September 6, 2026, at Saint William and Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Ezekiel 33: 7-9 + Psalm 95 + Romans 13: 8-10 + Matthew 18: 15-20

We are living through an age historians may call the age of blame or maybe the age of the victim. If anything happens that we don’t like, it is someone else’s fault, and we become the victim. The instruction given by Matthew today is to victims. His instruction is for the victim to take the initiative. Remember how it started: “If your brother sins against you.” There is no room in the teaching of Jesus or in the conduct of Christian life for sitting around, licking wounds, and crying: “Poor me.”

None of us can avoid being victims, but we can avoid the victim mentality and all the whining and complaining that goes with it. What is necessary is respect for the offender which is why the matter is first handled privately. There is no need to tell everyone how terrible that offender is, to shame them before everyone else. What Matthew goes on to suggest is that if the matter is not resolved privately, perhaps one or two others might help. At this point, it very possible that those others may see things a little differently than the victim. Sometimes it does take two to quarrel or to fight. There is always the possibility that the victim did or said something causing the offender to react. Notice that what seems to be required of everyone is the willingness and ability to listen.

When everything fails, there comes that suggestion from Matthew that those who refuse to listen should be treated as a Gentile or a tax collector which sounds at first like a suggestion to avoid or to shut out the other. However, we might want to remember that Jesus spent most of his time among the Gentiles. He visited them often, cared for them, and cured them. He ate in their homes and called one tax collector to be his disciple. So that suggestion does not propose a complete break or the final end of a relationship. Those words about binding or loosening are serious, and they should be heard as a warning not as a power to be used. This passage closes with the best suggestion of all, that we pray together. It raises the hope that old wounds can be healed, that offenses can be forgiven, and that victims and offenders may find themselves together with Jesus in the midst of them.

August 30, 2026, Saint William & Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 20: 7-9 + Psalm 63 + Romans 12: 1-2 + Matthew 16: 21-27

The first part of this Gospel has us listening to what I think was a really a shouting match between Peter and Jesus. This is a pivotal moment for both of them. For Jesus, it’s time to move on and be the Messiah he now knows he must be to follow the Father’s will. For Peter, it is just opposite. Clinging to a mistaken expectation of what the Messiah will be like, he sounds like the voice of Satan who tempted Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus recognizes this for what it is, and he shuts Peter down as we hear the first prediction of the Passion. There will be two more.

The conflict between Peter and Jesus is really about the Will of God, and in the argument between the two of them, the meaning of “life” gets clarified. When Jesus says he “must” go to Jerusalem, he makes it his decision. It is not a fate that just happens because of his enemies. It is something that Jesus accepts to do. He has made God’s will his own. He sees that going to Jerusalem, suffering, and dying is good to do because of the resurrection. He tries to help his disciples perceive that going to Jerusalem, suffering and dying, despite its appearances is something they will want to pursue together with Jesus joining him in the path to the cross. Knowing that words are not enough, Jesus, as Matthew puts it, began to show it to his disciples.

As Jesus continues to persuade these reluctant disciples who are resisting God’s will, Jesus speaks of saving one’s life and losing it. Being unwilling to deny oneself and take up one’s cross reveals a misunderstanding of “life.” This passage is not about a cross in spite of how many people focus on that word over and over again. It is not an invitation to be miserable and smile. It is an invitation to think about the meaning of life. Jesus is not speaking of a life that involves accumulating goods and stuff for sustaining one’s life. That is thinking of life in the human realm, or from a human point of view. This is not the life Jesus leads us to. He speaks of a bigger, fuller, unending life.

Understanding that the Christ must suffer and die is the same as understanding that one’s life is not limited to what w e know on this earth. It must include life after death. This is why Christ can accept without anxiety the way of the cross. He trusts the Father who will raise him up to share in the Father’s glory. For those disciples which includes all of us, having a view of life that is not limited to the human realm involves not being anxious about life because of our trust in God and our choice to follow Jesus in the way he accepts the Will of God.

Losing oneself really means finding one’s true self, discovering, believing, and embracing who we really are, loved children of a merciful, life-giving God. To deny oneself is not a call to some kind of asceticism that might be harmful to one’s mental, physical, or spiritual health. It is really a call to affirm one’s gifts and graces, to rejoice at and rest peacefully in a relationship with Jesus that makes his will our will.

