Category Archives: Daily Reflection

After Hearing the Word

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Every Mass is quite remarkable: God speaks to us. We listen to readings from Scripture. At the end, the lector says, “The word of the Lord,” and we respond, “Thanks be to God.” Then the priest will begin a homily.  I am often tempted to then simply ask: “Now what? We’ve heard God’s word…. And now what?” 

The Gospel is clear: the family of Jesus “are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” (Lk 8:21). Given the context, some think it sounds as Jesus is distancing himself from Mary and his family. But especially in Luke’s Gospel, that can’t be the point. Mary is the exemplar of one who hears God’s word and acts on it. At the Annunciation she completely disrupts whatever plans she had imagined for her life and responds: “May it be done to me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38). Mary lets the Word change her life.

Today’s Gospel comes at the end of a whole series of teachings about hearing. Jesus has just told the Parable of the Sower. The seed is the Word of God. Some seed falls on the path, some among rocks, some among thorns. But the seed that falls on good soil represents those who hear the Word, hold onto it and bear fruit. Then Jesus tells his disciples: “Take care, then, how you hear.” (Lk 8:18) And finally today Jesus is clear that the family of Jesus, that is, disciples “are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” Jesus seems to be saying that hearing is incomplete until something happens afterward.

And Proverbs makes essentially the same point in our first reading: “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.” (Prv 21:3) Notice the word: “do”. Not merely know what is right or admire it, or talk about it, but “do.”

Think about all the Scriptures we have heard: the Beatitudes, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and more. We know Jesus tells us to forgive, care for the poor, love our enemies, not to judge and to take up our cross and follow him.  We’ve heard the Word. We understand what Jesus said….and now what? What happened after I heard Him say it? When was the last time something I heard in Scripture actually changed something I did?

When Jesus spoke about forgiveness, did we finally make the telephone call we’d been avoiding? When Jesus spoke about the poor, did I become more generous? When Jesus spoke about loving our enemies did we begin praying for someone we dislike? When Jesus spoke about so many things, did we stop judging, stop gossiping, say “please forgive me?” That’s the difference between simply hearing Scripture and allowing the Word of God to become fruitful within us.

There is an interesting line in in the first reading from Proverbs: “Those who shut their ears to the cry of the poor will themselves call out and not be answered.” (Prv 21:13) Again, notice the ears. Perhaps hearing God’s Word also teaches us who else we need to hear: the lonely, those needing help or compassion. Maybe even the person who is trying to tell us something about ourselves that we would rather not hear.

We can hear the Word of God proclaimed beautifully in church and still walk outside and close our ears to the people the Word asks us to love. Jesus doesn’t simply say: “Blessed are those who hear.” He says: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”

In a few moments, we will come to this altar and receive Christ in the Eucharist. And then, at the end of Mass, we will be sent out. We will have heard the Word of God. We will have received the Body of Christ. Then we will walk through those doors and return to our families, our work, our neighborhoods, our ordinary lives. And perhaps that is when today’s Gospel really begins. Because the question isn’t simply: “Did I hear the Word of God today?” The question is: “What will I do differently because I heard it?”

Image credit: Sermon on the Mount | Carl Block, 1887 | Museum of Natural History at Frederlksborg Castle – Hillerod, Denmark | PD-US

What if?

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Note: this homily is for the parish elementary school Mass using Is 46:6 and Matthew 6:25-33

There are two words that have more power than you imagine. These two words can make you nervous, keep you awake at night, and turn a perfectly good day into a day filled with worry. The two words are: “What if?”

What if my friend is mad at me? What if nobody wants to sit with me? What if I don’t get invited? What if I make a mistake and everybody laughs? What if I get in trouble? What if someone in my family gets sick? What if something bad happens? What if…?

Have you ever noticed how quickly one “what if?” can turn into another? “What if this happens? And then what if THAT happens? And then what if THIS happens?” Pretty soon, we are worrying about something that hasn’t even happened. And that is what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel when He says: “Do not worry about your life.”

