Foot-washer

St. Agnes Catholic Church  December 27/28, 2025 Feast of the Holy Family https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122825.cfm  Happy 3rd / 4th Day of Christmas, and happy Feast of the Holy Family.     Despite our lovely Christmas carols and our beautiful nativity scenes, the little town of Bethlehem would not sleep in heavenly peace for long.  We sing together with the angels, “peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!"  But the reality is that the powers of the world recognized Jesus, not as Lord at his birth, but as a threat to their rule.   From his hilltop fortress three miles from Bethlehem, King Herod looked down on royal David’s city and did not plan to come and adore Jesus.  Instead, the old dictator, who was in his mid-seventies and was wracked with illness, became increasingly desperate to cling to power.  He hatched a plan to massacre every boy two years old and younger in Bethlehem and its vicinity.  ...

Bellarmine University Our Lady of the Woods December 24, 2025 Christmas Eve Vigil Mass Readings “I just don't understand Christmas.... I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.” So says Charlie Brown in the 1965 cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas. My nine-year-old son, EJ, has been obsessed with Peanuts lately, and I have seen this short little special multiple times during Advent. Charlie’s friend Linus responds to his complaint, saying, "Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem.” I think this show has lasting appeal because we can all relate, at various moments, to Charlie Brown’s morose feelings about Christmas. Though we are supposed to feel merry and bright, sometimes the garishness of the season and the relentlessness of it all can make us feel that our hearts are two sizes too sma...

St. Agnes Catholic Church  October 25/26, 2025 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102625.cfm The “Merchant of Death is Dead.”  That was the newspaper headline in 1888 announcing the passing of the Swedish chemist and industrialist who invented dynamite and made a fortune in selling military arms.  There was only one problem, the man, Alfred Nobel from Stockholm, was not actually dead.  As you might imagine, Nobel was quite surprised to read his own obituary in the newspaper and he was absolutely appalled to be described as a “merchant of death.”  That was not how he wanted to be remembered after he died.    This mistake provided a jolt to him, and he responded by founding and funding the now world-famous Nobel Prizes that recognize contributions in science, literature, and especially peace.  When we think about Nobel, it is worth asking ourselves, “if I died to today, what would my obituary say?”  Would it say...

Green Mass (Care for Creation) Wis 13:1-9 ; Psalm 104; Matthew 6:24-34 Seeing Christ in Creation Nine years ago, I led a group of Bellarmine University students on a study abroad trip to Peru. One night, we took a bus ride that wound through the Andes Mountains. The driver made an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere and let us all off to into a field. There was no moon that night. The inky darkness was broken only by the light of the stars. We gazed upon them and were unexpectedly disoriented. Instead of the familiar constellations that had accompanied us our whole lives in the northern hemisphere, there was an alien, antipodal sky with a strange configuration of unknown stars. Floating on the horizon just above the mountain peaks appeared the constellation known as the Crux, or the Southern Cross, composed of four of the brightest stars in the sky that form a distinct cross-shape.     Long before being introduced to Christianity, Peruvians held the cross as sacred...

St. Agnes Catholic Church September 21, 2025 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Short form of the Gospel) In the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof, the main character, a poor milkman named Tevye has a disagreement with his future son-in-law, Perchik.  Perchik, who is a Marxist, exclaims, “Money is the world’s curse!” To which Tevye replies, “Money a curse? Might I be afflicted and never recover."  Later in the musical, Tevye sings the song, “If I Were a Rich Man” in which he fantasizes about how different his life would be if he were wealthy.  Most of us have indulged in this same fantasy, playing the parlor game of “what would I do if won the lottery?”  Whether rich or poor, most people think their lives would be better with more money.  We do not live in a poor Ukrainian village of Jews in 1905, in constant danger of a pogrom, like the characters of Fiddler.  No, we live in the richest country in the world.  In fact, the United States is the richest c...

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time St. Agnes Catholic Church https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/083125.cfm Sixty-one years ago, a 22-year-old fast-talking Louisvillian shocked the sporting world.  The young man then called Cassius Clay defeated the reigning world boxing champion Sony Liston in what was then considered a major upset.  After the bout, he gave a famous interview in which he proclaimed, "I am the greatest! I shook up the world. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived."   The man who later became known as Muhammad Ali would go on to back up his boasts, winning the heavy weight championship a record-breaking three times and being proclaimed by many the greatest sportsman of the 20th century.  Since that era, we have seen a parade of other athletes who are proclaimed to be the “Goat” of their sport.  Goat – meaning the “greatest of all time.”  Michael Phelps is the Goat of swimming.  Tom Brady is the Goat of football.  Simone Biles is...

