My seminarian friend Dennis Schenkel just posted a practice homily, which he wrote for this past Sunday's readings.
I mentioned a few days ago that a friend had complained about dull Catholic preaching. Dennis is not one for dullness, that's for sure. His palpable enthusiasm for expounding upon God's Word is refreshing.
I have to say, I'm either too young or too old for Dennis's Fred, Velma, and Shaggy references. (Truthfully, nearly any television or film reference in a homily makes me cringe.) But that doesn't really matter, because he uses Scooby to make an excellent point. What's more, I love the message behind one of his other pop-cultural references, regarding the resurrected Jesus' first appearance in the upper room:
The Bible doesn’t tell us what they were thinking, but imagine what you would have been thinking. Imagine that your friend, who trusted you, had been arrested and executed, and during his trial, when he needed his friends most, you had not been there for him, you had not said one word in his defense, and you even told other people that you didn’t even know him. If you had heard that your friend was back from the dead, would you be looking forward to seeing him? Or would you be hearing the voice of the movie trailer guy in your head saying:JESUS
IS
BACK!
and THIS time…
it’s PERSONAL!
Yeah, Peter and his friends were probably not feeling very brave that day. But the thing that happened next was not at all like the thing they were most afraid of ... [Read the whole thing.]