Choosing to be doers of God’s Word and not just “hearers” frees us to deny ourselves in the service of compassion and life in the Body of Christ. The way of the cross is unpredictable and sometimes frightening. Peter and his friends came to know this in ways that they had not planned for and could not have predicted. In naming for the first time what it meant to live into and participate in the body of Christ, Peter and the others show us what it means to live into the mystery of the Incarnation and discipleship.

August 23, 2026, at Saint William and Saint Peter Churches in Naples, Florida

Isaiah 22: 19-23 + Psalm 138 + Romans 11: 33-36 + Matthew 16: 13-20

There is something about the times in which we live that make it more and more difficult to know who we are, what the Church is, and for that matter, who Jesus Christ is. That “something” is the growing threat of individualism that began back in the 60s if my guess is right. The idea that any of us have an identity or can know who we are without standing in a relationship to someone else just plain strange. Think of it this way: you can’t really say that you are a Catholic without a Parish or a Community with which you celebrate Mass. If you think you can, your identity rests upon an idea not on something real. Religion is not a concept. It is a relationship.

This matter of identity is what is stirring through these verses of Matthew’s Gospel. Notice how Jesus asks the question twice: “Who do people say that I am” followed by “Who do you say that I am.” What the people say and think is not helpful because what they say is based on what he does, not really who he is. When it comes to that second question, something is different now because of the relationships with Peter and the other disciples.

Many scholars think that Jesus may have been relying on his community of disciples to help him understand and accept his messianic identity. He needed those who knew him best to clear up what he knew might be coming. I have been preaching on this Gospel for almost 60 years, and until this year, I never noticed that in the twenty times Matthew uses the word “Messiah,” Jesus never refers to himself as Messiah until after Peter’s declaration here.

Matthew is sharing with us a pivotal occasion in the lives of both Jesus and Peter. Each of them shares his insights with the other, affirms the other’s identity, and prepares the other for the ministry that lies ahead. Unfortunately for us, what happens next, we will not read here because of the way our readings skip around in Matthew’s Gospel. But, right after this exchange with Peter, Jesus takes him and three others up a high mountain where his Transfiguration takes place after which, he heads to Jerusalem for the culmination of his ministry. Shortly thereafter, come Pentecost, Peter matures and learns to preach and teach. What is happening here is that Peter and Jesus help each other assume their rightful identities. Leaving us to wonder and ask about our own.

What Jesus discovers is that he is not what he does. He is not a wonderworker, healer, or even just another prophet. He is the Son of God. What Peter discovers is that he is not just a fisherman who tags along with someone who raises his hopes for fame and success, but that he is the one upon whom the coming of the Kingdom through the Church will now depend.

What Matthew leaves us to consider today is whether or not we are more than what we do raising the question of our own identity and where it comes from. If Jesus can ask the question: “Who do you say that I am” maybe we should ask that question as well. The truth of our identity does not come from our jobs or where we live. It comes from Baptism, a Sacramental moment when we are brought into a relationship within the Church and with Jesus Christ. It is a life-long struggle to confirm and affirm that identity by which and through which we are members of Christ’s Body, the Church. Yet, we work at it. We are here. We stay here because this is where we are at our best and most true selves.

August 16, 2026, at Saint Peter the Apostle & Saint William Churchs in Naples, FL

Isaiah 56: 1, 6-7 + Psalm 67 + Romans 11: 13-15, 29-32 + Matthew 15: 21-28

If anyone here has not responded impatiently to an interruption when trying concentrate on something important, I want to know who you are, and I will see to it that the process for your canonization begins now. An interruption, that is what is going on here on the surface. Jesus and the disciples are out in foreign territory fairly far from home. This region called Tyre and Sidon is not particularly friendly. It is not Jewish territory. On top of that, nowhere did women approach and speak to men, especially foreign men. This setting is about interruptions and a lot more. With this story, Matthew raises a lot of questions we might ponder.

This woman is not one of the family. So, does she do without help until the family is taken care of? Does Jesus really believe that his mission is only to the “House of Israel?” Why does Matthew tell us that Jesus was silent at first? Is he trying to decide what to do? He has already scolded the Pharisees for excluding people. Then, how did she know Jesus and know that he would help her? You may have even more questions all of which can distract us from what is happening and what Matthew would say to us.

