Homilies

The presence tonight of bishops from both the Latin and Oriental Rites, Catholic and Orthodox, reminds us that today’s feast is an ancient one, celebrated both in East and West: the Conception in Saint Anne of Holy Mary Mother of God.

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he felt sorry for them, because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:35-10:8). Our translation “felt sorry for” misses the mark: it’s both mild and aloof. But our English word ‘sorry’ does share the same root as the word ‘sore’, just as our words ‘sympathy’ and ‘compassion’ share roots with ‘pathos’ and ‘passion’.

Theodor Geisel—‘Dr. Seuss’ to those who grew up on his stories—was a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning children’s author. He composed and illustrated more than sixty children’s books, mostly in anapestic tetrameter, the preferred meter of poets like Byron. Over 600 million copies of his books were sold in his lifetime, and translated into 45 languages, including Spanish, so Mexicans and Columbians could read him

Integrity commissions are all the rage. The states have them and the Commonwealth will too—eventually. Such agencies attempt to root out abuses of office, perversions of justice and other corrupt conduct in public administration. Their investigations have brought down premiers and other public officials

Kings and kingship: they frame the story of Jesus. The New Testament begins with Jesus’ family tree showing He’s a direct descendant of King David, via his step-father Joseph (Mt 1:1-17; Lk 2:4).

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

At the end of Shakespeare’s great tragedy Macbeth, the king is dead and Malcolm is hailed King of Scots.[1] He undertakes to serve “by the grace of Grace” unlike the “dead butcher and his fiend-like queen”,[2] Lady Macbeth. But would his wife be any better?

At the then-customary examination before Confirmation, a child was asked by a bishop to define Matrimony. She nervously recited from memory: “Matrimony is a place where souls suffer for a time after death on account of their sins.”

In the sixth century BC a slave named Aesop told the fable of a Fox who, being hard-hunted and having run a long chase, sought refuge from a Farmer who told the Fox to hide in his barn.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 sparked the First World War and left his nephew Karl as heir presumptive. Karl had studied law and politics and was a military man.