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14 Nov 2010 - Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

MANY OF OUR fellow citizens sold or lost homes in recent times. I unloaded mine this year, so I know the heartache and hardship of seeing your whole life packed into boxes or tossed into the trash outright. Of course it’s not “life” that’s contained in our material possessions or even our idea of home. Yet it feels that way because we’re incarnate beings for whom the tangible world is the most real one. Cups and dishes, clothes and furniture, mementos of the years and adventures behind us: There may be little monetary value attached to these things, yet still they’re precious, irreplaceable. I have a shirt that belonged to my dead sister: It’s literally rotting and not my style and I never wear it and wouldn’t surrender it at gunpoint. Our attachment to possessions isn’t a moral issue until we make it one—until we cross the line where the things we own, own us back. We know we’ve reached that point when our decisions are based on things rather than people, values, and goals. Will we turn down the right job because it won’t support our lifestyle? Do we not help a stranger because we don’t want to muss our clothes? Do we withhold the check for disaster relief because of exaggerated car payments? Are our possessions making our choices for us? As the church year slides predictably into Armageddon again, we’re reminded that the stuff claiming our time and attention today will be gone in short order. Lo, the day is coming, the prophet warns once more, when the world we know is going into the dumpster. As we cling to every book we’ll never read on every shelf of every room, we need to keep this phrase in mind: Lo, the day is coming, no kidding. As the disciples followed Jesus fatefully into Jerusalem, the backwater folks around him struggled against the magnetic pull of material wealth. They were slack-jawed at the monumental scale of Herodian walls and buildings: Some stones weighed many tons and were in place at the expense of human lives. Perhaps they felt small and ignorant in the face of such grand things. They were also surely swept up in amazement that Rome and its loyal clients could command such resources. How could Jerusalem’s greatness be disputed and the powers-that-be not seem attractive, worthy of honor, perhaps even allegiance? Jesus meanwhile sniffs at these wonders as if at a bad odor. Where the disciples see magnificent walls, Jesus already sees ruins. And indeed, most of the great cities of the ancient world are reduced to ruins today: artful, historically significant, and gone, baby, gone. If we plant our hearts there, we follow our treasure into the rubble. Related scripture links Connecting the dots about Zerubbabel: Jer. 22:24-30; Hag. 2:20-23; Zech. 6:11-15 The hope of the messiah king: 2 Sam. 7:8-16; 1 Chron. 17:4-14; Ps. 89:20-38; Isa. 7:10-16, 8:23-9:6; Mic. 5:1-4; Jer. 23:5-6; Ezek. 34:23-24, 37:24-28 The temple's importance: Isa. 2:1-5, 56:7; Mic. 4:1-3; Mal. 3:1; Ezek. 40-47; Matt. 12:6, 21:12-16; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-22; 1 Cor. 3:9-17; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:19-22 Catechism links Apocalypse: CCC 1042-1050 Meaning of Christian death: CCC 988-1014

Authors Alice Camille

armageddon home kingdom coming

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Homily stories

31 Jan 2016 - Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

I have never been thrown out of any place. I’m a law-abiding citizen who appreciates order, rules, and regulations. Imagine my surprise, when I was approached by the papal security detail at World Youth Day and summarily kicked out of my seat as I awaited the pope’s arrival. My companion and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were two young Catholics geeked to see the pope and celebrate our faith. It felt strange though to not be welcome in a place I felt so at home. I wanted to protest, “This is my Catholic community, this is my pope!” While I felt this truth deeply, I also knew that the security people had other concerns unrelated to me, and I acquiesced to the walk of shame through the crowd to another more acceptable location. I felt disappointed and dismayed that my live-sized, within-reach pope would now be reduced to a two-story, pixilated jumbotron pope. I often wonder how Jesus felt as he walked away from the people of his hometown, rejected and eject from the place he had known as home. It couldn’t have been easy for him. At the same time, Jesus’ understanding of home was much broader than a geographic location. Jesus located home in love, pure and simple. He not only lived out of this “home” wherever he was, but he opened the doors widely giving each of us a place to forever call home.

Authors Sister Julie Vieira I.H.M.

