Teaching & Preaching: Deacon Matt's homilies & podcasts

In this short gospel passage, Jesus uses the word “command” or “commandment” five times and the word “love” nine times. For most of us, these two things don’t go together. We have very different reactions when we hear those words. 

When someone starts talking about “commands” we tense up. We don’t like being told what to do. We think of commands as hard, rigid things that constrict our freedom, so we resist them. 

When we hear the word “love” we have the opposite reaction. The idea of love makes us feel warm and fuzzy. It is a comforting thought. Love is not rigid, like a command. It’s soft, like a hug. We love hearing about love. 

So these two things, love and commands, are not usually associated in our minds, yet Jesus seems to think they have quite a bit to do with one another. . .

Homily preached by Deacon Matthew Newsome at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church in Sylva, NC, on Sunday, May 5, 2024.

We should honestly ask ourselves, what is the principal thing that is giving direction to my life? Whatever that is, that is your shepherd. That is your god. And if it is anything other than God our Creator, who has revealed himself to us in Christ Jesus the Good Shepherd, you have to wonder where is that false shepherd leading you? And is that really where you want to go?

Easter homily preached by Deacon Matthew Newsome at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, March 31, 2024.

Homily preached by Deacon Matthew Newsome at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church in Sylva, NC, on Feb. 25, 2024.

To truly understand the Mass, to understand everything that God does for us in Christ, it is so important for us to know the story of salvation history, because this is our story. It’s a story told for us and about us — about God’s eternal love for us. As St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” This is why the Church continues to offer us an Old Testament reading in addition to the gospel at Mass, to underscore the connection between the two. But just listening to the readings passively once a week is not sufficient. We need to study the text, to make the story our own, for it truly is the story of God’s undying love for us, a story written in history. It is the greatest, most beautiful, and the truest story ever told.

Life is a drudgery? Days without hope? “I shall not see happiness again?” What on earth, we might wonder, is this text doing in the Bible? The Bible, as we are told, is the word of God. The Church encourages us to look to it for inspiration. We open its pages when we feel hopeless, hoping to find hope! We turn to the scripture when we are unhappy for some sense of assurance and comfort. We don’t expect to find such lamentations as we do in the Book of Job.

Proclamation of the date of Easter and the moveable feasts and homily for Epiphany, 2024.

Today is the 4th Sunday of Advent. It is also Christmas Eve. Because this year Advent is as short as it can be, with Christmas falling on a Monday, we don’t really get a “fourth week of Advent.” We only get a 4th Sunday, and even then not the whole Sunday, with our Christmas celebrations beginning with the 4:30  Vigil Mass. Once every seven years we get Christmas and Advent in one Sunday like this. 

The altar is decorated with poinsettias, in anticipation of that celebration. The crib has been laid out, in anticipation of the Christ-child. This can all make it feel like Christmas is already here, but it isn’t. We are still in purple. The crib is empty. It is still Advent for a few hours more. 

Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent (Year B), preached by Deacon Matthew Newsome at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church in Sylva, NC.

Advent reminds us that we have something to look forward to. Isn’t it a wonderful thing to have something to look forward to? Having something to look forward to has a marvelous tempering effect on us, tempering both our joys and our sorrows. What do I mean by that?

We’re sometimes tempted to think of the sin of the Pharisees as being too rigorous when it comes to religious practice. But Jesus never condemned the Pharisees for their religious observances. Rather, he condemned them for hypocrisy. The definition of hypocrisy is to hold others to standards that you don’t observe yourself. It is one of the sins that makes us the most angry when we see it in others, and it can be one of the most difficult to recognize in ourselves.

Homily preached by Deacon Matthew Newsome at St. Mary Mother of God Roman Catholic Church in Sylva, NC, on November 5, 2023.

October is a month dedicated in a special way to the Rosary. Apart from the Holy Mass itself, the rosary is without a doubt the most iconic form of Catholic prayer. In films, if a director wants to show that a character is Catholic, all they have to do is place a rosary in their hands. In a round-about way, I can attribute my own conversion to the rosary.