Miguel Castilleja Escobar

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on May 24, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo).  In 2022, I visited the Big Bend region of Texas. While there, I visited the Blackwell School, a small former school that now functions as a museum. This school, now turned into a museum, tells the story of the segregation of Mexican students in the American Southwest during the Jim Crow era. The museum seeks to tell the Latino experience of that period of segregation. The museum describes how the school treated Latino students in oppressive ways, showing contempt for their culture and for the Spanish language. In fact, the school became known for developing a ritual in which, at the beginning of the school year, the children had to participate in a symbolic burial. The administrators had a doll called “Mr. Spanish.” At the beginning of the year, all the children were gathered together to p...

Image attribution below This sermon was preached at San Andrés on May 17, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo).  When I was in formation to become a priest, I had to take several classes on liturgy and on this book, the Book of Common Prayer. One day, Professor Sean Wallace, who is a priest in this diocese, pointed out that some of the most moving words in this book appear on page 410, in the section for the burial rite. They do not appear in the liturgy itself, but in the technical notes written for the priest. Normally these words are not read out loud, but they are so profound that he often quotes them during funerals and sometimes even uses them as a sermon. The note is brief and says: “The liturgy for the dead is a paschal liturgy. Its meaning is found in the resurrection. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we too shall be raised. Therefore, the liturgy is characteri...

This sermon was preached at San Andrés Episcopal on April 26, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo).  What is God like? What can we compare God to? In every age and in every place, images of God arise that become popular and take on their own power over people’s imagination and faith. I remember when I lived in Spain and would enter very old churches, many of them from the Middle Ages. Frequently, in those churches, one would see large images of Jesus as judge. In those representations, Jesus had large eyes—all the better to observe us—and a serious, stern face. And in contemplating them, one understands that the idea of Jesus as judge, along with the promise of heaven and the fear of hell, occupied a central place in the Church’s symbolism and in the spiritual life of the people at that time.  What is God like? What can we compare God to? Is God a Father? A king? A judge ...

The Tribute Money , by Rubens (1610–1615) In a blog post for Church Anew , I reflect on Tax Day through the lens of Jesus’ well-known line: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” This somewhat enigmatic reply comes in response to a question about whether his disciples should pay taxes. In the post, I explore the context of this exchange, the history of the tax in question, and the intriguing implications of what Jesus did not say in that moment. I conclude by offering my own interpretation and reflecting on what it might mean in the context in which I find myself today. Click here to read the full post. “The question posed to Jesus—should people pay taxes to Caesar?—and his enigmatic reply raise profound questions that Christians still wrestle with today. How should Christians relate to civil society? What does it mean to balance religious identity with loyalty to a nation? And when, if ever, should believers practice tax resistance...

Dante speaks to Pope Nicholas III, committed to the Inferno for simony.  I recently wrote a blog post for Church Anew about Simony, the buying and selling of sacred things. It's a reflection about one of the most ancient limits the church has placed on commerce, a prohibition that is occasionally forgotten in our marketbased society.  "In 2023, the Washington National Cathedral caused a social media uproar when it announced that it was selling tickets for its Christmas Eve Eucharist. Though the decision was quickly retracted, the initial sale ended up stoking a passionate—and for me, highly interesting—debate about the moral and theological question of whether a church should ever charge people for the Eucharist, or for any sacrament, really." Click here to read the full post. 

This sermon was preached on Easter morning at San Andrés on April 6, 2026. It was originally written in Spanish, and the Spanish version can be found below the following English translation.  Este sermón fue predicado para el servicio de Pascua en San Andrés Episcopal, 6 de abril de 2026. Fue escrito originalmente en español y luego traducido. La versión español esta abajo el inglés.  Resucitó, resucitó, resucitó Aleluya, aleluya, aleluya Jesús resucitó. He is risen, he is risen, he is risen. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Jesus is risen. This is how one of my favorite hymns begins, proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is not an ancient hymn—in fact, it was written in Spain in the 1980s—and its words are very simple. It has only four verses. But to me, the refrain sounds like what the first disciples might have shouted when they discovered the empty tomb and saw the risen Jesus for the first time. Surely they proclaimed something like this: Resucitó, resucitó, resuc...

El Greco's Jesus Cleansing of the Temple I recently wrote a short essay for Church Anew about the theme of corruption in Holy Week. I've included a quote just below and the full post is available here . "In light of this, is there anything our faith tradition has to say about what some are describing as this new Golden Age of Corruption? As a matter of fact, corruption comes up often in the New Testament, from mentions of bribes and extortion to critiques of officials who use their positions to exploit the poor. But perhaps nowhere does this theme appear more insistently than in the stories surrounding the last week of Jesus’ life."