Teaching & Preaching: Deacon Matt's homilies & podcasts

Someone else’s sin is not a good reason to leave the Church — but it is a powerful reason. And so those who have left the Church over the pain that a fellow member of the Body of Christ has caused them ought to be treated with love and reverence.

Why do Christians hurt one another? Why do we who profess belief in a God who is love, whose central teaching is to love one another, and who preach the necessity of forgiveness and mercy, cause each other so much pain? 

I have no answer to that question, other than we are all sinners, and even those of us who are sincerely trying to cooperate with God’s grace in our lives still manage to hurt each other from time to time. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. And Jesus knows this. He knows that this is an issue that will arise in the Church. He talks about it in the gospels. 

Grace is a free gift, but a gift demands a response. We lose sight of this sometimes in our conversations about grace, because we want to emphasize the sheer gratuity of God’s gift, meaning it is not something that can be earned — which is true. But a gift, especially a valuable gift, also demands a response.

The readings today are all about graciously receiving gifts from God, and learning to trust God to supply our needs.

Homily for the 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A).

Homily for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A).

"This is what was hidden from the wise and the learned, but revealed to the little ones. This is why the crowds that waved palms and shouted “Hosannah!” to welcome their king on Palm Sunday abandoned him when he was arrested and crucified. They forgot the reason why Israel’s kings rode on donkeys. They were never meant to be like other kings, because the kingdom of God is not like other kingdoms."

Is the Mass a communal meal, or a sacrifice? The Church's answer is that it is both.

What do sacrificial offerings have to do with meals, and what does this teach us about the Eucharist?

Homily preached on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi (The Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ), June 7, 2026.

A catechetical homily on the importance and meaning of the sacrament of Confirmation, preached for the 6th Sunday of Easter (Year A).

"Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:14-17).

God’s perspective is so much greater than our own — infinitely greater than our own. He sees things we can’t see. He knows things we cannot know. Of course we know this intellectually. God is eternal. He is omnipotent. Of course his perspective is greater than our own. But we often fail to appreciate how this affects our own faith and the trust that we should have in God, especially when things don’t seem to make sense to us.

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (Year A), preached March 1, 2026.

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family, preached at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church on December 28, 2025.

"Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another, 
if one has a grievance against another; 
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love, 
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, 
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
And be thankful" (Col 3:12-15).

"On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom" (Is 11:1).

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent (Year A), preached at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church on 12/7/25.

Homily for All Souls Day preached on Nov. 2, 2025, at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church.

"A final purification from sin is necessary for most of us after death because heaven is not for unrighteous souls who have been let in because Jesus paid the price of their admission: it is the abode of the saints who have been transformed and made pure by the love of Christ. Jesus not only redeems us; he perfects us. The perfection of our nature, of our very selves, is part of our hope as Christians, along with resurrection. As we enter into the final months of the Jubilee Year, the theme of which is “Pilgrims of Hope,” it is good for us to be mindful of what our hope is and what our pilgrimage is moving toward."

Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C), preached on Sept. 7, 2025, the day of the canonization of Saints Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis.

"When I think about the examples of St. Pier Giorgio and St. Carlo, I see two ordinary young men who had the same gifts and talents as many of the people in this Church right now. They didn’t suffer martyrdom like many in the early Church. They didn’t establish new religious orders like St. Francis or St. Dominic. They didn’t do things that the secular world would recognize them for like cure cancer or overthrow tyrants. They just lived ordinary lives, and short lives at that. Viewed from the lens of the world, we would say that they didn’t do much. But what they did do, they did for God. They put God first and they loved their families and their friends well. And they made it to heaven. "