Fr. Brendan McGuire - Podcasts that Break open the Word of God
Episodes
294 episodes
Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Turn the Lens of Life to Clarity
One of the great gifts that we have as priests is that we are invited to journey with people in some of the most tender and vulnerable moments of their life. In particular, when people get sick, and when they get terminally si...
Homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Do Not Be Afraid: A Father's Faith in Hard Times
Many of you know how much my own father was a hero in my life. He always seemed to have the right thing to say at the right moment. He just seemed to have that wisdom to always guide in the midst of darkness.
Homily for the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time - Do Your Portion of the Wall
Our conversation led to talking not so much about artificial intelligence, as what this means for humanity. What does it mean for humans to flourish? What does that conversation look like? It really was a mirroring of the document that Pope Leo...
Homily for The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ - Gnaw on My Flesh: The Presence We Cannot Outsource
What does it mean for us as human beings to flourish? What does it mean to have dignity as a human person? And what is the common good for all people? He goes through a whole hundred and thirty-five years of the Church’s...
Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity - Right Relationship: With God, Each Other, and AI
This past week, as I said at the beginning of Mass, has been quite a week for me. It was extraordinary. I had the opportunity to sit in the Synod Hall as the Holy Father gave his new encyclical, Magnificat Humanitas
Homliy for Pentecost Sunday - Holy Spirit Goose 2026
In our Catholic church, we typically think of the Holy Spirit in rather tame terms. We think of the Holy Spirit as a nice peaceful dove coming, fluttering into our lives, or tongues of fire settling down on our head. But in Celtic spiritu...
Homily for Ascension Sunday - The Fierce Urgency of Now: A Message for 2026
Almost 60 years ago, on April 4th, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King walked into Riverside Church in New York City and gave a speech co-written by Dr. Vince Harding, his peer in ministry. For over a decade, he had been the voice ...
Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter - Why Are We So Afraid? The Spirit Is With You
We need to recognize that the Holy Spirit is a gift, and like all gifts, it has to be received. It has to be opened. It has to be unleashed. As Catholics, we have some work to do with the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are maybe a tad shy in accep...
Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter - The Way, The Truth and The Life
A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through my phone and stopped at three news clips back-to-back. Three different people, all speaking with total confidence, all claiming to tell the truth, and all saying things that flatly contradicted what the ...
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter - Do We Hear His Voice? Listening for the Good Shepherd
“Do you always listen?” “Oh, listening is a bit of a problem,” they admitted. We hear the voice, but we do not always listen. Why? Because we get distracted. There are lots of things we are doing, and we want to do what we want to d...
Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter - Walking With Those Who Walk Away
I know that many of you, over the years, have told me how sad you are that your children and grandchildren do not come to church. It is hard, because you wonder what you have done that has led them away, or not to stay. It is hard, becaus...
Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter - Cool the Ego, Gentle the Soul
This last week I read an article about a tribe called the San tribe in southern Africa. They are believed to be the oldest continuous culture of human beings in the history of humanity, some 40,000 to 50,000 years old as a tribe. What is fascin...
Homily for the Resurrection of the Lord - Slow Down and Let Easter Change You
I was talking with a colleague this week, and she said, “God, where has the year gone? It is Easter already, has Lent already passed?” I said, yeah, it has. I sympathize. Lent seemed to go faster than any forty days recently. We never seem to e...
Homily for Good Friday of the Lord's Passion - The Key You Already Hold
They had carried a grudge so long that they had forgotten. It had become like furniture in their house. It was just part of their lives. One leaned into the other and said, "You know, I am sorry. I was wrong." And the other calmly said...
Homily for Holy Thursday Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper - The Power of Simply Showing Up for Someone in Pain
One of the great gifts we have as priests is to visit people in their homes and in their areas of vulnerability, in their hospital beds, in their convalescent homes. And when we get there, yes, we bring oils, often bring communion, and we bring...
Homily for Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion - The Meaning That Carries Us Through Suffering
And in this worst place of human suffering, he came to a profound realization. Who was it among them that survived? It was not the strongest. It was not the smartest. It was the one who had meaning in their life. And the meaning had to be great...
Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent - Stop Keeping People in Their Tombs: Let them Go
I have a friend taking one of those GLP-1 drugs for the last year, and he just looks fantastic. He has shed pounds he has carried for 10, 20, 30 years. He is now walking, running, he has started to do weights. It has transformed his life comple...
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent - Why Your Brain Judges People Before You Think
Whether it is because we know what young people are like, or what old people are like, or because of the color of their skin, or their accent, or their community. LGBTQ, married, divorced, immigrant, you name the list. We put people into catego...
Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, First Scrutiny - Why Are We So Lonely? The answer is at the Well
We are the only human species that has survived hundreds of thousands of years.There were many human species, but only we remain. The reason, according to him, is not muscle strength, not our tools, and not even our brains, but b...
Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent - Collect the Right Memories
See, it is our choice. And when we choose to remember the hurts, the slights, we choose what will damage us and damage the relationships. It does not change that they said something silly or something hurtful. Why has that happened? Because the...
Homily for the First Sunday of Lent - Three Lies the World Tells Us About Our Identity
If you think about an ordinary social interaction, that you might have at a party or some sort of scene, where you are meeting people for the first time. What is typically the first question after you have greeted? What do you do? And I am alwa...
Homily for the Renewal of Marriage Vows - February 14, 2026
What amazed me about Cirque du Soleil was how they threw each other with such grace, they seemed to swoop in and pick them up each time, at the right place and the right time. It was just magnificent. Now, if you know anything about human dynam...
Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Swimming in Love and Not knowing It
There is a great story told of a little fish in the ocean swimming around trying to figure out where the ocean is. He comes up to this older, wiser fish and says, “Where is the ocean?” The old fish says to him, “You are swimming in it.” The lit...
Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time - You Already have What it Takes to Change the World
When I was growing up in Ireland, my father had an expression, just one simple phrase that summed up a person, and it was a compliment. He would see somebody that he thought well of, somebody that he thought was authentic. He would say, "Ah, th...
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Why Humility is the Secret to Real Happiness
The foundational component, what they called a pillar of humility. To be humble before God and know that they are a child of God. Happiness comes from that. We are no better than anybody else. No one else is any better than us. And bec...
