Browsing Fr. Jasper's Homily
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
Blinded by the Light
Back in early January of this year, actor Gary Sinese – of Forrest Gump film fame (among other accomplishments) – lost his 33-year-old son Mac to a rare form of bone cancer.
It’s only been more recently that Gary’s words at his son’s funeral ... Read More »
Third Sunday in Lent
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
Turning the Tables
I was 15-years-old when I was caught with something I clearly shouldn’t have had. I will leave it to your imagination … for we all do stupid and sinful things when we are 15. Sometimes we do many stupid and sinful things …
My Mom ... Read More »
Second Sunday in Lent
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
Mountain Retreat
I recently spent a weekend in the mountains near Clarks Summit, Pa., with nearly 80 Catholic college students and their campus ministers, celebrating Mass for them, offering times of Adoration, and hearing Confessions. Lots of Confessions.
Having the opportunity to come away and separate oneself from ... Read More »
First Sunday of Lent
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
The Push of Love
I love St. Mark: he says so much by saying so little.
Unlike his evangelist counterparts, Mark gives us very little detail about Christ’s time in the desert: there are no vivid descriptions of Jesus being tempted to turn stones to bread or jump ... Read More »
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
The 4th Grade Leper
Cathy was the fourth grade leper of St. Charles Borromeo School. These many decades later, I can’t recall the reasons why we made her so. Perhaps she wasn’t willing to play the game of “fitting-in;” it certainly didn’t help she had an obsession with cats.
Nonetheless, we ostracized her. Called her names to her face and behind her back. “Meowed” as she walked by. The girls ignored her completely and most of the boys mocked her unmercifully. Nine years old, she had no one to call her a friend. By the end of that school year, Cathy had a meltdown and never returned to St. Charles again. We chased away the leper. We ... Read More »
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
The Power of Love
“Don’t you get tired being around sick and sad people all the time?”
The question came from the back of the auditorium where middle school students at a local Wilmington Catholic school gathered to participate in a discussion on vocations this past Thursday.
Now ... Read More »
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
Along Comes Mary
Sometimes saints walk among us and leave our lives changed forever.
Miss Simmonis was just that person for so many.
Fresh out of Notre Dame, she arrived at the school where I was teaching during the final year when we had two classrooms of each ... Read More »
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
Everything
The fifth grade student thought she was alone in the school’s library as she was taking a math test she missed the week before. She wasn’t. I was there as well, sitting at a desk hidden behind a set of bookshelves where I was catching-up on long ... Read More »
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
Where Are You Tabernacled?
I never knew his name. I only called him “Father.” We all did, of course – the 14 of us from college on a mission trip to Appalachia during our senior year.
We came to an old river town along the Kanawha River outside ... Read More »
Holy Family
Posted by Peg O'Donnell
Bless You
And Simeon blessed them.
Never has a simple line of Scripture jumped out at me as this one did as I prayed with the Gospel in preparation for a Sunday homily.
An old holy man who spent his days in prayer awaiting the Messiah blessed a ... Read More »