Deacon Scott's Homily

Homily 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time September 13, 2026   I have been a deacon for ten years and a husband for thirty-five. I am a father of two, and a grandfather of four, which means I have had decades of practice at the one job I never applied for: unofficial Supreme Court of Other People’s Choices. I can clock a late arrival of my coworker, criticize the speeding driver, and silently complain about how others treat people. The punch line, of course, is that I then stand up here and preach about the servant who was forgiven ten thousand talents and still throttled a man over a hundred denarii. I am not blind to my own hypocrisy. My wife won’t say, but she already knows the real parable is this deacon who keeps a running a checklist in his head and then wonders why the Merciful One keeps sending him back to Confession repeating: “Have mercy on me, father; I judged again.” Mercy, it turns out, has a sense of humor. It keeps putting the gavel in my hand just long enough for ...

  Homily Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time August 9, 2026   A little boy was sitting in church with his father one Sunday. During a particularly quiet moment in the Mass, he leaned over and whispered loudly, “Dad… is God here?” He whispered back, “Yes, son. God is right here with us.” The boy looked around carefully, then whispered again, even louder, “Well… if He’s here, how come He’s being so quiet? Doesn’t He know we’re waiting?” His dad smiled and whispered, “Son, sometimes God speaks in a very, very soft voice… and He’s waiting for us to get quiet enough to hear Him.” The boy thought about that for a second, then nodded and asked, “But next time, can you tell Him to use His outdoor voice? I don’t think we can hear Him.”   That little boy isn’t the only one who has trouble hearing God sometimes. Looking around this morning, I have to confess the real problem child is standing right here. My own voice is so loud and the commotion in my head so nonstop that ...

Homily Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 12, 2026   In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us the Parable of the Seed, the Sower and the Soil. In this story, the Seed represents the very word of God, His love, His life, His truth, and every good gift He has so generously sown into our world and into our hearts. The Sower is Jesus Himself, our Lord and Savior, who scatters this divine seed with lavish generosity, inviting it to take root and bear fruit in the soil of our lives. But the story is not really about the Seed or the Sower; the Seed is the same, consistent, every time and always. And the Sower is always there to guide us, direct us.   The story is really about the soil.   And we are the soil. Each of us is soil, the soil in our heart, not to be confused with dirt. Not ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” No, our hearts are in what everything grows.   Everything that we do or don’t do, say or don’t say, is a product of the seed pla...

  Homily 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time June 14, 2026 No one likes to be told what to do. We husbands smile through our “honey-do” lists, but the truth is, it stings. Most of us have bosses, and we must answer to them. I have several bosses, depending on what I’m doing at that moment. I have two in here right now! Even bosses answer to bosses, and even the self-employed answer to markets and customers. My two-year-old grandson embodies our shared rebellion. When my wife tells him to pick up his toys, he squares his shoulders and announces, “You don’t tell me what to do!” My wife says that was actually me saying that, not him; I don’t remember it that way. We laugh because we see ourselves, grown-up versions still clinging to the illusion of defiant independence.   Yet today’s readings confront that illusion with tender but unrelenting truth. In the first reading, God speaks to a people freshly delivered from slavery, “You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Eg...

  Homily The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord Sunday, May 17, 2026   Happy Easter! Today we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord, forty plus three days after the Resurrection. More days than Lent. More days for a reason. We can’t have the suffering, death and resurrection without the Ascension. Today, we stand with the Resurrected and Ascended Christ. The suffering is over; the celebration begun. Soon, we will return to Ordinary Time, a time where we reflect on the life and ministry of Jesus. But that is then and this is now.   Today, we stand with the disciples on the Mount of Olives and watch as Jesus is lifted up into heaven. The cloud receives Him, and He disappears from their sight. At first glance, it feels like an ending, a farewell that leaves us feeling lost, behind, without. But the Church has always understood the Ascension not as absence, but as presence in a new and more powerful way. Jesus has not left us. He has gone where He belongs, to th...

  Homily Third Sunday of Easter April 19, 2026   Happy Easter! “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” We proclaim it again today, on this radiant Third Sunday of Easter. The joy of the Lord’s victory is still fresh. The tomb is empty. Death has been conquered. The light of the Resurrection continues to flood our hearts and our world. And yet… how easy it is, even now, almost halfway into the Easter Season, to miss the victory right in front of us.   Look at the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in today’s Gospel (Luke 24:13-35). I believe there is a good reason we are hearing this narrative again when we just heard it on the Wednesday in the Octave of Easter. They are trudging away from Jerusalem, heads down, hearts heavy. They confess to the stranger walking beside them, “We were hoping that he would redeem Israel,” They keep replaying the past: the betrayal, the trial, the cross, the burial. The women’s report of the empty tomb and the angels sounds too good to them...