Homilies & Thoughts

At the request of the bishop, I want to share with you the story of how the Lord led me to this altar—not because my story is the pattern for everyone, but because it is one example of how patiently God can pursue a heart.

I was not born Catholic. In my earliest years, my family raised me in the Episcopal Church, and that is where I was baptized. Later, as the Episcopal Church continued along its present trajectory, we left. We went to a Southern Baptist church, and I spent more years as a Baptist than anything else.

At the edge of the Jordan, there is a line of ordinary people stepping down into the water—tired, hopeful, carrying secrets, searching for a new beginning. John stands there, calling hearts to turn back to God. Then Jesus arrives. Not as a spectator. Not as a judge. He walks into the same river, into the same current, into the same place where sinners are admitting they need mercy.

John recoils, because he recognizes the truth: Jesus has no sin to wash away. He has no stain that needs cleansing. Yet Jesus does not keep himself at a safe distance from the human condition. He chooses nearness. He chooses solidarity. He chooses to take on the weight of humanity—not because he is forced, but because love is never afraid to step into another person’s burden.

If you grew up in a world where faith was stitched into your bloodline—your clan, your language, your land—this story would sound almost unbelievable.

A caravan arrives from the east: learned men, court advisers, readers of the skies. Not Israelites. Not worshipers of the God of Abraham. Astrologers—outsiders—men whose practices many in Jerusalem would have distrusted or dismissed. And yet they come with aching purpose, asking for a Jewish king they have never met, guided by a sign they can barely explain. Their whole journey can be summed up in one sentence: “We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” That line is the shock of Epiphany.

2026 began with the same homily I preached at the beginning of 2025. I have changed assignments since then, so it was new to my current parish. It is not my most well crafted homily, by any means, but it is one of my favorites. May the Mother of God bless you all this new year.

A house can be holy and still be hurried. Picture Joseph waking in the dark, heart pounding, listening to a message that feels like both mercy and emergency. There is no time for long conversations, no time to tidy loose ends. A child is lifted, a mother gathers what she can, and a family slips into the night—because God has chosen to save the Savior by sending him away.

The startling part is where they go: Egypt. Not the postcard Egypt of museums and pyramids, but the Egypt that lives in Israel’s memory: the place of slavery, the furnace of temptation, the land from which they once begged to be freed. It had become a symbol for everything that crushes and corrupts. And yet the angel says, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.”

Most of us will spend Christmas afternoon doing something wonderfully unglamorous: rinsing dishes, finding the missing piece to a toy, checking on an older relative, driving home in the dark. It can feel almost jarring to hear the Church speak, on a day like this, about eternity, glory, and the mystery of God.

And yet that is exactly where Christmas aims—right at the ordinary.

We sometimes imagine the Incarnation as a kind of divine fireworks show: a miracle meant to prove that God is powerful, and a ladder meant to lift us out of this world and into the next. If that is all it is, then the best Christian life would be the one that escapes the mess: less work, fewer meals, fewer conversations, fewer interruptions—just “spiritual” things.

Tonight the story begins with paperwork: a ruler’s signature, a decree, an empire’s gears turning. Caesar Augustus wants the world enrolled. Not because he is curious, but because names on a register become taxes, and taxes become leverage. Rome calls this order. Rome calls this peace. Rome even calls it, in its own way, salvation.

Augustus knew the power of religious language. He was Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar; when Julius was officially declared a god, Augustus became the son of god. The title sounded like heaven, but it served the throne. The Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, was real—roads were safer, borders steadier—but it rested on the threat of the sword. Revolts were crushed. Crosses lined the roads. Fear did a great deal of Rome’s governing.

Joseph falls asleep with a decision already made. He has weighed the options, tried to keep his conscience clean, tried to do the least damage. He is a righteous man, and that righteousness does not make the situation simple. It makes it heavier.

Then God interrupts his careful plan—not with thunder, not with certainty, but with a dream. And the angel speaks a sentence that is almost startling, because the Gospel does not use the word “fear” until the angel names it: “Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.”

Two images of the Resurrection—one traditional, one contemporary—reveal more than artistic taste. A Renaissance anachronism quietly proclaims the Incarnation: Christ rose for every age, not only first-century Jerusalem. But when modern soldiers and concrete appear around the empty tomb, many of us flinch. Why? This reflection explores that discomfort, exposing how easily we confine faith to the past, and invites us to see the risen Lord as present here and now—judging, redeeming, and remaking our world.

Most of us spend our lives building walls. Not stone walls, usually. Although we certainly know fences, locks, and passwords. We build personal walls. We retreat into routine and hide inside busyness; we reassure ourselves, “I’ve got it handled.” That is how life stays manageable, predictable, and even pleasant. And if we’re not careful, God is treated the same way—tidy and familiar, safely kept at arm’s length.

Then Advent arrives like a cold wind at the gate. Jesus praises John the Baptist, and he asks the crowd one question: “What did you go out to the desert to see?” The word we hear as “desert” is better understood as “wilderness.” And the wilderness is not a scenic backdrop. It is outside the city’s protection, beyond the lamps and the watchmen. It is where you are exposed—to the elements, to hunger, to danger, to uncertainty, to your own limits.

Before sunrise on a December morning, an ordinary man walked the road toward mass on the hill of Tepeyac. He was not a governor, not a soldier, not a spokesman for a cause. Juan Diego was simply faithful—poor, overlooked, living in a world torn open by conquest, suspicion, and fear.

That is precisely where Our Lady chose to appear.

Guadalupe does not arrive as a badge for one side. She comes as Mother—Madre de Dios—for a wounded, divided society. Her presence says: you are not merely rivals, classes, or camps. You are children. One Mother, many peoples. She speaks to Juan Diego in a way he can receive, and she sends him back into the conflict with a task larger than himself.

By candlelight, these four Advent reflections trace a path from wakefulness to repentance, from fragile faith to renewed trust. Beginning with Jesus’ warning to stay awake, they move through John’s call to bear fruit, Christ’s assurance that grace is truly at work, and the quiet courage of Joseph. Together they invite us to let God enter ordinary life, weakness, and uncertainty, so the light of Emmanuel can be born anew.