Love home hometown

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Homily stories

31 Jan 2016 - Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

I have never been thrown out of any place. I’m a law-abiding citizen who appreciates order, rules, and regulations. Imagine my surprise, when I was approached by the papal security detail at World Youth Day and summarily kicked out of my seat as I awaited the pope’s arrival. My companion and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were two young Catholics geeked to see the pope and celebrate our faith. It felt strange though to not be welcome in a place I felt so at home. I wanted to protest, “This is my Catholic community, this is my pope!” While I felt this truth deeply, I also knew that the security people had other concerns unrelated to me, and I acquiesced to the walk of shame through the crowd to another more acceptable location. I felt disappointed and dismayed that my live-sized, within-reach pope would now be reduced to a two-story, pixilated jumbotron pope. I often wonder how Jesus felt as he walked away from the people of his hometown, rejected and eject from the place he had known as home. It couldn’t have been easy for him. At the same time, Jesus’ understanding of home was much broader than a geographic location. Jesus located home in love, pure and simple. He not only lived out of this “home” wherever he was, but he opened the doors widely giving each of us a place to forever call home.

Authors Sister Julie Vieira I.H.M.

Love home hometown

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Ex-con job

22 Feb 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Jesus is the "yes" to all that God promises humanity, we learn in the reading from Second Corinthians this Sunday. Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit job-training program started by a Jesuit priest for ex-convicts in East Los Angeles, is the "yes" former prisoners need to hear as they try to rehabilitate their lives and find jobs in a down economy. For years Homeboy Industries put former felons to work at a bakery and cafe it runs in East Los Angeles. Last summer, Father Greg Boyle, S.J., who started Homeboy two decades ago, was approached by a supporter about the idea of preparing them for the green economy. Because job-placement for ex-convicts is especially difficult in a recession, "I leapt at the opportunity," said Boyle. Homeboy Industries now is training a group composed mostly of former gang members on parole to install solar panels so they can improve their skill set and market themselves for the new green economy. Homeboy has joined forces with the East Los Angeles Skills Center, a public vocational school that offers a hands-on program to teach the design, construction, and installation of solar panels. The course is one of only a few such programs in California and commands a months-long waiting list. The center created an intensive course for Homeboy. "I loved the idea of doing something for these guys," said Brian Hurd, the senior instructor who designed it. "My best student ever was a Homeboy referral" in a construction course "who needed a second chance." Source: An article by Miriam Jordan for the Wall Street Journal

homeboy industries ex-convicts east los angeles greg boyle gang members solar panels east los angeles skills center brian hurd

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Gimme shelter

22 Mar 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday the author of 2 Chronicles describes how the enemies of Israel "burnt the house of God." Some of those who have lost their houses due to foreclosure in the current financial crisis are turning to the nation's airports for shelter. Clusters of big-city homeless have long settled in airport terminals, ideal round-the-clock shelters for men and women displaced by cities trying to clean up their downtowns. Now, some of the newly homeless are also turning to the relative anonymity of airports for at least temporary shelter. Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, explains that the working poor or newly unemployed prefer squatting at an airport to registering with an official public shelter. "An airport is one place where most Americans have been, it's a place where they can hide their homelessness," he said. Source: An article by Dionne Walker for the Associated Press

unemployed homeless homelessness airports michael stoops national coalition for the homeless working poor

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Gimme shelter

22 Mar 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday the author of 2 Chronicles describes how the enemies of Israel "burnt the house of God." Some of those who have lost their houses due to foreclosure in the current financial crisis are turning to the nation's airports for shelter. Clusters of big-city homeless have long settled in airport terminals, ideal round-the-clock shelters for men and women displaced by cities trying to clean up their downtowns. Now, some of the newly homeless are also turning to the relative anonymity of airports for at least temporary shelter. Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, explains that the working poor or newly unemployed prefer squatting at an airport to registering with an official public shelter. "An airport is one place where most Americans have been, it's a place where they can hide their homelessness," he said. Source: An article by Dionne Walker for the Associated Press

unemployed homeless homelessness airports michael stoops national coalition for the homeless working poor

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Gimme shelter

22 Mar 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday the author of 2 Chronicles describes how the enemies of Israel "burnt the house of God." Some of those who have lost their houses due to foreclosure in the current financial crisis are turning to the nation's airports for shelter. Clusters of big-city homeless have long settled in airport terminals, ideal round-the-clock shelters for men and women displaced by cities trying to clean up their downtowns. Now, some of the newly homeless are also turning to the relative anonymity of airports for at least temporary shelter. Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, explains that the working poor or newly unemployed prefer squatting at an airport to registering with an official public shelter. "An airport is one place where most Americans have been, it's a place where they can hide their homelessness," he said. Source: An article by Dionne Walker for the Associated Press

unemployed homeless homelessness airports michael stoops national coalition for the homeless working poor

