Homily: 21st OT(B): 8.26.12

It has now been more than a decade since the city of Baltimore launched its “Believe” campaign.  In those days, you couldn’t be in the city for very long before spotting one of the distinctive billboards or bumper stickers, which showcased the simple word “Believe” in all capital letters, stark white against an all-black background.  Living inBaltimoremyself during that period, I always felt that the campaign was rather like one of Jesus’ parables – it was meant to catch your attention, pique your curiosity, and make you think.  Who was asking me to...

Homily: 20th OT(B): 8.19.12

At one small parish just outside of Pittsburgh, the biggest day of the church year, in terms of attendance – not counting Easter Sunday and Ash Wednesday – is Chili Sunday.  No, that is not a feast from the new Roman Missal that you haven’t heard about yet!  Rather, it is a parish-based celebration, not unlike our own events on St. Joseph and St. Ignatius Days. Here’s the deal.  Every year on a designated Sunday in mid-January, members of the parish make their favorite chili recipe and bring it in a Crock-Pot to church. Volunteers set out serving bowls on long...

Homily: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin...

Since I am a visitor here, I can get away with using a line which I have already used with my own congregation in previous years…   On this feast day, the only “assumption” that we make is that Mary is in heaven in a special and unique way!  But seriously, this belief of ours – which we share with our sisters and brothers of the Orthodox churches, and even with some Anglicans and Episcopalians – is a mysterious one no matter how you slice it.  Solemnly defined as an article of faith by Pope Pius XII in 1950, the Assumption refers to our belief that Mary was...

Homily (Kid’s): 19th OT(B): 8.12.1...

What does it mean to be hungry? When you get hungry, what do you do?  (If you tell your mom             and dad, what do they do?) Elijah was hungry in the desert.  God sent an angel to bring him             some bread and a jug of water.  (God usually sends us a             parent or a godparent or a spouse or a friend…) Here’s a trickier question: do you ever get “hungry” for some             particular special kind of food – even if you’ve just had             dinner? Here’s the trickiest question...

Homily: 19th OT(B): 8.12.12

This little story appeared in the “Metropolitan Diary” of the “New York Times.”  A woman was refilling her MetroCard at a crowded downtown subway station. Just as she was about to retrieve her card from the machine, a man came up behind her and grabbed the card and put it in his pocket.  “You took my card,” she shouted. “Give it back!”  But he just looked at her and walked away.       A man who had witnessed the theft yelled, “I saw you take her card. Give it back.”  The witness joined the woman in following the thief,...

From the “Archives” 9.2.12

(It has been a long journey, but just a week from now on September 9, we will at last celebrate the blessing of our restored and reinstalled Skinner pipe organ with an inaugural recital by organist Andrew Senn.  I am grateful to our Archivist, Maryjane Green, who in honor of this historic occasion has written the following retrospective on the history of music at Old St. Joseph’s…  –Fr. Dan) The Music of Old St Joseph’s “If music be the food of love, play on”. In 1733 atop the Walnut Street hill, a short distance from the banks of Dock Creek, stood one of...

From the Pastor: 8.26.12

While I was on the road in late July and early August, I picked up a paperback from one of those “bargain book” tables at Barnes & Noble.  The book is a sci-fi novel called “The Postmortal”; it was written by a youngMarylandauthor named Drew Magary; and while it proved to be a compelling read, I would certainly not characterize it as “light beach reading.”  Rather, the book imagines, as sci-fi often does so well, an all-too-plausible future.  It portrays one set of possible outcomes based on present human choices, and in the process, it raises a whole...

From the Pastor: 8.19.12

I write this on the last evening of my annual retreat.  You never quite know what God will propose when you head off to spend a week together…  As it turned out this year, I ended up spending an interesting and inspiring week with St. Peter (and Jesus, of course!).  Peter has always been a favorite of mine, anyway.  And we actually have a lot of information about him in the New Testament – certainly more than we do about Mary, the mother of Jesus, for instance.  I suppose part of Peter’s appeal for me has to do with his modest origins as a fisherman.  Being the...

From the Pastor: 8.12.12

A gracious parishioner was kind enough to give me a copy of a wonderful new book for the feast of St. Ignatius (July 31).  In “Just Call Me López,” Ignatian spirituality expert Margaret Silf offers what I am already thinking of as an “Ignatian contemplation” based on the actual life of Ignatius itself (López was his middle name).  Without belaboring the details, let me just observe that the grace which prompted her to write this new book was, in a sense, “second hand.”  By that, I mean simply that the idea for the book was not the author’s own.  She...

From the Pastor: 8.5.12

On my recent New York jaunt, I was lucky enough to catch the York Theatre Company’s revival of the 1989 Off-Broadway hit, “Closer Than Ever.”  The show is a musical review of songs by lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr. and composer David Shire.  Like “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” (songs by Brel) or “A Grand Night for Singing” (songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein), the show has no dialogue or plot.  Rather, each song becomes its own “mini-drama” performed by a talented cast of men and women, working singly or in various combinations.  I...