Shepherds, Songs, and Sending Off Graduates

A lot going on in the homily today. The good shepherd, our bishop, the new pope, music at the inaugural papal Masses, and some thoughts for those leaving the parish and going off into the world. 

I referenced quite a number of the musical pieces likely to show up at any big gathering with the Pope, so I'm going to attach links here. So, first was the Te Deum, the Church's ancient song of gratitude and praise to God. (I also mentioned the Non Nobis, and since I referenced its being in Henry V, here's the version from the movie, even if the music itself is a creation of modern cinema.) I spent some time waxing poetic about the Tu Es Petrus motet by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, though I did misspeak—his Sicut Cervus is the real crown of polyphony, IMHO. We briefly touched upon Long Live the Pope, yes, it's a little cheesy and triumphalistic and it's hard get a video with vocals, but still. And finally we got to what I said is one of my favorite chants of all time, the Laudes Regiae, or more simply referred to as the original, Carolingian era Christus Vincit. It's a bop. And to wrap things up, I quoted and annotated the final paragraph of Benedict XVI's inaugural homily, which you read or watch.

The Incredulity of St. Thomas, a Painting and a Homily

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, also know as the Easter Octave, Divine Mercy Sunday, and more. Reflections on Faith, the Resurrection, Thomas the Apostle, Caravaggio's amazing painting and our new project of adding more beauty and wonder to our school. 

"Dayenu. It Would've Been Enough!" (Holy Thursday)

Hopeful this sermon brings some fresh eyes to Holy Thursday and also to the whole Paschal Mystery and Easter Triduum.

[Note: You can really hear me stumble around 7:30 and that because my notes had a typo I couldn't decipher in real time. But actually it was an important point I wanted to get in: We honestly don't know if Jesus would have had the Dayenu. It doesn't appear in Jewish sources until later. That actually was kind of an important qualifier before me mentioning that "The Chosen" series used it in a cool way. Anyway...]

The Tears of St. Peter (Palm Sunday and El Greco)

One of the coolest things I saw in Spain was the Cathedral of Toledo, but the coolest thing about it (at least for me as a priest) was the image and history of the El Greco painting "The Tears of St. Peter" in its voluminous sacristy. The homily today is a reflection on Peter's anguish and on the cool story about the painting. 

(After giving the homily linked here, I was looking up more details, and wikipedia listed eight editions of it made by El Greco himself, but the two in Toledo are in museums. So I thought I must've remembered wrong and that we saw the sacristy alone and heard the story there, but only saw the painting at a museum later. That's even what I told the next two Masses. But no, there is still a copy of the original in the sacristy to replace the time-worn original which they repaired and moved to a museum.)

The Prodigal Son's Older Brother

I substituted in Holdrege last Sunday while Fr. Buhman preached a day of renewal and a miniature parish mission here in Beatrice. So like any wise preacher, I pulled up the notes from a previous year in order to share it in Holdrege.

Click here to listen.

More Than Just Memory, More Than A Memorial

There is an insight in the Mishnah (the rabbinic commentaries on the Torah from the centuries around and after Jesus' time) that it was not just the "Moses Generation" that trekked out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, but in truth every Israelite after them did so as well. The passage reads:

The tanna of the mishna further states: In each and every generation a person must view himself as though he personally left Egypt, as it is stated: “And you shall tell your son on that day, saying: It is because of this which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8). In every generation, each person must say: “This which the Lord did for me,” and not: “This which the Lord did for my forefathers.” The mishna continues with the text of the Haggadah. Therefore we are obligated to thank, praise, glorify, extol, exalt, honor, bless, revere, and laud the One who performed for our forefathers and for us all these miracles: He took us out from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, from mourning to a Festival, from darkness to a great light, and from enslavement to redemption. And we will say before Him: Halleluya.

This is the rabbinic line of thought that animates St. Paul in today's 2nd Reading, and that he and his close associate, St. Luke, will develop further in the Christian idea of an anamnēsis, which translates the Hebrew zikkaron— a lasting remembrance, an eternal memorial.

Click here to listen to the homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent.

The Battle in the Desert, According to Luke

This homily is from 1st Sunday of Lent, so it's a little bit late. Luke is good at painting the big picture, and is good at foreshadowing. In the 1st Week he talked about how the Devil departed from Jesus...for a time. And then in the 2nd Week, he describes Jesus as speaking to Moses and Elijah about "the exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem." With both, Luke points our eyes toward Holy Week. 

Listen to the homily from the 1st Week of Lent.