Foot-washer

 An incomplete homily for the  Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2020 (September 13). This would have been my first homily, but I abandoned it for being too dark for my inaugural.  The story about my friend and the skull is a bit... much.  Maybe I will find the right audience or work it in some place else.  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091320.cfm In the first reading, we hear Joshua Ben Sirach say, “remember death and decay, and cease from sin!”  This is a repeated line in this unfamiliar Wisdom Book of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Elsewhere Sirach writes, “In whatever you do, remember your last days and you will never sin” (7:36).  Saint Benedict, the famous monk, was probably inspired by this line in his Rule.  He poignantly wrote, “Keep death daily before your eyes” (4:47). I know a man who lived as a monk in Rome for several years.   One day several of his monastic brothers were digging in the monastery’s garden when they came upon a human skull. After much discussion an

Homily for the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (September 12 & 13, 2020)   How often must I forgive? --I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.       During the pandemic this year, I’ve been quarantined at home with my family, like many of you.  I am married and the father of four young children all four years old or younger.  In one of our rare bits of free time, my wife and I watched the musical  Hamilton,  which was released on TV around the 4 th  of July.      I see this musical as very timely for our current moment in history and for our Gospel reading in which Christ calls us to limitless forgiveness and mercy for our brothers and sisters. Let me describe a climactic scene to you from the musical.   Two men stand ten paces across from each other, each pointing a dueling pistol at the other.  They are in a the midst of a wooded ledge overlooking the Hudson River. It is dawn and the sun is shining on the water and Manhattan on the opposite shore.        The