Homily: 1st Advent, 11.27.11

Perhaps some of you are familiar with the satirical newspaper, The Onion.  It has begun in recent months to show up around the neighborhood in those free newspaper honor boxes next to the City Paper and the Philadelphia Weekly.  Anyway, like most great satire, the stories in The Onion often come painfully close to the truth. One of the lead stories in the November 9th issue carried the headline: “Report: It’s All Some Kind of Sick Joke.”  The story – not true, remember! – began this way: “According to a new report published this week, researchers at...

Homily: Thanksgiving Day, 11.24.11

The challenge of today’s Gospel – and, I would submit, of today’s national holiday – is to be found in Jesus’ question: “Where are the other nine?”  In Luke’s story of this healing miracle, all ten lepers are cleansed.  Why does only one come back to give thanks?  The answer is there, I think, implicit in Luke’s text.  “As they were going, they were cleansed.  And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.”  The implication is that only ONE of the ten...

Homily: Christ the King, 11.20.11

I resume today where I left off last weekend with my catechesis on the Mass in preparation for next week’s introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal.  I reminded you all that the word “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word for “thanksgiving,” and I suggested that it might be helpful in understanding the Mass if we compared it to this week’s upcoming American holiday.  I likened the “gathering rites” to the invitations, the travel, the introductions and the welcomes which go into assembling extended family and friends for Thanksgiving...

The 9:30 Mass has become the Mass of cho...

We offer the children the opportunity to celebrate their own Liturgy of the Word, a chance for them to hear and reflect on scripture at their level of understanding.  Children in kindergarten and younger are invited to Barbelin Hall and those in grades one through five celebrate in the Drexel Parlor.  Trained ministers of the Word for Children and trained musicians lead their Liturgies. We request your patience, sensitivity and understanding as our youngest families guide their children toward full participation in parish life and worship. For our very youngest...

Homily: 33rd O.T. (A) 11.13.11

I am preaching at all the Masses this weekend and next as a sort of final preparation and catechesis for the new translation of the Roman Missal which the American Catholic church will begin using on the first Sunday of Advent.  I plan to speak not so much about the new translation as about the Mass itself.  Like any translation, this new one has its strengths and its weaknesses.  But we will learn; we will acclimate; slowly, we will assimilate.  I ask that you open your hearts and minds, and that we proceed together, in patience, in charity, and in joyful hope.  As...

From the Pastor: 11.20.11

I hope by now you are aware that this Advent, Old St. Joseph’s will be hosting a “parish mission” for the first time in many years.  It will begin with the preaching at all the Masses on the weekend of December 10-11; but the actual mission services will take place in the Church at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 11, and at 7:15 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday evenings, December 12 and 13.  “Great news, Fr. Dan!” you may be saying at this point.  “What the heck IS a parish mission?”  Well, let me fill you in…  A parish mission is a parish-based prayer and...

Homily: 32nd O.T. (A) 11.6.11

Time is a complicated and peculiar thing.  When we are anxiously awaiting an update about a sick loved one, five minutes can seem like an hour.  This sense of extended or expanded duration can also arise when we are waiting for something we want very much with eager expectation: check with your kids or grandkids about the passage of time as they wait for Christmas break to begin, or as they anticipate the arrival of Christmas itself… On the other hand – and this seems to happen more and more often as I get older – time can seem to shrink or vanish.  For instance,...

From the Pastor: 11.13.11

I’ve run into several people lately who were regular visitors in the “glory days” of Old St. Joe’s when Jim Casciotti was pastor.  They have reminisced with fondness about Jim’s excellent preaching, which they say was “worth traveling for.”  They have recalled the excellent music, and the dignity and reverence of our liturgies.  And they asked me if we were still “packing them in” on Sundays here at OSJ, as we used to do back then… I first became acquainted with the parish myself during those “glory days.”  In the late 80s and early 90s, as a...

From the Pastor: 11.6.11

I am writing this on November 1, the Feast of All Saints.  Each year when we observe this holy day, I wonder whether we shouldn’t alter the name to something more descriptive – like the “Feast of All Saints Known and Unknown.”  Because yes, this feast of course includes “official” saints who have their own designated feasts – like Ignatius Loyola, Francis of Assisi, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Catherine of Siena.  But it also includes the nameless crowd of unsung Christian heroes who are now in paradise – those whom the Book of Revelation calls the...

From the Pastor: 10.30.11

I was in Baltimore for a Jesuit Superiors’ meeting this weekend (October 21-22).  It was held there to give all of us local superiors a chance to visit our brand new (and almost fully occupied) retirement and health-care facility which we are calling “New Colombière.”  Having seen the place, I am now looking forward to my semi-retirement in about 30 years or so.  In addition to being well equipped and staffed to provide excellent assisted care to Jesuits who may need that, the facility was also designed and built for beauty and comfort. The site is a 13-acre...