sermons

It’s funny, what images certain gospel passages conjure up. The story of “doubting Thomas” (as he is often called) is one of many in the Bible that seem to be easily visualized. There is artwork depicting this scene that dates back to the sixth century. The Italian baroque painting, “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,” by Caravaggio is probably the most famous. For me, though, Gen-Xer that I am, whenever I hear today’s passage from John, I think of the song “Losing My Religion” by R....

Picture, if you will, a room furnished with a small desk and a chair. On the desk sits two marshmallows and a bell, and in the chair sits a four year old child. This is the setting for a now famous experiment conducted in the 60’s and 70’s by a Stanford psychologist. The experiment went something like this. The child was told by the researcher that they would be left alone in the room, and they were not to eat the marshmallows until the researcher returned....

I hope you were able to take advantage of the beautiful weather earlier this week. I found myself with an open couple of days after the busyness of Christmas and the new year, and decided to put together an impromptu camping trip. Winter camping in Arkansas is just about the best kind there is. The cool temperature during the day makes for nice hiking, and the near-freezing nights can make for ideal sleeping conditions (if your sleeping bag is up to snuff, of course)....

There is a story that has been trying to work its way into one of my homilies for awhile now, and I think today may just be the day for it. The event that I’m going to recall for you actually happened a couple years ago, right during the height of the pandemic. You remember how it was. No one exactly knew how to interact socially. We weren’t hugging or shaking hands, and awkward nods or waves were the best we could manage as we attempted keep our germs to ourselves....

Apocalypse. It’s a word that many of us have a sudden reaction to. Different images or phrases surface in our minds. “End of days,” “revelation,” “destruction,” “zombies,” or how about “rapture,” or “a thief in the night”? The apocalypse, commonly thought of as the “end of the world,” is a topic of much interest in our society. You might even say we’re obsessed with it. Countless movies have been made about it, and books have been written–of varying quality I might add....