What happens here is that a silent Jesus reflects on his mission and in the face of this need changes his mind. I like to imagine that this woman is really God the Father interrupting Jesus who at first had a narrow sense of his mission opening it wider making it totally inclusive. What happens here for us is a chance to see how God can interrupt our busy lives and speak through encounters with strangers and in situations outside our comfort zone. Disciples of Jesus learn and grow when they brush up against people whose lives, needs, dreams, and struggles are different from their own.

In our deeply polarized society, people of different political views, economic conditions, ethnic backgrounds or religious convictions are demonized and dismissed. Matthew speaks to us about this. In a society like this, it is easy to decide who should be excluded from the circle of God’s love or our own. Yet no one can limit the grace of God.

With all of this in mind, we can’t leave these verses without some recognition of this mother’s passionate love for her sick child. She risks scorn and probably more for speaking up and begging. She comes before us like anyone in great need. Rather than sending them away, we must be one with them. This woman and everyone in need, longs for and hopes for advocates who will do something and say something to help. Advocacy is part of a Disciples’ role. We do bear one another’s burdens, feel and share the pain of those who are in distress, and while we join our prayers to theirs so that the Son of David will see our faith, we also join our voices to theirs so that one voice becomes many with the hope that through grace and faith we may hear those words that began this new creation: “Let it be done.”

August 9, 2026

I am on vacation this weekend away from Naples but offer these thoughts for those following.

First Kings 19: 11-13 + Psalm 85 + Romans 9: 1-5 + Matthew 14: 22-33

Like Matthew, both John’s Gospel and Mark join this story of Jesus walking on water to the feeding of the multitude. For the early church to which Matthew is writing, a church mostly of Jewish converts, the memory of Israel’s experience of the sea, wilderness, and the manna would be very much alive in their hearing of this story. The part about Peter and the ending with that sudden and extraordinary proclamation of faith is Mattew’s addition to this traditional story.

Often the Gospels report Jesus withdrawing from the demands around him to pray. What we may not have noticed is that these times often correspond to the disciples getting themselves into trouble. Last week we heard of Jesus withdrawing as the news about John the Baptist reached him. But before he can withdraw, he feeds the multitude and then sends the disciples off on their own finally getting some time to himself. A crisis erupts, and the disciples are in trouble without Jesus. They are really a mess when Jesus is gone, and so are we and our Church.  

The part about Peter speaks to all of us, I believe. Walking on the water is his idea. He thinks he can do it on his own, and we see what happens when any of us try to do something without Jesus. He is between faith and fear. He walks and he sinks. He trusts and then doubts. Don’t we all find ourselves going back and forth between trust and fear, faith and doubt? Yet, Jesus invites us to come to him, but when do and it gets a little stormy or rough, we wonder if we did the right thing, and we cry out: “Lord, save me.”  Fear is the danger here, and fear is very real.

Focusing on Jesus may not necessarily do anything to calm the storm. No amount of faith may end difficult times. No trust may calm the fears of anyone who comes to realize how vulnerable and fragile life is. No amount of prayer is guaranteed to calm the storms that sometimes rage in every one of our lives and homes.

Nevertheless, what Jesus said then, he says today: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Even in the face of fear, we might all risk taking one more step to Jesus Christ. Without him we have very little to offer this world, while with him there is little else we need.

August 2, 2026

I am on vacation this weekend away from Naples but offer these thoughts for those following.

Isaiah 55: 1-3 + Psalm 145 + Romans 8: 35, 37-39 + Matthew 14: 13-21

One of the few stories recorded by all four Evangelists, this event in a deserted place is a treasure for us all. It happens in a lonely place that Jesus and the disciples reached by boat while the crowd made it on foot. It is no wonder they were tired and hungry. It is an act of compassion on a people who are away from home and without food.

The Matthew version we tell today differs a bit from all the others. Here, Jesus has just received word that John the Baptist is dead, and there is every reason to believe that Jesus needs to withdraw and grieve or reflect on what it means for him and his own future.

We are left to understand this event in two ways.

