Sunday’s gospel is a king who throws a feast and watches the invited guests go back to work, so he sends his servants to the streets to bring in anyone they can find.

Next week Saint Helen hosts a two-night Parish Mission with Array of Hope, and the Tuesday after that, Discovering Christ starts, seven weeks of dinner, a talk, and conversation that over 1,600 people here have already been through. We get into what a parish mission is for, the cardboard boards people write their reasons on, and who each of us is inviting this year.

Parish Mission: October 19 and 20, 7:00pm. Discovering Christ: Tuesdays starting October 27. sainthelen.org/discover.

The parable is the tenants who won’t hand over the harvest, and the hard line is the last thing Jesus says: the kingdom will be taken away from you and given to people who produce. We talk about who Lisa is, what he says to people who want the church to stay out of it, whether a faith-filled life really always produces fruit, whether a parish can lose the kingdom with the lights still on, and what the hard work is for Saint Helen this year.

Final week of Hard Liners. Homily plus conversation, all in one episode.

The gospel is the workers in the vineyard, and his first note on it is: it just doesn’t seem fair. He walks through five ways scholars have tried to make it fair, throws them all out, and reads it as Jesus telling the disciples something they didn’t want to hear. You’re last. Your job is getting everyone else in. We get into which of those five he’d have preached with more time, whether he’s ever wanted to be done, and what word actually went in the blank in his notes.

Week one of a new message series he’s calling Hard Liners. Conversation only this week, back to normal next week.

So which is it? Is following Jesus hard or is it easy? Msgr. Tom's answer is one word, and it's not the one you'd expect. Yes. Both. He gives three reasons the burden turns light, and ties the whole thing to a July 4th weekend and a nation that's still doing hard, unfinished, worthwhile work 250 years in.

In the conversation, we get into a season when the work stopped feeling heavy for Msgr. Tom and what changed, why we resist the "both and" and want faith to be all struggle or all comfort, the rare glimpses where you actually see your work change someone's life, and which of his three reasons to reach for first when everything feels heavy.

Homily plus conversation, all in one episode.

He walks through a woman in the Book of Kings who builds a prophet a room on her roof, a cup of cold water that was far more work than it sounds, and the reward the gospel keeps promising even while telling us not to chase it.

In the conversation, we get into whether Msgr. Tom still catches himself asking what's in it for me, why Jesus reaches for the smallest possible example instead of a grand one, how "don't do it for the reward" squares with a gospel full of rewards, and where the line is between being other-centered and being a doormat.

Homily plus conversation, all in one episode.

He throws out some real numbers on how common fear and anxiety actually are, admits he's a worrier himself, and then makes a turn that surprised me. Even Jeremiah, even Paul, even Jesus in the garden, they were probably afraid too. So the question isn't whether you feel fear. It's what you do with it.

In the conversation, we get into what Msgr. Tom finds himself worrying about these days, why "do not be afraid" is a command and not just comfort, whether he was nervous saying out loud that Jesus was afraid, and the one fear that's stopping you from being who you're meant to be.

Homily plus conversation, all in one episode.

Msgr. Tom names a few of his own hard moments, and then he makes a turn I didn't expect. He points out that God didn't only come to His people's rescue, He was always their rescue, the whole time, even when they couldn't feel it. And he lands on an idea I can't shake, that Jesus's whole plan for saving the world is the helpless helping the helpless. Ordinary people. Us.

In the conversation, Msgr. Tom and I get into a couple of hard seasons he's never talked about on the show, why that word "always" matters so much to him, and how you're supposed to be the rescue for somebody else when you can barely keep your own head above water.

Homily plus conversation, all in one episode.

He walks through the manna in the desert, the bread that came down from heaven, and the moment Jesus told a room full of first-century Jews to eat his flesh and drink his blood. A lot of them were horrified. A lot of them walked away. And Jesus didn't soften it. He doubled down.

In the conversation, Msgr. Tom and I get into a moment in his own life where he looks back and sees God providing, what he'd say to someone who receives Communion every Sunday but isn't sure they believe it's really Him, and what those last four words of the homily actually ask of us. God provides, and so must we.

Homily plus conversation, all in one episode.

Trinity Sunday, and Msgr. Tom introduces perichoresis, an ancient Eastern idea of the Trinity as a divine dance, three persons circling in love, and the circle is open. He walks through how God keeps coming to us throughout scripture, what Paul says our "dance moves" should look like, and then admits he can't dance. And maybe that's why he's a priest.

