Miguel Castilleja Escobar

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on July 26, 2026 and is available in English and Spanish (see below). Listen to the sermon in English here and in Spanish here . / Este sermón fue predicado en San Andrés el 26 de julio de 2026 y está disponible en inglés y en español (véase más abajo). Puede escuchar el sermón en inglés aquí y en español aquí . In May, at San Andrés, we had a workshop about Jesus’ parables. We learned that Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to ordinary, familiar things in order to surprise and challenge his listeners. In today’s reading, Jesus tells six parables in a row, all using unexpected images of the Kingdom of God. Today I want to focus on that element of surprise and on what each parable has to say to us. — In the first two parables, Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to small things: a mustard seed and a little yeast. In both stories, something very small grows into something much bigger. The mustard seed becomes “the largest of garden plants” and grows ...

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on July 12, 2026 and is available in English and Spanish (see below). Listen to the sermon in English here and in Spanish here . / Este sermón fue predicado en San Andrés el 12 de julio de 2026 y está disponible en inglés y en español (véase más abajo). Puede escuchar el sermón en inglés aquí y en español aquí . Today's reading from the Gospel of Matthew tells the Parable of the Sower, in which Jesus has a great deal to say about soil, and this always reminds me of the place where I grew up. When I was six years old, my parents moved our family from the city of San Antonio to an old ranch house on a few acres in a more rural area. It was a beautiful place, but we soon discovered that much of the land was nothing but caliche: a hard layer of calcium carbonate that forms an almost solid surface where very little can grow. I remember that whenever it rained, parts of the ground turned into a kind of yellow clay, and huge puddles—almost ponds—wo...

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on June 21, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo).  Photo from the 'No More Deaths' Facebook Page In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches us to give water to those who are thirsty. It is such a simple teaching that you would think it should not cause any problems. But what would you say if I told you that a man almost went to prison for five years for giving water to thirsty people? I am talking about Scott Warren, a volunteer with the group No More Deaths, which leaves water in the Arizona desert for migrants crossing the border. The group places water in an area where many people become dehydrated and die because they do not have enough water. In 2018, Warren was arrested by federal authorities and accused of harboring undocumented immigrants. Thanks be to God, in 2019 he was acquitted because the jury recognized the humanitarian nat...

This sermon was preached at San Andrés on June 14, 2026. It was originally written and preached in Spanish, and the Spanish version is available below (la versión en español es disponible abajo).  Recently I read a joke. It went something like this: A evangelical preacher, shouting about Jesus for hours in the park, managed to save everyone. He managed to save them from enjoying their day off. He saved them from their moment of peace and quiet. He saved them from having a conversation with their friends and family. And, in the end, he saved them from having a good impression of Christianity, leaving them to think that Christianity is something annoying and aggravating. I think about this joke every time I find myself trapped on a train with an angry preacher, forcing me to listen to insults and threats of hell directed at people who are not Christians or who are not exactly the kind of Christian they approve of. I am sure they have good intentions, but in my experience these preach...

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 place ...

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...