Community of Saint Peter
2023 Homilies
January through June
Click the link to view the homily on YouTube.
January 1, 2023
The placing of the Band-aid is the acknowledgment by one that another is wounded. It is at that very moment that the healing begins.
January 8, 2023
January 15, 2023
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.
​The Earth manages everything and provides stillness besides. I’m suggesting that our combined efforts at peace are not unlike the all-day rain. A drop here or there will satisfy a fern or two, but the effort of an entire Community is potent enough to move even the Earth.
January 22, 2023
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.
“The Gospel brothers made an immediate decision to follow Jesus, leaving their boats adrift on the Sea of Galilee. They didn’t know where the journey would lead them, but it didn’t matter. That’s how much they trusted the One that they followed.”
January 29, 2023
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
“Being a prophet is about more than being courageous. It’s about more than spreading a message of hope. Most importantly, the messenger must truly love those to whom they are prophesizing. This is why 2000 years later we are still inspired by the Prophet’s message, and why we continue to strive to bring it to life.”
February 5, 2023
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
We are made of “God-stuff.” It’s no wonder, therefore, that when God moves, we feel it. As deliberate as we are about starting with the onion, so intentional we must be to attend to the stirring of the Spirit. There is no life without salt. No life without light. There is no going forward without both.
February 12, 2023
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
“I think that we need to make sure that no one’s well-being is at the expense of someone else.” (Greta Thunberg) That sure sounds to me like “love your neighbor as yourself.” Greta’s simple statement is haunting, challenging, and undeniably sound. Inspired, like our scriptures this morning.
February 19, 2023
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.
“Jesus does not mince words about what it means to be a person who carries God with you in your heart. It’s not something that’s passive. He says that if we really want to live with the awareness of God’s immanence, if we really want to embody the Divine, we are each called to live lives of radical relationship and radical love. In this passage Jesus invites us on a journey with him towards nonviolence, and it is the most countercultural journey of both his time and ours.”
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February 22, 2023
Tonight we will burn old palms as a sign of transformation from old to new.
It’s a familiar theme: Surrender something in our possession in return for a promise of something new. Better.
February 26, 2023
Jesus had no appetite for the wealth or power or glory that tempts some of Earth’s creatures.
Being made of God-stuff, full of God’s Spirit, one with the rest of creation was “enough.” He was living into our flesh, as messy as that would become. If that was plenty for Jesus, it ought to be enough for the followers, too.
March 5, 2023
On our Day of Reflection eight days ago, Bruce Morrill sj said that Mark wrote his gospel to invite seekers to believe in the God of Jesus. I liked that.
That made me think that I should be doing what I do so that anyone who gives a second thought to my life, my witness, my everyday, might be inclined to go looking for the God I believe in.
We live our lives not just to find our own way, to stay alive in the kindom, but to show a way to others. In other words, we are all cities on a mountain. Lamps without bushel baskets. We are salty.
March 12, 2023
“What is living water for you? Moments when God fills your cup in a way much more intangibly, perhaps, but no less real, than with the literal water of the Israelites? I am filled with that living water of Christ when I listen to the prelude and my spirits are lifted to another place, or when I catch a glimpse of the sunset between the skinny trunks of the trees in my backyard and somehow feel hope in my chest. Living water…moments that fill your cup—or your jar—remind us that the love of God flows through us.”
March 19, 2023
March 26, 2023
April 2, 2023
“Sometimes, the opposite of now is not never, it’s not yet. Easter will come, just… not quite yet. But if we can persevere through this week together, perhaps after the wintry mix of Good Friday we will see the glimmering light of the sun. Have a little hope.”
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April 6
“But maybe that night, as Jesus was washing the feet of his friends, he was teaching them something else, too. Maybe he was teaching them that everybody has dirty feet. He had to teach them how to receive help. He had to remind them that they, too, are ministers, not messiahs, and need to have their feet washed just like everyone else.”
April 9, 2023
“So what does it mean to be Easter people? What does it mean that Jesus lives? It means everything. It means the difference between life and death—not just for Jesus, but for us. Every single day. It means that we know that hope can prevail even in the face of suffering. We know that even in death, hope can find a way. It means that, just like those first disciples, our stories don’t have to end with our grief, but with our joy.”
April 16, 2023
“Like Thomas and his friends in Christ, we are in uncharted waters. We face the confusing and unexpected heartaches of life, as well as the obstacles of moving forward as an independent community of believers. We can’t know what will happen in the future—for us as individuals and as a community. But what we can do is to heed the message that Jesus taught his friends on that first Easter night—trust.”
April 23, 2023
April 30, 2023
“Walking through that Christ gate, the gate of resurrection, takes faith. And hope. And the trust that there will be light on the other side of the threshold that you never even imagined. We just have to choose to let it shine on us.”
May 7, 2023
May 14, 2023
My name is Regina Marie Pestak, and I was baptized by this community 37 years ago. This community also baptized my own 3 children: Christopher Michael, Lucy Elizabeth, and David Aloysius, and it is my great honor to preach and pray with you on this blessed mother’s day.
May 21, 2023
People wrote these laws. They did not come from stone tablets. Godly people understood this is how neighbors look after one another, and creation. So, people of faith would have to conclude about creation: “None of this is MINE, no matter what was “owned” or “owed.” It all belongs to the Creator. We are just the caretakers. And it is incumbent upon us, therefore, to find the best way to share it all.
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May 28, 2023
June 4, 2023
June 11, 2023
June 18, 2023
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Father's Day Homily offered by Scott Sella.
June 25, 2023
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time