All Saints Homilies

We all have schedules and agendas, and we’re mindful of our own and of those with whom we interact. Using stories from the Gospels and Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Fr. Pat considers with us God's schedules and hidden agenda.

Fr. Pat reflects upon the Apostolic Office by means of three adjectives, which, when considered, can greatly enrich our understanding of the apostles, and can deepen our own relationship with Christ.

The opening verses of Romans 5 are not about moral improvement; they are about God’s dealings in our lives: as God did with Abraham, He tests us that we might have patience toward Him who "makes all things work together unto good."

Being a disciple, a student of Christ, is very serious business. Fr. Pat discusses what it means to have Christ as a teacher.

Fr. Pat provides brief reflections on three parables from Matthew 24:36-26:2; the Parable of the Faithful and Evil Servants, the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the Parable of the Talents.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the grace of God comes into the soul and transforms it. Fr. Pat gives three major examples of the Holy Spirit’s transformation of our instinctual human capacities.

Building on his homily from last week, Fr. Pat discusses an example of the authority of darkness, and encourages us with reminders of both Christ’s prayer for us, and of our fellowship with each other.

In this homily from the Sunday of the Man Born Blind, Fr. Pat considers with us light and darkness, both in this story and in our lives.

Father Pat looks at the encounter with the Samaritan woman through the lens of Jesus' statement “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)

On the Sunday of the Paralytic, Fr. Pat reflects upon a most pernicious kind of paralysis — the spiritual kind.

In this homily given on Great and Holy Thursday, we meditate with Fr. Pat both on the encounters that Moses, Job, and Isaiah had with God, and on Jesus’ agony in the garden, and the significance of these various events as they pertain to our daily practice.

On St. Thomas Sunday Fr. Pat considers the theological meaning of memory, the quality of the event of the Church, and the challenge of that event.

In the Holy Communion, there is a change of substance. The bread and the wine have been transformed. We receive into our flesh the risen power of Christ.

In this homily from Palm Sunday, Fr. Pat fortifies us on our journey with three points about the Cross: two negative and one positive.

Mark’s account of the Lord’s questions about baptism and the cup (Mark 10:32-45) are especially poignant for the Christians at Rome, who are thereby instructed about an important dimension of their own participation in the sacraments.

In Mark 9, just after the Transfiguration, Jesus addresses the faith of the crowds surrounding the disciples as well as that of a man whose son He then heals. As we look toward the last weeks of Lent, Fr. Pat helps us think about our own faith.

To follow Christ is first to be understood in a literal and existential way. It is not a diminishing of observance, it’s the augmentation of observance. We profess our allegiance to Christ, and our commitment to His Lordship.

In the encounter in Mark 2, the paralytic encounters the One in whom the presence and power of God is revealed; the One from Whom no secrets are hid, Who pardons all our iniquities and heals all our diseases.

Is the god we’re worshipping actually the God of the Bible? Or are we worshiping the benevolent, optimistic, political, social, economic god of contemporary American culture? Because the worship of a false god is worse than the worship of no god.

Will we be judged by history? Is a thing wrong because those who are in power say it’s wrong? Fr. Pat looks at Jesus’ words about the Last Judgment from Matthew 25.