the actual baptism is not really what this is about from the fact that Luke, who is always interested in details, says nothing about the actual baptism. In fact, if you know your grammar, Luke puts this verb in the “past simple passive” voice, “had been baptized.”

A stronger clue about what it means comes as Luke tells us about all the people being baptized including Jesus. This is a powerful Incarnational message. Jesus is not pretending to be one of us. Jesus is one of us. God, through Jesus Christ has really and truly come to share life with us from Baptism to death. That voice and the message it speaks is for all of us who are baptized. “You are my child. I love you” is the message. The very loving Spirit of God descends upon this man who chooses to be one of us in all things sharing his privileged place as a child of God. It is a humble man that comes forward in the crowd, and we might even try to imagine how John inspired Jesus with his preaching calling his faithful to bear fruit with mercy and justice.

What is it that pleased God so much at that moment except the humility and willingness of Jesus Christ to set aside all entitlement and privilege and embrace the Will of the Father becoming one with us sharing with us his live-giving, forgiving, and merciful Spirit.  What is it that draws us here and then sends us forth with hope, with courage, and with joy except this wonderful news we have been told in many ways since Christmas. We are a baptized, chosen, and a much-loved people by a God whose very Spirit has been poured out.

This Feast of the Baptism of the Lord invites us to dig deeper into the meaning of our own Baptism, to wonder how we might live more consistently as children of God, and how might truly be pleasing in God’s sight.

There were many at the time who saw Jesus as rule-breaking eccentric, and “eccentric” is exactly what he was and what we might become. Eccentric means “off center,” unusual, centered in something different. Jesus was not centered in himself. If we have any hope of pleasing God, we cannot be centered on ourselves. Baptism ought to make us eccentric like Jesus, people who get noticed because their behavior, their ideas, their hopes and dreams fall outside the norm, or what this world would call, “normal.”

Go ahead this week. Let’s try it. Get a little eccentric. Start thinking about pleasing God instead of pleasing ourselves or others for that matter. What is there to lose? Nothing, except eternal life.

January 5, 2025 at St. William and St. Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 60: 1-6 + Psalm 72 + Ephesians 3: 2-3, 5-6 + Matthew 2: 1-12

The easy way to hear this story unique to Matthew’s Gospel is to focus on those visitors from the East. At the time Matthew wrote this Gospel, they were the message he wanted to give to the predominantly Jewish/Christians who were to receive this Gospel. The first Jewish people who accepted the Way of Christ were very uncomfortable when Gentiles began to seek Baptism and share in Communion. They thought anyone coming to Christ should first become a Jew, and Matthew’s story leads them to think otherwise by telling this story of foreigners coming to adore the Christ child.

While we might ponder Matthew’s message fruitfully with reflections about how we look upon immigrants who challenge our exclusive way of life, there is another piece of this story that we might well need to hear and embrace first. Herod and these visitors seem to be commanding center stage, but there is another set of characters who may cause us some discomfort, and I think Matthew intends it to be so.

It is those chief priests and scribes we might pay more attention to rather than those magi. They knew their scriptures. They knew exactly where and how the Messiah was to come, and they did nothing. So comfortable with their lives around Herod’s court, so sure of themselves and their privileged position, they were completely uninterested in joining those pilgrims. Why leave the power and give up the influence they enjoyed there in Jerusalem to go out to that no-place called Bethlehem. The only people hanging around there were those low-life shepherds. They were not about to be seen around that kind of people.

Those holy people hanging around Herod had no curiosity and no desire to change or discover something new. They were threatened by this new revelation that came from foreigners, and they wanted nothing to do with it. They just wanted things to stay the same.

When Matthew tells us that those magi when home by a different way, there is the possibility of understanding that to mean more than using a different route. It may also mean that they went home differently than they came. People who come to adore the Christ must be changed. They must be different for having made the journey, for having seen the Christ and doing him homage.

This Gospel speaks to us who know very well our scriptures and the promise that has been fulfilled. We also know how easy it is to stay just the way we are in spite of what we know. Those who do homage, those who seek Christ and find him in all the little unpleasant and unimportant places and people who have nothing to offer us will never be the same. Prestige and privilege hold great power over us just like Herod and his Court so blinded those chief priests and scribes leaving them to dismiss with complete disinterest what might have set them free.

As we tell their sad story we might hear an invitation to be humble enough to see and seek something new always knowing that there is more to discover in God’s mysteries if we are willing to venture into the unknown where it might be possible see the face of God.

January 1, 2025 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Numbers 6: 22-27 + Psalm 67 + Galatians 4: 4-7 + Luke 2: 16-21

When I was in the final years of grade school, our pastor at the time, whose homilies would rival a Cricket Match for their length and interest for 12-year-old had the custom of not preaching any sermon on January1. This was before the days of “Vigil Masses” and that “Let’s get it over with and go on Saturday” mentality began. He observed to me once that he thought most of the people had been out at New Year’s Eve parties the night before and would not be capable of listening to anything with attention.

I have been tempted on occasion to preserve Father MacDonald’s memory by keeping up his venerable tradition. But today, by Noon, most are over whatever we did last night, and I did make a promise at ordination to pray for the church and preach the Gospel.

There is a compromise possible, and that is to offer one brief thoughtful reflection on these verses from Luke’s Gospel and then sit down. This is not because I was out late last night. After all, I’m 82-years-old and still keep my father’s advice: “Act your age.”

