“To Be Friends of the Lord” — Sermon for Maundy Thursday, A.D. MMXXVI

“Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. … Fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.” To perpetuate the Memorial He […]

“Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord” — Sermon for Palm Sunday, A.D. MMXXVI

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! … Hosanna in the highest!” Today, as Christ enters Jerusalem, the crowds are raucous with joy. Today they welcome the Lord. In five short days, they will condemn Him: “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Mt 27:25). Lest we […]

“Going to Die with Him” — Sermon for Passion Sunday, A.D. MMXXVI

So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.” Today is Passion Sunday. The veils over the images in the church starkly remind us that we stand at the doorway of Holy Week, of those sacred days when we will contemplate the Passion and death of the […]

“Seeing and Being Light” — Sermon for the IV Sunday of Lent, A.D. MMXXVI

“It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” Once again today, our Lord does what no one has done before. Last Sunday, the Samaritan woman encountered a man who told her everything she had ever done – could he be the Christ? Today, the Lord opens the eyes […]

“Being Seen” — Sermon for the III Sunday of Lent, A.D. MMXXVI

“Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” If you don’t know that you’re a sinner, you miss out on the best part, and we keep falling into sin because we’re more of afraid of Heaven than of Hell, afraid that following Christ will mean […]

“You Are Immortal” — Sermon for the II Sunday of Lent, A.D. MMXXVI

If you don’t know that you’re a sinner, you miss out on the best part. That’s where we started Lent last Sunday, with the recognition that we need a healthy sense of sin to experience the magnitude of God’s mercy. Today, we see another motivation without which sinfulness and mercy don’t make sense: the […]

“Sin is Real” — Sermon for the I Sunday of Lent, A.D. MMXXVI

It’s incredible how popular Ash Wednesday is. The simple ritual of placing ashes on people’s heads captures the imagination of the whole world. In the days of a thoroughly Christian West, our lives were constantly punctuated by these sorts of rituals, but this, along with Palm Sunday, to which it is so closely connected, […]

“Perhaps God Will Relent” — Sermon for Ash Wednesday, A.D. MMXXVI

“Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. … Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing.” It’s a strange note on which to begin Lent, this “perhaps.” Perhaps God will forgive seems to imply, perhaps He won’t. Doesn’t this contradict what we were just told […]

“Overcoming Anger” — Sermon for the VI Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXVI

“Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; … and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.” It’s clear that we have a problem with anger. Whether it’s the news or social media, or the way that people respond to the employees at stores and restaurants, there are […]

“Why Be Generous?” — Sermon for the V Sunday through the Year, A.D. MMXXVI

These past two weeks, we’ve been focusing on how we are “letting our light shine” at Our Lady of Good Hope. I’m so grateful to Ross and Mindy Haffner for their beautiful words before Mass today about how the witness of this parish’s fidelity to Christ has brought them and their family closer to […]

Father Gregerson

my homilies and other musings