All Saints Homilies

What does Biblical repentance look like? Is it saying, "I made a mistake" or "I take full responsibility"? Is it looking at one's moral failure and being disgusted? Fr. Pat gives us a third response, as exemplified by the Prodigal Son.

"The religious impulse is as natural to human beings as the intake of oxygen." In this homily based on the story of the Publican and the Pharisee in Luke 18, Fr. Pat reflects upon the soul's innate attraction to God.

Father Pat looks at what we can learn about prayer from the story of the Syrophoenician woman found in Matthew 15. This is part one of a two-part series.

When a sculptor works, he hammers and chisels to reveal the image that is already in the stone, but hidden. This is what God did in the life of Timothy, and what He does in our lives today, in order to reveal the image of God in us.

Fr. Pat preaches on putting to death our passions, as St. Paul admonishes us to do in Colossians 3:4-11.

By considering the ancestors of Jesus found in Matthew 1, we can discern qualities of the Divine Initiative in our lives. Fr. Pat looks at three of these.

Three Second-Temple Prophets who were among those who prepared the world for the coming of the Messiah have much to teach us about how to keep the Lord uppermost in our hearts and lives.

To put on Christ necessarily involves a great deal of studious application; indeed, we are obliged to study Him. Fr. Pat looks at the account of the healing of the crippled woman in Luke 13 and gives us three ways we can endeavor to look like Christ.

The Christian lives an upright moral life not because of conformity with some commandment, and not by way of modeling himself on some external model, but because he does not want to depart from Christ.

Each of us is the servant of the Lord, which means that we do not belong to ourselves. And if we do not belong to ourselves, we certainly do not belong to the world, we belong to God.

We are all familiar with the parable of The Good Samaritan. Fr. Pat looks at persons from this story seldom, if ever, considered: the thieves who set the events in motion.

Fr. Pat considers three aspects of what St. Paul calls "the mind of Christ"; three ways in which Christ thought of himself with respect to us.

By giving Paul so dominant a place in the sacred Canon, the Fathers surely intended us to learn from his example how to examine the circumstances of our lives in order to attain wisdom in Christ.

Using Luke 8:26-27 as a starting point of his reflections, Fr. Pat encourages us to live our lives with an awareness of death as an important part of our mental composition.

In this homily based upon the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8, Fr. Pat teaches us about the qualities of the heart, its enemies, and our example of one with a patient heart.

In this homily on Luke 7:11-16, Fr. Pat offers reflections on Jesus' raising of the son of the widow of Nain.

In this homily based on 2 Corinthians 4:6-15, Fr. Pat reflects upon the glory of Christ in creation, in the Bible, and in our daily cross.

St. Paul says, "It is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:21). In a certain sense, every verse in the Bible is telling us to stand firm. In this homily Fr. Pat encourages us to do just that.

When Holy Scripture speaks of the sacrifice of the cross in connection with God’s anger, it is invariably in terms of deliverance; it has nothing to do with placating that anger. Fr. Pat addresses St. Anselm’s theory of the Atonement.

In this homily given on the Sunday before the Elevation of the Holy Cross, Fr. Pat looks at what death means to the Christian.