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.

December 22, 2024 at Saint Peter Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Micah 5: 1-4 + Psalm 80 + Hebrews 10: 5-10 + Luke 1: 39-45

Often with the Gospels, the message comes to us through details rather than words which means we have to pay attention to place and people. That could hardly be obvious than with the story of the Visitation. Like the Annunciation to Mary, this event has captured the imagination of artists for ages. There are countless paintings of the Visitation, and that event is still inspiring artists to this day. Some of them that I have enjoyed and studied really get the point of what Luke is saying here without any words. Remember, the Gospel is not history. It is theology. You have to ask, “What does this mean? What is God saying to us?”

In one painting that sticks in my mind, Mary arrives at the rather elegant home of Zechariah. Elizabeth has come down the steps and embraces the obviously younger woman. At the left edge is Zechariah in the shadows holding open the door. Remember, he can’t talk because he got sassy with an angel. At the right edge also in deep shadows is Joseph who is loaded down with luggage. While there is some humor there for any man who has travelled some distance with a wife, sister, or mother, you get that artist’s idea. However, the point is that the men are in the shadows at the edge of the action. Those two women are what matters. Those two women hold the promise of God, a promise being fulfilled.

While some may choose to interpret this as feminist liberation, I don’t think that is exactly the message. It is about women, but it is about what women stand for and their place at that time. The fact is, they stand for nothing. Yet, in God’s way of turning things upside down in order to get things right side up, It is women who are chosen to get things going, the lowly, the servant handmaids. In Luke’s way of writing, just in case we don’t get the message of how salvation is going to work, Mary begins to sing her Magnificat announcing that the mighty will be pulled down and the lowly lifted up. So, here we are right in the middle of a revelation of how God works – two unlikely people, an old lady and a young girl coming together in joy because they know that God’s promise is fulfilled. Pay attention to where they are too. Luke says it is the hill country of Judea. It doesn’t even have a name. Mary has come from another no-place, Nazareth. Nothing is happening in Jerusalem, that place of power and mighty power brokers. God does not work there. That place and what it stands for is finished.

There is one other detail that speaks to us, and that message is captured by a different artist who contrasts the ages of the two women. Mary is clearly a very young woman, and Elizabeth looks every bit her age. She is ancient. There’s been no “Botox” on that face. The shared celebration between Elizabeth and Mary shows how one generation can enrich and inspire the other. History has shown us that how one generation relates to the next generation often dictates the prosperity or the demise of the whole.  A generation that clings to power and seeks to preserve its own well-being at the cost of the young creates a crisis for the future. The young who refuse to listen to those who have walked before them become isolated wanderers with no center point to their lives because of their distrust and rejection of traditions and institutions.

This is what the Visitation speaks of, and it is the Word of the Lord.

December 15, 2024 at Saint William and Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Zephaniah 3: 14-18 + Psalm (Isaiah) 12: 2-6 + Philippians 4: 4-7 + Luke 3:  10-18

We call him John the Baptist, but I think we ought to call him, “John the Preacher.” It was his preaching that drew crowds. It was his preaching that stirred them and filled them with expectation exciting their hope. He was a rock-star at his time. That Baptism of John is nothing important. It fits within the common Jewish purification ritual system. It is what he said that was different, not what he did.

Those people were worn out from the Roman occupation, taxation, and oppression. They longed for a leader who would set them free, someone who make Israel a great nation again, and suddenly there he was. Maybe – Maybe not. They never asked him. Luke says that they just wondered among themselves. But, he knew what they are thinking.

It had to be flattering for John, a big temptation to enjoy the glory that the crowd offered. Yet, he resisted, and with extraordinary humility, he pointed to Jesus. To get that adoring crowd to shift their hopes, he points to this Baptism of the Holy Spirit. His was a baptism of repentance. The baptism to come would bring not just forgiveness of sins, but also a new kind of re-set for creation and entry into the community of believers.

There is political turmoil everywhere in the world these days with people looking for someone to fix the economy, restore justice, and bring us all back together, and there is always someone who thinks they can do it ignoring the message of this Gospel. There is only one person who can restore us to goodness, who can bring real justice and peace. He comes into our lives as a helpless baby and then rides into the great and powerful Jerusalem on a beast of burden. He washes feet. He shares meals with people the powerful despise. He knows what it is like to flee his home under the threat of a violent tyrant. He knows what it is like to be blamed, accused, and judged for things he never did.

If we listen in depth with our hearts to this story, we too will ask the question, “What shall we do?” Three times that question is asked in this Gospel, and John answers the question. It is so simple it almost seems like there must be more, but there isn’t. “Repent,” he says. Repentance has nothing to do with feeling guilty, sorry, or ashamed. It means change. It means: Do the right thing, all the time. Take care of one another. Don’t judge someone one unless you know the truth of their story, and if you want to be forgiven, you better know how it’s done. That’s how repentance works. It bears fruit.

