Today’s Readings
2010 December 25
How would you like to spend Christmas in a trench? Imagine yourself a soldier fighting a war on Christmas eve. It’s a bitter cold December night. You and your fellow soldiers are out there in the snow, in the front lines with your enemies just a few hundred feet away.
Not exactly the best way to spend Christmas!
Today’s Readings
2010 December 23
I’ve been trying to figure out this guy Zechariah. As you probably know, Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist, and the husband of Elizabeth, who happened to be Mary’s cousin. He’s the very first character we meet in the Gospel of St. Luke.
In that opening scene, the angel Gabriel appeared to him in the temple, and Zechariah was told the surprising and wonderful news that his wife Elizabeth was finally pregnant, after enduring years of being called “barren” by their neighbors. But then he asked: “How can I be sure of this?”
We’re often told that it was his lack of faith that led the angel to strike him mute so that Zechariah was unable to speak until his son was born. But I wonder if that was the only issue. After all, for a devoted Jew like Zechariah, becoming a parent at a late age wasn’t too far-fetched: think Abraham fathering Isaac.
KILLJOY (Matthew 3:1-12): 05 December 2010 (2nd Sunday of Advent)
There’s something strange about our Gospel reading today. Did you notice what was wrong with the picture?
We’re supposed to be in the season of Advent, preparing for Christmas. And when we say Christmas, we think of such familiar characters like the angels proclaiming good news, shepherds leaving their flock to check out the baby Jesus, and wise men following stars and bearing gifts. These are feel-good characters and what is Christmas if not the season for feeling good?
PRIDE IS JUST THE SYMPTOM (Lk 18:9-14): 24 October 2010 (Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Two people are praying in the temple, but God is hearing very different prayers. The first, a Pharisee, claims his place–presumably, the “best seat in the house”–as he recites his feel-good prayer; the other, a tax collector, is huddled at the back of the temple. The Pharisee sounds like he’s thanking God, but if you listen carefully, he’s really just praising himself. The tax collector, on the other hand, can hardly look up in shame, managing only to beg for mercy.
Our Lord concludes by saying that it is the sinner who leaves the temple justified and talks about the reversals that will befall the proud and the humble:
“For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
DOES PRAYER REALLY WORK? (Luke 18:1-8): 17 October 2010 (Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Note: A version of this homily was delivered in Xavier School last October 6, 2010, but it fits our Gospel Reading today.
About five years ago, an interesting scientific research was conducted by a team of doctors. The study is called STEP, which stands for “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer.” The research is interesting because it’s a kind of experiment on the effects of prayer on patients undergoing a delicate surgery called CABG–or Coronary Artery Bypass Graft.
The doctors behind STEP wanted to answer two research questions:
First: Does intercessory prayer–or praying for the patients–help them recover from surgery?
Second: Are there benefits if the patients are assured of prayers? In other words, do they recover faster?
I’d like to talk about this today because in today’s Gospel reading, our Lord asks us to pray–even nag Him like the persistent widow who never gave up on the judge.