In the conversation, we get into where he first came across the idea of the Trinity as a dance, what he meant by that joke about not being a good dancer (there's something real underneath it), and which of Paul's dance moves he'd tell someone to start with this week.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

On Pentecost Sunday, Msgr. Tom flips the script. We're not just ready. We've already gone. Every step in holiness, every work for justice, every prayer whispered, that's the Spirit at work. And the Church's birthday isn't just about what happened that first Pentecost. It's about the life it's lived since.

Also, Msgr. Tom compares the Holy Spirit to the Force. Long before Star Wars, the Church was saying "may the Force be with you." Yes, he said that from the pulpit on Pentecost.

In the conversation, we get into when the "we've already gone" flip happened in his prep, what the Spirit actually looks like on a regular Wednesday, and where The Post-Game goes from here now that the Easter arc is complete.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

Ascension Sunday, and Msgr. Tom makes the case that the disciples needed Jesus to leave so the mission could continue. He had to return to the Father to complete what started at his birth, and he had to send the Holy Spirit so the rest of us could pick up where he left off. But first, the apostles did something very human: they just stood there, staring at the sky, until two strangers basically said, what are you waiting for?

In the conversation, we get into why it's better that Jesus left (his words, not ours), whether most Catholics actually know the Great Commission is the most cited New Testament passage in the Catechism, and what to do when you're stuck in the in-between, waiting for something you can't quite name.

One week until Pentecost. Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

This week wraps the Easter message series, and Msgr. Tom introduces the one who's been behind everything: the Advocate. The Holy Spirit. He starts with a contradiction: Philip and Stephen were appointed to serve at tables, so why are they out preaching and performing signs? Then he unpacks the Greek word parakletos, called to the side of, defense attorney, helper, comforter, and lands on an image that sticks. The Holy Spirit isn't wrapping you in a warm cocoon. It's a mama bird nudging you out of the nest.

In the conversation, Msgr. Tom shares what it was like showing up to his first parish expecting a syllabus and being told "do whatever you want," which role of the Holy Spirit he thinks people need most right now, and something that reframed how I think about prayer: when we sing Come Holy Spirit, we're not asking the Spirit to show up. The Spirit's already here. We're reminding ourselves.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

Who goes? You do. You're reputable, you're filled with the Spirit, you're a living stone. What does the goer do? The works Jesus did, and greater ones. He said it to a church full of lifelong parishioners and seven kids receiving their first communion on the same morning.

In the conversation, we get into why the word "reputable" mattered so much to him, what Jesus actually meant by "you'll do greater works than these" (and why Msgr. Tom immediately said don't get a big head), and what it's like to preach to a room that spans seven-year-olds to seventy-year-olds.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

This Fourth Sunday of Easter, and the message shifts. The gate swings both ways and Msgr. Tom tells the congregation something he doesn't usually say out loud: after 33 years, he's still nervous every single time he steps up to preach.

In the conversation, we get into why he chose to share that, a listener question about what first made him think about becoming a priest, what "going out into the mission field" actually looks like on a regular Wednesday, and this four-week arc was planned.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

This week's homily goes to the road to Emmaus, two disciples walking away from Jerusalem, hearts broken, until a stranger starts connecting dots they'd heard their whole lives but never understood. Then he breaks bread, and they see it. And he's gone.

In the conversation, we get into what it takes to read scripture like it's the first time (even when you grew up hearing it every week), whether The Chosen counts as a supplement or a shortcut, and what Msgr. Tom himself would want Jesus to explain to him if they were walking that road together today.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

The disciples weren't. A week after the resurrection, they're still locked in the same room. Thomas isn't even there the first time Jesus shows up. And yet this is the group Jesus sends out to change the world.

In the conversation, Msgr. Tom and I get into why Catholics sometimes get uneasy with the word evangelization, what Thomas has meant to him personally since he was a kid (it's not what you'd guess), and a couple of great questions sent in from listeners about whether you can ever bother God with too many prayers, and what to do when you're scared to let go of a sin you've gotten attached to.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.

This week: a fourth grade field day, a kid named Billy Madison, and what it means that Mary Magdalene went running from the tomb. Msgr. Tom unpacks the urgency of the resurrection, what "Jesus Christ IS risen" in the present tense actually means, and whether he's sprinting or running a marathon right now.

Homily + conversation, all in one episode.