Notice that Luke says these Shepherds went in haste to find Mary, Joseph, and the infant. There are still occasions for us all to act in haste. There are also occasions for stopping to ponder things in our hearts. Both are occasions for wonder. I really think that wonder is a good thing because it can make us curious, and curiosity can lead to understanding. If there was just a little more wonder, curiosity, and understanding in this world, there might be a realistic hope for peace. We might slow down a bit in the year to come, and like the woman whose memory draws us here today, learn to ponder without judgement or fear and come to understand one another a bit better.

December 29, 2024 At St Agnes and St William Churches in Naples, FL

Sirach 3: 2-6, 12-14 + Psalm 128 + Colossians 2:12-21 + Luke 2: 41-52

We assemble here today with a challenge given to us by a Church that calls this “The Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Curiously, we heard an Old Testament reading right out of an ancient patriarchal family structure that offers some wisdom but would lead us to believe that this “son” being addressed is an only child without sister. It’s really all about the father and the son.

Then, after some verses from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, we hear about a couple with a problem child. This 12-year-old has a mind of his own getting separated from his parents and their traveling companions. The consequence of his decision causes desperation and considerable worry on the part of his parents who must have searched frantically for three days. I doubt that they slept at all.

Neither one of these two readings give us much to admire much less imitate. It might just be that the focus here is not about some particular family unit. In these times when the whole idea of “family” is being re-defined we need to expand our notion of “family” and begin to see ourselves first as part of the human family – the family of God. If we could get that right, it might possibly help individual families find a way to holiness.

As a celibate priest I have always found it a bit short-sighted for people to suggest that I have no family or have given up having a family. I have been a member of several large families, and never felt alone or left out. Twenty-first century families are quite different from the family described in that first reading. Families today may well consist of single parents, same-sex parents, foster or adoptive parents, stepparents, or grandparents with custody. All that “wise” advice in the Book of Sirach makes me wonder about how “wise” that advise is for children suffering within harmful families where there is abuse or violence.

It’s at this point that St Paul makes a lot of sense, writing to the Colossians. He speaks up about what makes a family. He reminds us all that mutual love and respect are the foundation for all relationships. Without mutual love and without respect, there is no family, and this is what Luke shows us in this story about a 12-year-old growing up. He shows us wise parents who love a child that hurts them and still respects that child’s need to do what he believes he must do.

When all of God’s children see themselves as God’s family and look upon each other as brothers and sisters with love and respect, I sincerely believe that individual family units will be stronger and every one of them will be as close as we ever can be to holiness.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are not the only Holy Family. The wisdom of the Church reminds us today that we are all called to learn the way of love, and that in this human family there are elders and those who are younger. The way of love leads elders to act respectfully, to share with the young wisdom gained form experience and to be open to the wisdom learned from the young as well. This calls for compassion as both the young and the elders bear with one another patiently and kindly. Both struggle with mistakes, and both know disappointment that deserves forgiveness when expectations are not met and feelings get hurt.

It is these things that will shape us all into a family that is truly holy.

December 25, 2024 at Saint Agnes and Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 9: 1-6 + Psalm 96 + Titus 2: 11-14 + Luke 2: 1-14

From the Square in front of Saint Peter in Rome to this church here in Naples, with precious statues fashioned by great artists to cardboard figures, in my home and probably in your home as well some image of a baby in a manger presents a great mystery that can stir hope in us and lead us to Joy. There is something almost magical and certainly mystical about that baby lying there far from home, powerless, poor, and helpless. It easy to simply look at that baby with romantic Christmas Carols going through our head and just continue to muddle through this season without a serious thought about why and what it means for there to be a baby at the center of it all. There is a question that must be asked as we look at that baby. Failing to do so reduces that baby to little more than a scene printed on a Christmas Card headed for the trash.

I have always wondered about those shepherds and what they saw when they looked at that baby. I want to believe that they asked, “What does this mean?” Something turned their fear into joy. Something sent them back to their fields with a different spirit. What I suspect is that they looked at that baby and saw themselves lying there vulnerable, helpless, poor, and powerless. I want to think that having heard Good News from those heavenly visitors, they understood that if their longed-for Messiah could look like them, homeless, helpless, and poor, they were no longer alone. Now God was with them just as they were.

It might be good for us to take long look at that baby and see what they saw asking what that baby means. When we do, its truth may break into our hearts, for we are all as helpless as that baby. In the face of our own suffering and the suffering all around us we are as powerless as that baby. We are homeless too because no matter where we are, it’s never quite right and never lasts for long. Like that baby, we live in times of oppression, trapped and oppressed by economic conditions or oppressed simply by the great demands on our time and resources, often leaving us feeling very much alone.

Those Shepherds looked at that baby and were filled with joyful hope not because everything was suddenly made right, but because they remembered the Good News they had heard. They realized that God had come to them and was intimately and physically sharing their existence.

That baby can mean something to any of us who look, wonder, and remember the Good News we have heard. We can discover what it means for God to be found as a baby. For anyone ever feeling alone, misunderstood or helpless, betrayed by friends, abandoned when most in need, or misjudged and accused of things we never did just like the man that baby became, there is something powerful to see in that baby when that question is asked. God is with us. God is Emmanuel.