In Season and Out, Homilies for Year A

The Catholic Church lives on two lungs-Word and Sacrament. They reach their clearest expression and celebration for the Church's life in the Eucharist-the 'source and summit of the Church's life' as Vatican 2 puts it. Father William J Grimm is a Maryknoll Missioner of 40 years experience in Asia-mostly Japan, but Hong Kong and Cambodia as well. In that time he has come to deepen his understanding of the distinctiveness of the message and person of Jesus Christ even in circumstances and among people that Jesus could never have known or imagined. It is not enough to understand what the readings mean as those who composed them intended us to grasp. The critical thing is to find what that meaning might be in the context of our times and contexts. Speaking the Word in our time and for our places is the challenge of preaching and it is to that challenge that Fr Grimm devotes his learning, experience and imagination. Every week for the Church's three year liturgical cycle, Fr Grimm gives visitors to www.ucanews.com-UCAN-the benefit of his learning, prayer, wisdom and experience. Each week, his homilies for Sundays and special feasts are seen by some 3,000 visitors to the main UCAN site and with subtitles on UCAN's Vietnamese and Chinese sites. Now the text of those homilies is published not only to assist preachers in the preparation of their homilies but for anyone wanting to deepen their under- standing of the text and find material for fruitful prayer on the Sunday readings.