First, it is a lesson for the Church about compassion which must be accepted as obligatory for all who follow Jesus. The Church as an institution has more or less responded to this example not always sufficiently, but consistently. Yet, while there is power in the collective effort of the Church, that institutional effort easily becomes an excuse for doing nothing personally, and that will not do. We really may not say: “Let the Church take care of the hungry.” Notice that Jesus expects his disciples to do something personally. It’s not all up to him.

Second, there is a lesson here as we see this is a eucharistic story. In John’s telling of this story, that element is unmistakable. It is his intention. All the language is there: he blessed, broke, and gave.

We must not miss how the story ends. There is no mention of an amazed crowd as we find with other miracle stories. There is no comment about the fame of Jesus being spread about either. Most likely, this is because by the time this Gospel was put into writing this story had become completely common and known to all often being recited with the church gathered at the Lord’s table. It ought to still speak to us in the same way, and especially to those who are hungry and those who find themselves lonely and in a deserted place.

July 26, 2026 at Saint Peter and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

1 Kings 3: 5, 7-12 + Psalm 119 + Romans 8: 28-30 + Matthew 13: 44-52

Listening to these two parables weeks ago left me wondering about this all this searching, and I don’t mean searching for my keys or my phone as I do every day. A lot of us do that. I know people who are never searching. They have found everything they want, and they are happy, for a while, until what they found breaks or goes out of style. At the same time, there are even more people searching every day for food, shelter, and safety. In the middle of all that there are young people who seem to be searching too and while some are searching a for job or for someone to love them, many, from what I observe, are searching on the screen of their phones. Does anyone know what for? They don’t seem to be finding it.

The first of these parables takes us back into a field for the third weekend in a row. There was first that parable about seed being thrown everywhere and generously. Then, last week there was that parable about the weeds. All three of these field stories are really speaking of the Word of God. That is the seed scattered everywhere that needs to compete with the evil. Now comes these parables also about the Word of God that once discovered is worth everything and when embraced brings a joy that all other things failed to provide.

The last of these parables puts a value on God’s Word. It is of great price Matthew tells us. Searching for the Word of God, the Word Made Flesh is for wise and hope-filled people. Matthew puts before us today these two people who are wonderful models of faith. They are restless and searching. They are far from satisfied with the way things are, and they are willing to let go of old things and perhaps old ways to search deeper for that priceless gift of God.

All of us need to keep or start searching once again deep into the mystery of God’s Word among us. I would like to think that motivated by the power of God’s Word, we may once and for all find ways to end some people’s search for food, shelter, and safety. Rather than running all over the place looking for some new devotion or that latest vision, we need to dig deep into the Word of God. It stirs a hope that keeps faith alive and is the only search that matters, brings joy and lasts forever.

July 19, 2026. At Saint Peter, Saint William and Saint Agnes Churches in Naples, FL

Book of Wisdom 12, 13, 16-19 + Psalm 85 + Romans 8: 26-27 + Matthew 13: 24-43

“Kingdom Parables” I call them. We get three in a row this month, and this is the second, and all three of them have us out in the field: first with seeds, now with weeds, and then next weekend with a hidden treasure. I love the way this parable captures the attitude of our day toward things we don’t like. When the question is raised about how the weeds got there, BLAME rears its ugly head. “The devil did it.” There is always someone or something to blame.

However, that is not the point here. This parable, unique to Matthew’s Gospel, really speaks to us about evil not necessarily where it comes from or who did it, but what we do about it and how we live with it. There is an ethical question being raised by these servants. Should they pull the weeds? Their desire to do so reveals a too simple understanding, and the planter corrects that. The presence of the weeds or the presence of evil means that the wheat must now compete in a field with a plant that provides no nourishment, feeds no souls, but uses precious resources.

That planter responds that the good seed must just always contend with the bad, the pure with the impure. There is suggestion here that we must simply live with the weeds until the harvest comes. This planter’s advice invites us to reflect on the risk of unintended consequences, or what some circles call, “Collateral Damage.” Most of the time it only makes the evil worse. This is not to suggest that we just ignore evil, but that we begin get our act together and compete with it letting our good works and the truth prevail until the angels have their day.

There is one more little piece of wisdom in this parable that may escape us because we like to think of ourselves as the wheat, the good seed in this world or as the ones who should serve as God’s assistants and clean things up. You may judge for yourselves after some reflection, but I know that I am one of God’s plants, a complicated mixture of good and evil that I can’t always pull apart. Remembering that keeps my mouth shut when I want to criticize someone, and it tempers my too quick judgements about what or who is really good or bad.