My friends, we have all been Baptized by the Holy Spirit just as John foretold. Our church has a mission to inspire. If we do not, we shall surely expire. As God’s people, our lives, our hopes, our behavior must challenge anything and anyone who puts profit ahead of people. As people of God, the gospel gives us eyes to see and ears to hear the suffering cries of those exploited by the powerful. Our repentance and then our presence, points to the only real power that can restore us to the perfection with which we were made. It might just be time to give up thinking that politicians can come up with a plan for justice and peace and pay attention to the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

December 9, 2024 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FLS

Genesis 3: 9-15 + Psalm + Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12 + Luke 1: 26-38

Those of us who have gathered in this church tonight come out of duty and respect for God’s Word. It is our privilege to hear this Gospel, to hear the Word of God begin once more this creation spoiled by sin. At the beginning, as told in the Book of Genesis God’s Word brought life from nothing. Now, once more, God’s Word brings life where there is nothing – out of virgin’s empty womb.

In the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we are given two Annunciation stories.

First comes Zechariah’s experience with that angel, Gabriel. Luke tells us that he sees the angel, and then he resists the message claiming old age not quite sure that anything is possible with God. 

In the second Annunciation, Gabriel comes to that young girl in Nazareth. Unlike Zechariah, and contrary to what many artists would have us think, Luke never tells us that she saw Gabriel. She heard and she listened. She did not see no matter how countless artists have imagined the scene. They missed something. My favorite painting the Annunciation has a young Palestinian girl sitting with a look of puzzlement on her face. At the side of the canvas there is simply a great shaft of light illuminating the whole scene. That artist, named Tanner, got it right. There no feathers, regal cushions, elegant robes, or kneelers. She heard what God asked of her without seeing anything. Her response springs out of sense of duty because she knows she is a handmaid, a servant of the Lord. She is ready to serve. That is her duty.

Here we are tonight. Like her, we see nothing, but we can hear and we have listened to the Word of God. The promise of salvation, healing forgiveness and everlasting life is renewed in every one of us who never forget that we are servants of the Lord, who never forget that the Holy Spirit has come upon us too. There can be no excuses. We can only hope that the same sense of duty that brought us here tonight will lead us to accept our own call to give flesh to Word of God, to make real the hope of God’s joyful and peaceful Kingdom, and believe with all our heart and soul that no matter what as long as we are truly servants of the Lord, this new creation begun in Nazareth will find fulfillment here among us.  

December 8, 2024 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Baruch 5: 1-9 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 1: 4-6, 8-11 + Luke 3: 1-6

This is chapter three of Luke’s Gospel, and most scholars believe it to be the original beginning. The Annunciation to Zechariah and to Mary as well as the birth stories of John and Jesus were added later. So, we should not miss the point that every one of these men named right at the start of it all are all involved in violence and death.  It all begins in the “wilderness.” With leaders like those men, you are in a wilderness of self-serving, self-protecting violence. For Luke, it is the political landscape that will be smoothed out and straightened with the coming of the Lord. 

In this world events are often numbered by the reign of rulers. In God’s eyes, events are numbered by the voices of prophets. Rulers come and go, but the Word of God lasts forever following a different and straight path. 

There is an invitation here to explore the wilderness that often finds us lost and confused, struggling over what to do next with our lives. That is what John was doing out there; figuring out what to do with his life. This is an invitation to consider venturing beyond the comfortable and safe routine we often treasure and stand in the unknown and unfamiliar. As John the Baptist discovered, in that wilderness the Word of God might well come to us.

It seems to me that most religious people are not inclined to listen to wilderness prophets. Too many prefer to listen to people like the ones on the list that began today’s Gospel. I think this is what accounts for the popularity of many political leaders and many celebrity preachers who pack in thousands of fans and personally profit by saying what people want to hear rather than what they need to hear. John the Baptist was a wilderness prophet, way out of the mainstream who would never make the “A” list of first century power players, all because he went to the wilderness.

These verses offer an invitation to all of us who sometimes feel as if we are lost and alone in a vast wilderness. It is a frightening experience. There is a suggestion of hope here that in the most difficult and darkest of times God may speak to us and reveal what we are to with our lives. What Luke tells us today is that the Word of God comes in the wilderness, if we can just calm our fears and embrace the possibility of something new, unexpected, and totally out of the ordinary. What could be more unconventional than a Virgin birth? For that young woman in Nazareth it was a wilderness of doubt and confusion as the ordinary routine of her life collapsed leaving her bewildered and what to do with the rest of her life. Yet, the Word of God came to her in that wilderness of doubt and confusion, and look what happened. In strange and unconventional ways there is always a God who saves, heals, and restores us.

The Word of God seems to thrive unthreatened by the dark powers of the urban landscape. Today it must be the Church that cries in the wilderness, and that does not mean an institution of Bishops or priests. It means all of us. Whatever in this world stands between us and God’s vision for the human community must go. Barriers of race, ideology, gender, education, and even religion must go if they keep us from the reconciliation promised in and by Christ.

By our baptism, we are a prophetic people. John’s prophetic voice was silenced by one of those men on that list, but our voices remain crying out for Justice and for Peace.