The cardinal sin of the homilist is to be boring. While we often labor to be right, or at least to be smart, we’re missing the mark if we’re not also or even moreso compelling. Really: The message can be long or short, catechetical or exegetical or storytelling, exhortatory or consoling, humorous or deeply moving, and it still qualifies as spreading the good news, but if we’re boring the assembly to tears, it can’t possibly be gospel we’re proclaiming.

The reign of God is revealed to be a banquet in both prophecy and in the parables of Jesus. In the time of God, when justice is finally served and peace comes, there will be nothing left to do but celebrate.

That is not a hardship, not a slog through the salt mines of penitence and character-building and purifying and self-control. No: When you love someone and you see in their eyes the person they imagine you to be, your realized ideal

If you had to throw out every other prophet in the Bible but one, most people would enthusiastically save Isaiah. He’s the indispensible prophet: hopeful enough for Advent, sorrowful enough for Lent, triumphant enough for Easter, and challenging enough for Ordinary Time.

In miracle-birth stories we’re reminded that all babies are a gift from God. When a child arrives into our families, we talk about being blessed, but then we might promptly begin to act in ways that betray our unconscious belief that children are more like possessions. We name them, pay for them, raise them, and are in every way responsible for them. They “belong” to us; are they not ours?

It’s pretty much impossible not to talk about Christmas at this point. Tomorrow evening begins the cycle of liturgies celebrating the day we’ve eagerly anticipated. For two weeks Jesus has been absent from the gospel stories, as if waiting in the wings to make a grand entrance at the close of the season.

It’s a funny couple of weeks in the church. For two Sundays now Jesus does not appear in the gospels. Of course it’s Advent, so it seems appropriate Jesus remain offstage until he officially comes to us as Emmanuel. But still: How do you tell the gospel story without him?

IN THE YEAR of President X, during the term of Governor Y, when Mr. Z was mayor, and Pope A was occupying the Chair of Peter, the world’s superpowers were currently B and C. In these involved and conflicted times (and, seriously, have there ever been times when nothing was at stake and no one was at war?) there came a person out of nowhere—say, a fellow from the southern desert—who claimed to have a word from heaven about all of this.

Does time mean anything? Think about the difference between Monday and Friday: Apart from the significance we assign them as the traditional beginning and end of the work-week, is there an inherent “Monday-ness” or “Friday-ness” which are unique to those days?

“I’m the procurator over Judea. I am a friend of Caesar. I am the arm of Rome, the mightiest empire of the known world. If someone is brought to my attention, they had better be worth my time.” So thinks Pilate, as this Jesus is dragged before him.