Now, Jesus does not mean that you should never care about anything. He doesn’t mean, “Don’t worry about doing your homework” or “Don’t worry about studying for the test.” Jesus isn’t telling us not to be responsible; Jesus is talking about something different. He is talking about all those things we cannot control: all those “what ifs” that can fill our minds and make us afraid. 

Jesus says: Look around you. Look at the birds. They are busy little creatures, building nests, looking for food and taking care of their young. Jesus reminds us the God the Father in heaven knows what they need.

Then Jesus says: Look at the flowers. They don’t spend their day worrying: “What if I’m not the prettiest flower?” or “What if that flower over there is taller than I am?” or “What if nobody notices me?” They simply grow where God has planted them.

And then Jesus asks us a very important question: “Are not you more important than they?” In other words: “If God knows about the birds and the flowers, don’t you think God knows about you?”

Remember the words of the first reading from the prophet Isaiah: “I will carry you.” I love those words. God doesn’t say: “I’ll carry you as long as everything goes perfectly” or “I’ll carry you until you make a mistake” or “…until you have a really bad day.” God simply says: “I will carry you.” Now and “even when you are old and grey”

This is God’s promise: “I have been with you from the beginning. I am with you today. And when you are old and your hair is gray, I will still be with you.”

And that is God’s answer to our “what ifs.” What if tomorrow is difficult? God will be there.

What if I make a mistake? God will be there.

What if my friend lets me down? God will be there.

What if something happens that makes me sad or afraid? God will be there.

Jesus never promises that nothing difficult will happen. He promises that whatever happens, you will not face it alone.”

So the next time those two little words, “what if”,  show up, remember today’s Gospel. Do what you can do today. Be kind, responsible, helpful and loving; and let God take care of tomorrow. 

So when ‘What if?’ comes into your mind, answer it with three other words: ‘God is here.’”

Amen.

Image credit: Created with Dalle-3 based on the text of the homily. Downloaded 9-15-2026

Our Lady of Sorrows

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The readings today are from the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows which commemorates the Virgin Mary’s suffering during the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Its origins trace back to the 11th–12th centuries, with the Servite Order (founded in 1233) playing a key role in spreading devotion to her sorrows. Celebration of the feast became widespread in the 15th-century, especially in Northern Europe. It spread to Southern Europe and in 1727, Pope Benedict XIII extended it to the entire Latin Church. Today it is celebrated the day after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The devotion centers on Mary’s seven sorrows:

  1. The Prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:34–35): when Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple, Simeon foretold that a sword would pierce her soul.
  2. The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15): Mary and Joseph fled to escape King Herod’s massacre of infants.
  3. The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41–50: Mary and Joseph searched for Jesus for three days before finding him teaching in the Temple.
  4. Meeting Jesus on the Way to Calvary: Mary encountered Jesus carrying the cross, witnessing his suffering.
  5. Standing at the Foot of the Cross (John 19:25–27): Mary endured the crucifixion of Jesus, witnessing his death.
  6. The Taking Down of Jesus from the Cross: Mary received the lifeless body of Jesus after his death.
  7. The Burial of Jesus (John 19:40–42): Mary laid Jesus in the tomb, symbolizing her final sorrow.

“Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” (Heb 5:8) Sometimes one’s faithful “yes” to God becomes part of the cross carried by someone who loves me. Jesus’ suffering is not incidental to Jesus’ obedience. To be clear, this does not mean Jesus began disobedient and gradually learned to behave. “Learned obedience” means that the eternal Son lived human obedience experientially, all the way through suffering and death. His obedience was tested and brought to completion in what he endured. Likewise, “made perfect”  doesn’t mean morally defective and then improved; the Greek teleiōtheis carries the sense of being brought to completion, accomplishing fully the vocation before him.

And Jesus’ obedience becomes Mary’s sorrow. At the Annunciation, Mary herself says: “May it be done to me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38) Obedience begins the story, but eventually Jesus’ obedience becomes something Mary herself must suffer.