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Happy house hunting

02 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday's gospel the people ask Jesus for a sign they can "see and believe in." Beleaguered homeowners and businesses waiting for a sign that recovery in the troubled housing market is near may have received it: The U.S. Commerce Department reported Monday that new home sales in the U.S. rose in June by the largest amount in more than eight years. The report is another encouraging indicator that the beleaguered housing sector is finally coming back to life. Last Thursday the National Association of Realtors said that home resales posted a monthly increase of 3.6 percent in June. Along with greater numbers of houses selling, the rate of home price deterioration has slowed and in some places leveled off, according to the widely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index. The index, which tracks home prices in 20 metropolitan areas, rose 0.5 percent for the three-month period ending in May, compared with the three months ending in April. It marked the index's first increase after 34 straight months of decline. The home-sale numbers surprised Robert Shiller, the Yale University economist who helped create the Case-Shiller indexes. "The change in momentum here is very significant," he said. Shiller expects home prices to remain at current levels over the next five years, possibly declining a little further before bouncing back. Fallout from the housing crisis has played a central role in the U.S. recession, now the longest since World War II. Foreclosures have spiked, homebuilders have slashed construction, and financial companies have lost billions. Source: Articles by Nick Timiraos and Kelly Evans for the Wall Street Journal and Alan Zibel for Associated Press

recession housing housing market commerce department home sales national association of realtors standard poors case-shiller home price index robert shiller

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Happy house hunting

02 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday's gospel the people ask Jesus for a sign they can "see and believe in." Beleaguered homeowners and businesses waiting for a sign that recovery in the troubled housing market is near may have received it: The U.S. Commerce Department reported Monday that new home sales in the U.S. rose in June by the largest amount in more than eight years. The report is another encouraging indicator that the beleaguered housing sector is finally coming back to life. Last Thursday the National Association of Realtors said that home resales posted a monthly increase of 3.6 percent in June. Along with greater numbers of houses selling, the rate of home price deterioration has slowed and in some places leveled off, according to the widely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index. The index, which tracks home prices in 20 metropolitan areas, rose 0.5 percent for the three-month period ending in May, compared with the three months ending in April. It marked the index's first increase after 34 straight months of decline. The home-sale numbers surprised Robert Shiller, the Yale University economist who helped create the Case-Shiller indexes. "The change in momentum here is very significant," he said. Shiller expects home prices to remain at current levels over the next five years, possibly declining a little further before bouncing back. Fallout from the housing crisis has played a central role in the U.S. recession, now the longest since World War II. Foreclosures have spiked, homebuilders have slashed construction, and financial companies have lost billions. Source: Articles by Nick Timiraos and Kelly Evans for the Wall Street Journal and Alan Zibel for Associated Press

recession housing housing market commerce department home sales national association of realtors standard poors case-shiller home price index robert shiller

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Catholics, come home for the holidays

06 Sep 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading from the Letter of James encourages us to show impartiality toward all who enter the assembly to worship. Officials of the Archdiocese of Chicago, concerned that two-thirds of area Catholics are not entering the assembly to attend Mass on a regular basis, will unveil a "Catholics Come Home" evangelization program this coming holiday season that will include a blitz of TV advertising. The exact number of ads has not been settled on, but they could reach 2,000 or more, meaning the average TV viewer in the Chicago area might see them 25 times during their five-and-a-half-week run, church officials said. The time is right for this type of evangelization effort because "we see a larger number of people inactive in their faith," said Nancy Polacek, the point person on Catholics Come Home for the archdiocese. The campaign ran last year in Phoenix, Arizona and Corpus Christi, Texas and results were considered impressive. "Our study indicated a 12-percent increase [in Sunday Mass attendance] across the board," said Ryan Hanning, coordinator of adult evangelization for the Diocese of Phoenix. Source: An article by ChicagoCatholicNews.com

Evangelization diocese of phoenix archdiocese of chicago chicago catholics come home advertisements television nancy polacek ryan hanning phoenix inactive catholics

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