In Acts 2, Peter stands up and delivers an amazing homily. I’m not overstating it. Three thousand people were baptized when he was done.

Peter spoke about his faith with the power of the Holy Spirit. And we are called to do the same.

Before you decide to set aside my words, allow me to set aside your excuses. (Lovingly, of course.) ;)

Have you ever prayed with every fiber of your being, just to feel as though all you got in return were the sound of crickets? I’ve been there.

Or have you ever thundered the heavens with frustration because the phrase, “God will never give you more than you can handle” just didn’t seem to apply to you? I’ve been there, too.

This Sunday’s First Reading comes to us from Acts 2:24-47 and we get a great glimpse of the Early Church.

“They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers…

”Sound familiar? As in “every Sunday familiar?” (And I know, some of you who attend daily Mass are reading this and saying, “No David! Every day familiar!”)

Jesus died. A whole bunch of people saw it. The witnesses were all sorts of folks. Good guys. Bad guys. Civilians. Soldiers.

Then Jesus rose. A whole bunch of people saw it. A group of women on the road. A group of men on the road. And a group of men Locked In A Room.

But this is how it works with the Lord. When he gets knocked down, he never stays down. (Remember the stations of the cross?)

I was walking across the inner courtyard of my high school when I heard an eruption of sound from the other end. A crowd was quickly forming, and the energy was unmistakable. It was a fight. Naturally, I headed that way.

By the time I got there, the crowd had multiplied, but I swam the butterfly for the varsity swim team and I was more than able to muscle my way to the front.

As we approach Easter, Jesus keeps raising the stakes through miracles of increasing wonder. This time, he raises Lazarus from the dead. And now, our savior is truly on a collision course with the cross. Yet, I’d like to draw our attention to a specific moment in the Gospel reading.

In the eleventh chapter of John, Jesus was told Lazarus was ill and then chose to remain where he was for two days. He did not rush. And when he finally did arrive, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.

Easter is around the corner, and with it comes the greatest miracle in human history. So, it’s a good time to get used to the idea of miracles.

In the ninth chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus meets up with a man who has been blind since birth. Everyone is concerned with WHY he was blind. “Was the man sinful?” “Were his parents the ones who sinned?”

But Jesus isn’t focused on the WHY.

He is concerned with the WHO. (In this particular case? The man born blind.)

What do you thirst for? And I’m not talking about Coke, coffee, or whiskey.

A big, blue, animated genie with the voice of Robin Williams appears before you and gives you one wish. No one else is around to judge your answer. What do you go with? Then, ask yourself why?

This weekend, the Second Reading instructs us to “bear our hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”

This is hard medicine because it acknowledges that the Lord will not always remove our hardships. It goes on…

“He called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design…”

Just when you thought it was safe to eat a hamburger Friday night, Lent returns this weekend!

But it is so much more than depriving yourself of that rack o’ ribs to start the weekend… (Can you tell I’m hungry?)

Matthew 4 begins with the story of the Holy Spirit leading Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil. (Pay close attention.)

First, he tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread to satisfy his hunger. After all, Jesus hadn’t had a meal in forty days. (Interesting number, but we are focusing on something else this time. Still a good reminder there is a reason for EVERYTHING in our Faith!)

This weekend’s First Reading (Lv 19:1-2, 17-18) instructs us to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is not as easy as it might appear.

I live in a townhouse (which means I have a neighbor to each side with nothing more than common walls separating our living spaces). I also have an adorable five year-old who defies physics by walking down our stairs with such force you’d swear she was an NFL offensive tackle. And even though I tell her repeatedly to walk down the stairs like a normal human being, she gets excited about life and has such joy that her little body can’t contain it. It is impossible to blame her and—in truth—I’m glad she’s a little bundle of joy rather than a quiet, depressed child.

Superbowl Sunday is one of the few nationwide shared experiences we have left. Oh, sure, there are exceptions. But the vast majority of the country spends one Sunday a year in a home or an establishment where the game is playing on at least one television.

If you aren’t—you realize you are an outlier,

When I was a child, if the president was on television, everyone watched. We didn’t really have a choice. He was on ABC, CBS, and NBC. The only other option was PBS, and that was worse. If a space shuttle launched, school stopped and we all watched. (I still remember where I was when the Challenger exploded.) It even seemed like half the country tuned in to NBC on Thursday nights with hits including, Cheers, the Cosby Show, Friends, Seinfeld, and ER.

In this column, I have an advantage over homilists—I can zero in on a single line from the four readings (if you include the Psalm), whereas celebrants need to do their best to integrate as many of the readings as possible.

This is one of those weeks where I can’t help myself because when I opened the readings, a line from Isaiah jumped of the page.

“Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!”