Fr. Thom's Homilies

           In light of the message from Bishop Zinkula that I read just before Mass and all of the news that has been swirling around the Church these past few weeks regarding the ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal, I feel like I can’t not address this.  I can’t simply pretend that this is not happening and just focus on happier things.  It also occurred to me in a conversation with a student this past week that is a very fresh wound for most of our students.  Our students, by and large, were too young to remember when as a Church we went through all of this some sixteen years ago, when in 2002 “the first domino fell” with the breaking of the scandal in Boston.  These latest reports also hit home for me more personally, as now Archbishop McCarrick ordained me a transitional deacon my last year of seminary along with twenty or so of my classmates from various dioceses throughout the United States in 2003.  At the time he was still, of course, a much respected churchman, the Cardina

          We pick up right where we left off last week in the “Bread of Life Discourse” from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.   But this week, we get this lovely “preface” of sorts in the first reading from the Book of Proverbs.   We hear about the “banquet” that wisdom (always personified in the feminine in the Old Testament) has prepared for us.   And so, we heard these words: “Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table,” and invited us, “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed!   Forsake foolishness and advance in the way of understanding.”           “Advance in the way of understanding.”   Could there be a more perfect reading for our Masses this weekend right before the start of a new academic year?   This is why we are here after all.   This is why this university exists, that this “house” was built, so that we might “advance in the way of understanding,” and as o

           “I am the living bread that comes down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world .”   If we are somewhat taken aback or confused or even scandalized by what Jesus is saying in this [second] installment of the “bread of life discourse” from John’s Gospel, we should not feel alone.   Apparently, so were those who listened to Him that day in the synagogue in Capernaum almost two-thousand years ago.   This included, I expect, the Pharisees and the scholars of the law, the leading religious authorities of Jesus’ time and His usual rivals, but also probably many good Jews just trying to make sense of what this rabbi from Nazareth was saying.   Likely, Jesus’ closest disciples, “the Twelve,” were also greatly perplexed, if not themselves scandalized by these statements. And yet, it always strikes me that Jesus never backs down from or tries to soften His message when it is apparent that the p