Sermons

Elisha and the Israelites woke in the morning to a terrible sight. They were ambushed. Their enemies surrounded the city. Fires burned and the ravens gathered for the kill. Like Stonewall Jackson at the Battle of Manassas, Elisha stood unmoved. “Don’t be afraid,” he told his servant, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then the prophet prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” The servant looked and saw the hills filled with horses and char

In rain and snow, with shackles on his hands, St. Patrick learned to pray. He was captured by Irish pirates. He was torn from family, home, and luxuries, and subjected to the cruelest slavery. Yet, in the thick of poverty, he encountered God. Jesus Christ calls the “poor in spirit” blessed, because it is only in inner poverty that we can learn to pray. It is only when we learn to pray, with depth, with heart, and unceasingly, that we can truly be alive. “Blessed are the poor

Limbs stiff, heart broken, she stood and looked at the cross. Who knows pain as tender and poignant as a mother? Who knows suffering as a mother who has lost her son? Today is a great feast, the Feast of the Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Yet, there is irony here. We are celebrating sadness, pain, and loss of the heaviest kind, and we are celebrating it with joy, with bright flowers and white vestments. Here, standing at the cross, in the midst of so much sorrow, we disc

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” ~ Ps. 51:7 He carried the bruised and beaten man on his donkey. It was an arduous and tiring trip. The sun beat down. The dry dust blew across the path. Step by step, donkey, Samaritan, and invalid sweat together through the desert. This is our story. We are the invalids. Christ is our physician, and the inn the Church. Our purpose in this story is simple: to be purged and made new. II. “A

C. S. Lewis was an atheist when he climbed aboard the train. The whistles blew, the train pulled forward, and the young scholar lit into his new book. It was a Scottish fairytale of the wandering discoveries and transformations of a man lost in Fairy Land. By the time he turned the last page and the train came to a stop, he was a changed man. Years later he explained, “that night [on the train], my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized...” The book sparked something,