Fr. Thom's Homilies

          One would think that with all of this material it would be easy to preach.   But my experience in almost fourteen years of priesthood is that nothing could be further from the truth.   I have always found it more difficult to come up with a homily on these great holy days of our tradition.   Maybe it’s the pressure of having a typically larger, more intently focused congregation on these high holy days, but I think it is mostly because the events we commemorate in these days speak so well for themselves.   What more can I say?   How can I add in any meaningful way to what we have just heard?   Why talk about these things when, in a sense, we are living them this week?   Thankfully, the Church in her wisdom also recognizes this.   And so, the instructions for Mass today state that after the reading of the Passion “a brief homily should take place, if appropriate .   A period of silence may also be observed.”             I don’t know if it’s “appropriate” or not, but I

           “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Twice in the gospel we hear this, once on the lips of Martha and once from her sister, Mary.  “Lord, if you had [only] been here!”  This is a very relatable statement, I think.  We can look back at the various challenges, difficulties or tragedies in our lives and ask, “Where were you, Jesus?  If you only you had been there, then this [whatever that is] would not have happened.”  We could look at the car accident this past Friday that left four of our students returning from spring break injured, one of them critically, and say, “Where was God when they needed him?”  We could look at the tragic deaths of two of our students last semester, Ethan Flaherty and Kayla Decker, and ask, “Why, God?  Why weren’t you there to prevent this?”  Or we could ask, “Where was God on February 14 th when at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida seventeen people had their lives prematurely snuffed out?”     

           Now two and a half weeks into our Lent, two and a half weeks into our “desert journey” with Jesus, it is only natural that we should begin to get a little thirsty .  And really all of the readings for this Third Sunday of Lent speak of thirst : the people of Israel thirsted in the desert, in their exodus from Egypt to the promised land; Our Lord Himself thirsted as he came to sit by the well; the woman he encountered there thirsted as she came to draw water in the heat of the day.  And in all of these cases their thirst was satisfied, albeit in some surprising ways.           First there is the thirst of the Israelites in the desert—this is thirst plain and simple.   They have been wandering in the desert, led by Moses, and leaving Egypt is starting to appear to them to be a bad idea.   They prize their material comfort more than their own freedom, and would rather return to their old slavery.   And yet God does not ignore their cries.   He recognizes their need and s