Foot-washer

What does the resurrection of Jesus tell us about the relationship between science and faith?     The answer is in the baked fish that Jesus ate in the presence of his amazed disciples.     But first, a story.       A few years ago, I was out fossil hunting with my wife and a group of other paleontologists in Northern Kentucky.  You may not know this, but the Cincinnati area contains an incredible trove of fossils from an age of natural history called the “Ordovician Period.” My wife, Dr. Kate Bulinski, is a paleontologist who specializes in this period and the invertebrates that populated it.   Fossil hunting often involves going to “road cuts,” which are places where hills or other rises have been blasted and dug out to allow a road to pass through.  This exposes a wide cross section of rocks and, in some places, fossils.     After a long day of visiting several of these cuts, I remember standing next...

April 1, 2021 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040121-Evening.cfm    Put yourself at the Last Supper.     The meal has just begun.     All of Jesus’ closest disciples are present—a rabble of people called out of fishing boats, tax collecting offices, brothels, and gangs—who followed him these three years through his long and winding road to Jerusalem.     They are family now.     Here they are seated at table during the Passover season.     It is an explosive time, fraught and tense with religious expectations and fear of a Roman garrison.     Yet the excitement of a palm waving parade into the city is still fresh.     It is good to be here and good to eat together.     And then Jesus does something shocking.       The Lord and Master strips down to his undergarments and gets on knees with a pitcher and bowl.  He signals that he is going to do the filthy, shameful wor...

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time   Cycle B Feb 13/14, 2021 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021421.cfm . Happy Valentine’s Weekend / Day, St. Agnes.   Or if you prefer, Happy Singles Awareness Day!   Also, happy last weekend of the Carnival, Mardi Gras season. I am going to pose two questions to you this evening / morning.   They are: What is your definition of the Church? What did Jesus intend the Church to be?             You may not have a quick answer for these two questions.   I would definitely encourage you to explore them after mass today.   You do talk about the homily after mass, right?   I sent my high school sophomores out last month to interview five different people in their community, including family and friends, a child, an elder, and a teacher. Some were believers, others nonbelievers. They posed these two questions.   Two of the most frequent responses were: the Church is a building or a ...

January 24, 2021 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012421.cfm   If you ever visit the city of Venice in Italy, you will see a peculiar sight.     Flying  from flag poles all over the city, is a red and yellow flag with a huge image of a winged lion holding a book in its paw.     As it turns out, this is the flag of Veneto, the province that Venice is in.       The lion represents St. Mark, the evangelist who wrote the second Gospel.  You see, twelve hundred years ago, a group of clever and crafty Venetians travelled to Alexandria in Egypt.  Once there, they stole the body of St. Mark and snuck his remains away in a barrel covered in produce and took him back to Venice.  Then the Doge of Venice built a giant, glorious basilica called, of course, “St Mark’s” with an altar over his remains, and the city has showed off their great Christian pedigree by flying their St. Mark flag everywhere.  And they t...

January 3, 2021 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010321.cfm Happy Epiphany and a continued Merry Christmas as we celebrate the   10 th   Day of Christmas.     And Happy New Year, to boot. If you have ever been down to 4 th  Street Live you may have noticed a peculiar historical maker on the street out front.  It chronicles one of the most famous ‘epiphanies’ in modern times. A 43 year old monk named Thomas Merton who lived in the Abbey of Gethsemane near Bardstown was visiting Louisville in 1958.  4 th  Street was bustling then as now.  He wrote:    “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness ... [I felt such a sense of reli...

An article from The Tiger , Saint Xavier High School's alumni magazine, Winter 2021. 

      3rd Sunday of Advent (Dec 13, 2020)   https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121320.cfm      There are two secret donkeys in St. Agnes Church.  Don’t worry.  I am not referring to any parishioners!  Three weeks ago, I preached about Jesus’ spirit animal and told you that there are four animals in the permanent artwork of this church: the sheep with St. Agnes and the dove, and the eagle on the standard of the Roman soldiers on the stations of the cross.  Did you find the fourth?  I would be surprised if you did, as I said they are secret donkeys.  I will show you where they are and I will ask Will to show an image of the artwork for those of you streaming at home.   These animals are in the Nativity scene behind the high altar on what’s called the “apse.”  The stable here is presented as a cave and the Christ-child is lying in his manager at its mouth.  In th...