Deep Calls to Deep Roc Homily – Sermon on the Mount situates us. (A) 2017
Perhaps we caught a glimpse of what “Poor” looks like in “Poor in Spirit.” Let’s look at “Spirit” today. The Greek, pneuma, refers to two different realities – the spirit of God and the human spirit. First, the human spirit (which calls out for conversion)… It ain’t pretty. Numbers 5:13f …if a spirit of […]
Roc Homily (d) – 3rd SUN Ord Time (A) 2017
I concluded my homily last Sunday with this: “I now fully support the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I believe that all in this country should receive the same insurance as Senators and members of the House of Representatives. So, take away the first and bring on the second.” Here is the audio version […]
Roc Homily (c) – “Silence” and the Call of the Disciples…
Last night, I viewed the movie, “Silence.” It touched me in many ways and led me to reflect on the Call of the Disciples in last Sunday’s gospel. First, a bit of exegesis on the call. Matthew 4:15f “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee […]
Roc Homily (a) – 3rd Sunday Ordinary Time (A) 2017
The Prayer for Christian Unity also serves to highlight our divisions. I understand that there are somewhere around 25,000 different Christian Churches in the US. NOT denominations, churches, and each one claiming absolute truth. Our remembrance of the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade also brought up deep divisions in our country around “Who is truly […]
Roc Homily (e) – 2nd Sunday Ordinary Time (A) 2017
Here’s my first attempt at dealing with the meaning of “atonement.” The Oxford-English Dictionary defines “atone” as “making reparation for a wrong or injury.” However, the medieval Latin word, adunamentum, means “unity” from an obsolete verb meaning “to unite.” So, what sounded as a hip dealing with this concept in the 1970’s as “at-one-ment” is actually true […]
Roc Homily (c) 2nd Sunday Ordinary Time (A) 2017
St. Thomas Aquinas on Atonement… St. Thomas Aquinas considers the atonement in the Summa Theologiae into what is now the standard Catholic understanding of atonement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_theory_of_atonement For Aquinas, the main obstacle to human salvation lies in sinful human nature, which damns human beings unless it is repaired or restored by the atonement. In his section on […]
Roc Homily (intro) – Solemnity of Mary 2017
From my study of the Greek work, poimén, meaning ‘shepherd’, it seems that we have overly romanticized these characters, made them innocuous. Of course, some have described them as poor, outcasts, smelly, and rude. However, the connections Matthew drew upon tells a different story. Two stories, actually, since the shepherds came to visit THE Shepherd. What might […]
Roc Homily – 4th Sunday Advent Cycle A 2016
Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. (Psalm 24) Sunday’s homily is the back-story about Joseph, the angel, and Mary. It’s about Joseph’s struggle to lift up the gate of his castle-fortress to receive the King of glory. (Less than 10 minutes. Check it […]
Roc Homily – Twenty-Seventh Sunday Ordinary Time 2016
“Increase our faith!” Let the people say, “Amen!” Ah, the wonders of the lectionary that does what it has to do, select passages and leave others out. And Sunday’s gospel is a good example of contextus interruptus. The first four verses of chapter 17 are kind of important for they tell us exactly what prompted that prayer. […]
Deep Calls to Deep 