Current homilies

Some years ago I was in a desert in Southern California, literally wandering around in the desert after my mother’s passing.  I had gone to the desert to come to terms with the monumental reality of losing a parent.

Imagine a glass of water.  You don't have to imagine it, here's a glass of water right here in my hand. 

I was up on the roof of the Church of the Epiphany, looking for a pile of unused bricks that had been up there since who knows when. Like lots of things in the church, they were long forgotten relics of an earlier, more exciting time. 

Every morning as I sit down at my computer to write a homily or check my email or read today’s news, I have a cup of Bigelow’s ultra spice Chai tea, my little caffeine wake-me-up to get me going for the day. 

I don’t know if you heard about the miracle that just happened. Did you hear about the miracle that just happened? I don’t mean the super blue blood moon from the lunar eclipse on Wednesday. 

I had a long phone conversation the other night with a young man who was deeply upset.  He had left his home, and was staying with the family of a girl from his high school.

Fr Austin and I were talking about getting something done—or rather, not getting something done because we were procrastinating—and we both suddenly uttered the phrase “I can’t think about that now, I’ll think about that tomorrow”, one of the great lines at the end of the classic movie Gone With the Wind. Scarlet O’Hara is faced with the unpleasantness of a major decision, a decision that could change her life, and she says that line, putting today’s decision off till tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  

We’ve got a sign outside the Church of the Epiphany in Manhattan.  It’s one of those glass-enclosed signs you see in front of many churches, announcing in white letters on a black background coming Church events, dates and times, the title of an upcoming sermon, that kind of thing.  The sign at Epiphany had gotten so old that it wasn’t used for a while, and when I arrived, I asked if I could fix it up and use it.  Fr Austin gave me his favorite phrase of approval: “Sure, knock your socks off.”

It happened on the subway, on the 6 train.  It was early in the evening, and they were on their way home from an appointment at the doctor’s.  They sat in the middle of the car, surrounded by a crowd of animated young men and women on their way to a night of happy New Year’s partying. Some were dressed to the nines for fancy affairs, others bundled in layers for the frigid blasts of city winds.

When I was growing up--at least in the later years--the ritual on New Year's Eve was always the same.  My parents would get ready to go to a neighbor's house for a little party in their finished basement.  My sister and I would be watching television beside the Christmas tree, my mother simultaneously getting dinner ready for us and applying her makeup. 

Here are two Nativity stories for Christmas 2017

Of course I went to the opening night of the newest Star Wars movie on Thursday at a huge IMAX theater in Connecticut. It’s called the Last Jedi, and I have a particular interest in it because, well, wanting to become a kind of Jedi was part of the reason why I joined the Jesuit order in the first place.

Last week it was clear that I needed to buy more Christmas trees for our Forest of Love outside.  When I proposed the project to the parish, I wasn’t sure if anyone would buy the trees so that we could raise money to bring gifts of love to our homebound parishioners and to the people sleeping on the streets of our neighborhood, but I went out on a limb and called a Christmas tree wholesaler and asked him if he could sell me 30 trees.  “Gee, Father, I don’t know, it’s pretty late for that kind of an order”. He said he’d call me right back, but it was doubtful. 

Advent is now officially upon us, and so is winter, drawing near. It grows dark quickly now, and soon to come are the deeply chilling winds of winter. 

This is the story of a man named Bobby, who works at the Con Ed plant over on 14th Street.  It's a story especially for this week of Thanksgiving, but it goes way beyond the holiday.

It was a lovely Saturday, and I was walking north along the East River towards the UN, past the Water Club and Bellvue and NYU hospitals and the helicopters landing beside the FDR Drive. 

“I’m not looking forward to getting back tonight,” Fr Austin said to me yesterday morning.  He was celebrating a wedding in Connecticut yesterday afternoon . “Not looking forward to coming back to Epiphany?” I said. 

A couple of years ago I was seated at a table in a diner with some friends, and a couple of nuns walked in and they were seated a few tables away.   It was like going back in time: they were dressed in full habit, their hair completely covered with the wimple and veil, yards and layers of black and white material covering every piece of skin but for their faces.