To my relief, I remember that God does not rely on our actions. We rely on God’s merciful, steadfast patience to leave us here in the field, tangled up as we are rather than be pulled out early.

July 12, 2026. At Saint Peter and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 55: 10-11 + Psalm 65 + Romans 8: 18-23 + Matthew 13: 1-23

It is not likely that Jesus actually supplied the interpretation of this parable to the disciples. When Jesus did speak this parable, it was to teach something about God and God’s generous behavior throwing seed abundantly and generously everywhere without fussing over the potential. In that time, seed was precious, and not something to be waisted without some expectation of its fruitfulness. So, his parable was a surprise to people who were so picky about the soil and where they planted. That’s not how God works, says Jesus.

It is likely however that someone who added this interpretation did so because the intended readers needed to concentrate more on their receptiveness rather than on God’s behavior, and it may still be so today.

Anyone who has ever planted a garden knows that good soil does not exist on its own. It needs to be turned. Rocks have to go. Weeds must be pulled. Seeds may need to be covered lest the birds eat them all. When it comes to God’s Word sown in us through this Liturgy or our own prayerful reading, something is required of us not just for readiness, but for that harvest to come.

So much of our lives makes the risk of a harvest failure possible. Career goals and the business required to be successful is a threat to the seed. Broken relationships, grudges, anger and resentment are like the rocks the writer speaks of. Addiction, bad habits, judgements about others and selfishness need to be pruned or uprooted for the seed to have a chance. We all have some rocks and thorns in our lives to examine because they threaten the harvest that we think of as the Kingdom of God.

A little fertilizer almost always makes a difference even with the best of soils. Like wise laborers who tend the gardens of this earth, we can cultivate our lives, our souls, minds, and hearts with some compassion and tenderness that will surely bear the fruit of peace as the Holy Spirit brings forth its first fruits in us.

July 5, 2026 at Saint William Church in Naples FL

Zechariah 9: 9-10 + Psalm 145 + Romans 8: 9, 11-13 + Matthew 11: 25-30

We seem to be living through an age of anti-intellectualism that has created a big split between what I will call scholars and workers, for lack of a better term. It’s not to suggest that scholars do not work, but I think you may know what I am struggling to describe. Some political observers and commentators call this, “Popularism.” What it seems to boil down to is that many people look upon thinkers and scholars as being “out of it” or being somehow “elite.” The other way around is just as observable with the highly educated looking down on those who do not share their interests, ideas, and values.

Jesus is talking to us today about this. While he upholds the value of wisdom, he turns what wisdom looks like on its end. Jesus does not think that having a string of letters after your name or a great resume means you are wise. He suggests that the wise are those who live according to the way of the Kingdom he came to reveal, and he did that with his Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus speaks of “little ones” lifting up infants as a model because he wants wonder to remain central to our relationship with God. Wonder and awe are sure signs of Wisdom. Educational systems that grind on with grueling attempts to bury mystery with data robs the scholar of real wisdom. At the same time, the business, the noise, and distractions of everyday life exhaust and leave others with no curiosity, wonder, or imagination. For both, the ability to find joy in watching a butterfly or a sunset gets lost. It’s almost as though we need permission to sit and watch and wonder even if it means we are not engaged in productive work or serious study.

My friends, when wisdom takes on human flesh, it is Jesus Christ. In other words, s Wisdom, Jesus becomes a yoke – a way of life – whose life-giving power transforms our deepest desires into passion for God’s just and merciful reign over this world. As Wisdom, Jesus provides us with a yoke that, when we take it upon ourselves, heals our deepest hurts and pains to that our lives can find purpose and wholeness. The more we take on the Wisdom of Jesus Christ, the more intimately we are drawn into the intimacy Christ has with the Father.

Intelligent, whole human beings can still celebrate wonder. A desire for greater knowing goes hand in hand with our recognition that God’s world still holds new insights and discoveries for unfolding the truth. Anyone who thinks they know the whole truth is far from wise. If being humble is knowing more fully our true selves, then perhaps some of our most precious learning about God will come to light as we look within.