Jesus’ fidelity to the Father has brought him to the Cross. Mary has not done anything wrong. She isn’t suffering because she resisted God’s will. She is suffering, in part, precisely because the Son she loves has obeyed the Father’s will. There is something profoundly human in that. Sometimes doing what God asks of us causes pain. Not only for us, but for people who love us.

A young person answers a vocation to priesthood or religious life, and parents genuinely support the vocation while simultaneously grieving the life they had imagined for their child and the grandchildren they hoped to hold. Someone in the military accepts a deployment because duty requires it; spouse and children bear part of the cost. Someone decides that integrity requires leaving a lucrative but morally compromised position; the entire family absorbs the financial consequences. Someone tells a difficult truth because conscience will no longer permit silence, and a friendship changes.

Obedience has a radius. Our decisions before God rarely affect only ourselves.

We celebrated the Our Lady of Sorrows because she does not let her sorrows obstruct Jesus’ obedience. Mary’s sorrows arise because she loves someone whose life belongs ultimately to God rather than to her.

From the beginning, with the child Jesus lost in the Jerusalem Temple, Mary begins to discover something every Christian parent eventually has to discover in a different way: the child entrusted to me does not ultimately belong to me. Love must eventually allow the beloved to answer God’s call. Even when that answer costs us something.

At the foot of the Cross on Calvary, Mary stands as witness. She doesn’t rescue Jesus from his vocation. She doesn’t demand that he abandon what brought him there. She doesn’t make his suffering about her suffering. She stands.

Sometimes faithfulness means doing. Sometimes faithfulness means enduring. And sometimes love’s most difficult obedience is simply standing beside someone while they obey God in a way we would never have chosen for them. Sometimes love says: “I would not have chosen this for you. I wish I could take it away. But if this is where faithfulness leads you, I will stand beside you.” That is Mary beneath the Cross.

And this is where our two readings converge. Jesus’ obedience says: “I will do the Father’s will, though it costs me.” Mary’s presence says: “I will remain with you, though your obedience costs me.” Neither abandons the other. Neither abandons God.

Our Lady of Sorrows teaches us another kind of obedience. We don’t have to understand everything, pretend it doesn’t hurt or even know how the story will end. Sometimes love simply asks us to do what Mary did. Stand beside the person we love while both of us remain faithful to God.

Image credit: Dossale d’altare con Cristo in Pietà e Santi | Francesco Bini, 1377 | Museo nazionale di San Matteo | PD-US

The Holy Cross – History and Reflection

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The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, celebrated every year on 14 September, recalls three events: (1) the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena, (2) the dedication of churches built by Emperor Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Calvary, and (3) the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem in AD 629 by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, after it had fallen into the hands of the Persians in the AD 614 conquest of Jerusalem.

The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross originated in the Church in Jerusalem. From the middle of the fourth century it was celebrated on 13 September, the anniversary of the dedication of the basilica erected on Golgotha under Constantine. According to the account written by a fourth-century pilgrim named Egeria, a relic of our Lord’s Cross had been found on that date a few years earlier. The “exaltation” or “raising up” of the Cross took place on the second day of the octave of the dedication, hence the date of celebration of September 14.

Emperor Constantine appointed his mother Helena the mission to locate the relics of the Christian tradition which she undertook in AD 326–28. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, who records the details of her pilgrimage to Palestine and other eastern provinces, and Socrates Scholasticus, she was responsible for the construction or beautification of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives; sites of Christ’s birth and ascension, respectively.

After the 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, in 130 AD Emperor Hadrian built a temple to Venus over the supposed site of Jesus’ tomb near Calvary. According to Eusebius, “[t]here was a temple of Venus on the spot. This the queen (Helena) had destroyed.” According to tradition, Helena ordered the temple torn down and, according to the legend that arose at the end of the 4th century, chose a site to begin excavating, which led to the recovery of three different crosses. Around AD 327, Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem ordered the excavations in order to ascertain the location of Calvary as well as that of the Holy Sepulchre. It was in the course of these excavations that the wood of the cross was recovered.

