Since the Unitarians are a creedless faith, The Rev. Peter C. Boullata took up the charge of hoping that they haven’t “institutionalized narcissism. He talks about the challenge to do faith formation in their denomination. I was both excited and troubled that they have some of the same problems that we Catholics do at times …
Category Archive: preaching
Dec
19
An Old Man’s Advent Dream
Deacon Bill Ditewig, one of my heroes, wrote possibly the most beautiful advent reflection I’ve read to date. Here’s a snip: Right now we have many Catholics who don’t even like to reach out and take someone else’s hand at the greeting of peace before communion. Those folks are really not going to like my …
Oct
17
Reflection for 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Caesar’s Imprint and God’s Imprint
Often I see two kinds of people on the UB campus getting in people’s faces: The first are: Radical Fundamentalists: Yelling at people things like “Have you taken Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?” The Second group are: Angry Atheists. They tell things like: “How in the world can you believe in the big lie? …
Oct
09
Could God Be All We Need?
Today’s Gospel tells the story of a King who invites people to a wedding for his son. But nobody comes. So he sends servants to invite them again. Not only do people not come this time, but some kill the servants. Then a final effort is made to have this party and they invite anyone …
Sep
12
Sunday Readings Were Perfect for 9-11
If I do say so myself…
Aug
14
Tear Down This Wall
My colleague, Julianne Wallace, reminded me that yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. When I was in college the wall fell and it was a huge surprise. Nobody expected the border to open and people flooded to the scene entering back and forth without any issue. My Physics professor …
Aug
06
Can You Walk on Water?
Today’s gospel is the incredible story of Peter beginning to walk on water only to become afraid at the first gust of wind and begin to sink until Jesus catches him (and presumably rolls his eyes). There’s a little bit of Peter in each one of us. Fr. James Keenan, SJ, a great author and …
May
22
You Will Do Greater Works Than These
Sunday’s gospel has Jesus imploring his disciples to believe that Jesus and the Father are one. Not an easy idea to grasp in the first place. Then he goes on to tell them that they will do greater works than these… Well the question I have is what would Jesus consider greater works? And perhaps …
May
10
As Seniors Leave, There is Nothing to Fear
As graduation day approaches, may all of you who graduate be blessed by the gift that you are and will be in God’s wonderful world.
May
09
Meeting Jesus in Misery – Update
It was the worst news we could imagine. We never expected it to happen. We thought everything was just sailing along smoothly, in fact life had been better than it ever had been. Until now… This week had been a good one for me. I wrote an op-ed for the Buffalo News that got rave …





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