Fr. Thom's Homilies

          It so simple, and yet so hard:  “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind...[and] your neighbor as yourself.”  With these words, Jesus once again silences His foes.  In asking him, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest,” His opponents undoubtedly thought that if they could nail Him down to just one of the Ten Commandments or, better still, one of other six-hundred and thirteen additional commandments in the Mosaic law, then they could accuse Jesus of being neglectful of some other law of equal or greater importance.  It is a bit like when someone tries to pin you down to just one cause .  And so, if you say, “I’m for this ,” the critics will say, “Well, what about this ?  Don’t you care about this ?”—as though you could only care about one thing .  But Jesus won’t be drawn into this logical fallacy which would suggest that if you are for one thing, you must be against all other things.  Rather, He goes str

          “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? Ha! Now we’ve got him? If he says ‘yes’ we’ll brand him for a Roman collaborator and a traitor to our people and to our religion.  And, after all, how could he be the Messiah and support these pagan tyrants, with their idolatrous currency, stamped with image of their so-called ‘God-Emperor’?  When the real Messiah comes, he will surely free us from their oppressive yoke.  But, if he should say ‘no,’ then we will throw him to the wolves.  We’ll turn him in to the Roman authorities as a zealot who seeks to overthrow their rule, and they’ll take care of the rest.”           Undoubtedly, this was some of the thinking behind the question asked of Jesus in the Gospel today as the Pharisees and the Herodians team up to rid themselves of this meddlesome rabbi from Nazareth.  This pairing of the Pharisees and Herodians is in itself a little peculiar, in that the Pharisees considered themselves righteous observers of the law,

           There are always so many layers to the parables of Jesus, and the parable of the “wedding feast” in the Gospel for this Sunday is no exception, as we consider who’s invited, who accepts, who declines, and who gets “bounced.”    As in the past several weeks, we are reminded (once again) that Matthew is writing primarily for his fellow Jews, and that he seeks to present Jesus and “the way” of His teaching not as an alternative to but truly the fulfillment of the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  And so, Jesus, born of the House of David, comes first for the “lost sheep of the House of Israel,” but He does not limit His scope to His fellow Hebrews.  Some who were first invited “ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business.”  Others met the invitation with violence; they “laid hold of [the king’s] servants, mistreated them and killed them.”  In the face of this rejection, others are invited—called from the highways and byways.  These are th

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time October 8, 2017           The last three years before coming here to St. Ambrose, in addition to my work as vocation director for the Diocese, I had the privilege and the joy of teaching senior theology at Assumption High School.  And I remember my first year when it came time for my student’s first test, I put together a test that I thought was pretty reasonable; easy even.  And there were some who did just fine, but not nearly as many as I had thought should.  And for some, it didn’t go well at all.  So, of course, the next test I readjusted, in hopes of raising up some of those who were obviously struggling.  It helped some, but there were still more than I would have expected who failed or nearly failed.  So, I started to review the day before every test, practically giving them the answers to every question on the test.  When it came time for the final, I would even bring donuts to try to incentivize being present for the review.  I ga

          There is an ancient and beautiful Latin saying in the Church that goes like this: lex orandi, lex credendi .  It simply means: the rule of prayer is the rule of belief.  In other words, we pray what we believe .  And so, we can look at any of the liturgical prayers of the Church and find in them a succinct and accurate expression of our faith.  Every prayer in the Church’s liturgy is like a “mini Creed.”            The saying can be reversed too:  lex credendi, lex orandi .  Not only do we pray what we believe, but we believe what we pray .  The Church’s prayer not only reflects or gives expression to our beliefs, but actually reminds us of those beliefs.  And as we pray them, we reaffirm our faith.           There is one other very important piece to this saying that is often added, and it is the lex vivendi , that is, the rule of life .  We pray what we believe, we believe what we pray, and we live what we pray and believe.  And so, for example, it is not enough that