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle C https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072725.cfm Two weeks ago, I went on a pilgrimage to Poland with a group of Catholic high school teachers. As part of that experience, we spent two days at Auschwitz-Birkenau , the Nazi extermination camp at the center of the Holocaust that operated between May 1940 and January 1945. Auschwitz has become a byword for evil, and rightly so, it is the site of the worst atrocities of the 20th century (if not human history): 1.1 million people—Polish people, Soviet prisoners, Roma, criminals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay people, criminals, and most especially Jews—lost their lives in the camps. It is hard to grasp the intensity of “man’s inhumanity to man” at this place, and it is difficult to understand how God permits such awfulness to exist. In today’s 1st reading, we hear Abraham argue with God about the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah . In that story, God hears people crying out in anguish from those cities, sayin...

St. Agnes Catholic Church Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul Apostles  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062925-Mass.cfm  The city of Rome is founded on a myth of twin infants, Romulus and Remus, who were raised and nursed by a she-wolf.  The two brothers grew, became shepherds in central Italy, and leaders of a growing community.  All was well until a dispute between the brothers arose over which of the seven Roman hills they should build their new city upon.   In anger, Romulus slew his brother Remus, and became king of the city and empire, Rome, which would be named for him.  In this way, Roman civilization was raised by wolves and founded in blood.  It was a legacy that would metastasize as the city became a republic, and the republic became an empire spanning three continents.   Seven centuries after Rome’s legendary founding, another two men entered the Eternal City.  Like Romulus and Remus these two came to found a new c...

6th Sunday in Easter  Cycle C https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052525.cfm Two weeks ago, 133 Cardinals filed into the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican to select a new pope. As they took their places in a space similar in size to St. Agnes, they chanted Veni Creator Spiritus, Come, Holy Spirit. These men were from all over the world, with a diversity of languages, perspectives, and theological views. Yet they were tasked with getting a two thirds majority to select someone to lead them. Can you imagine getting 133 people to come to an agreement on a leader? It seems impossible, yet they within two days and four rounds of voting, we saw white smoke and heard the announcement: habemus papum! We have a pope. For decades, people have said, “it is impossible to elect an American pope. It will never happen.” Yet here we are. The Holy Spirit—which the cardinals invoked before they began—is the doer of impossible deeds. As we approach the feast of Pentecost, which we will celebrate in tw...

  2nd Sunday in Easter  Cycle C https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042725.cfm Apr 26 & 27, 2025 St. Thomas the Believer Last month, our second graders and their parents participated in a retreat to prepare themselves for their First Communion which they are just about to celebrate [will celebrate tomorrow].  At the end of a two-hour session, Fr. Bruno took the participants on a tour of the church.  We concluded in the sacristy—the room in the back where the priest gets ready.  The retreat started to run past the allotted time, but at the conclusion, Fr. Bruno asked the second graders for final questions.  He was perhaps expecting something quick and easy.  One of the kids, named Ellie  had clearly been waiting for this.  She stuck her hand up eagerly and said, “I have two questions: first, why did God flood the earth? And second, why can’t women be priests?”  Fr. Bruno looked surprised and said, “those are very good questions, bu...

Bellarmine University Our Lady of the Woods Chapel https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033124.cfm Good morning, Bellarmine. Happy Easter. The Lord is Risen, Alleluia! In Jesus’ time, the most important and popular art form was the Greek tragedy. These plays originated in Athens in the 6th century B.C. and were performed in large amphitheaters built on the side of hills. They were originally religious in nature, honoring the god Dionysius. A small number of actors (with powerful voices) wearing masks acted on stage while a chorus sang a commentary on the action. Tragedies tell the story of the downfall of a great hero. The noble protagonist of the story is virtuous yet imperfect in ways that make him sympathetic. He has a “tragic flaw” that lead to catastrophe. The most famous example is Oedipus Rex whose flaw is lack of knowledge about his family and his origins. The conclusion of the tragedy is called a catastrophe, a Greek word that means ‘sudden downturn.’ This may b...

  5th Sunday of Lent Scrutinies https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040625-YearA.cfm  We just heard the second longest Gospel reading by numbers of words in the entire Sunday lectionary.  If you are keeping score, last week’s reading was 851 words.  Today’s is 843 words.  These readings are preparing us for our Passion readings next week which are almost three times as long.   Today, we heard 45 verses – the entire 11th chapter of the Gospel of John.  Out of the 45 verses, I would like to focus on one verse (11:35), which is the shortest verse in the Bible.  It is just two words: “Jesus wept.”   Jesus cries two times in the Gospels.  Today, we see him cry over the death of his beloved friend Lazarus.  Next week, before entering Jerusalem in a procession of palms, Jesus cries for the fate of the city, which is doomed to be destroyed by the Romans in the next thirty-five years in a siege that will result in tens of thousa...