According to the legend, Helena sought solid proof as to which of the three crosses was the Cross of Christ. Helena had a woman who was near death brought from the city. When the woman touched the first and second crosses, her condition did not change, but when she touched the third and final cross she suddenly recovered, and Helena declared the cross with which the woman had been touched to be the True Cross. On the site of discovery, Constantine ordered the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Subequently, pieces of the True Cross relic were distributed across the empire and by the turn of the 5th century were venerated as far away as Italy.

In the Roman liturgy the preface of the Mass reminds us that since the tree of Paradise was the place of mankind’s fall, God has wanted the Cross to be the new tree that would save us: “.. so that where death arose, life might again spring forth.” Jesus reminds all of us, ‘And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.’ (Jn 12:32).

Reflection on the Feast by Pope Francis

The cross is a gibbet of death. Yet today we celebrate the exaltation of the cross of Christ, for on its wood Jesus took upon himself all our sin and the evil of our world, and vanquished them by his love. That is why we celebrate today’s Feast. The word of God that we have just heard tells us how, by contrasting serpents that bite with a serpent that saves. Let us reflect on these two images.

First, serpents that bite. These serpents attacked the people who had fallen once more into the sin of speaking against God. Such speaking against God was more than simply grumbling and complaining; on a deeper level, it was a sign that in their hearts the Israelites had lost their trust in him and his promises. As God’s people were making their way through the desert towards the promised land, they grew weary and could no longer endure the journey (cf. Num 21:4). They grew discouraged; they lost hope, and, at a certain point, they even seemed to forget the Lord’s promise. They lacked even the strength to believe that the Lord himself was guiding them towards a land of plenty.

It is no coincidence that, once the people no longer trusted in God, they were bitten by deadly serpents. We are reminded of the first serpent mentioned in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis: the tempter, who poisoned the hearts of Adam and Eve and made them doubt God. The devil, in the form of a serpent, tricked them and sowed seeds of distrust in them, convincing them that God is not good, and is even envious of their freedom and happiness. Now, in the desert, serpents reappear, this time as “fiery serpents” (v. 6). In other words, original sin returns: the Israelites doubt God; they do not trust him; they complain and they rebel against the one who gave them life, and so they meet their death. That is where distrustful hearts end up!

Dear brothers and sisters, this first part of the narrative asks us to examine closely those moments in our own personal and community lives when our trust in the Lord and one another has failed. How often have we grown dry, disheartened and impatient in our own personal deserts, and lost sight of our journey’s goal! Here too, in this vast country, there is a desert. For all its great natural beauty, it can also remind us of the weariness and aridity that we at times bear in our hearts. Moments of fatigue and trial, when we no longer have the strength to look up towards God. Situations in our lives when, as individuals, as Church and as a society, we can be bitten by the serpent of distrust, poisoned by disillusionment and despair, pessimism and resignation, and caught up only with ourselves, lacking all enthusiasm.

Yet this land has experienced other kinds of painful “bites” in its history. I think of the fiery serpents of violence, atheistic persecution and all those troubled times when people’s freedom was threatened and their dignity offended. We do well to keep alive the memory of those sufferings and not forget certain grim moments; otherwise, we can consider them water under the bridge and think that now, once and for all, we are on the right road. No. Peace is never achieved once and for all; like integral development, social justice and the harmonious coexistence of different ethnic groups and religious traditions, it must be achieved anew each day. Commitment is demanded on the part of all if Kazakhstan is to keep growing in “fraternity, dialogue and understanding… building bridges of solidarity and cooperation with other peoples, nations and cultures”. Yet even before that, we need to renew our faith in the Lord: to look upwards, to look to him and to learn from his universal and crucified love.

And so we come to the second image: the serpent that saves. As the people are dying from the fiery serpents, God hears Moses’ prayer of intercession and tells him: “Make a fiery serpent and put it on a pole. If anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live” (Num 21:8). And indeed, “if anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked at the bronze serpent and lived” (v. 9). Yet, we might ask: Why did God not simply destroy those poisonous serpents instead of giving these detailed instructions to Moses? God’s way of acting reveals to us his way of dealing with evil, sin and distrust on the part of humanity. Then, as now, in the great spiritual battle that continues throughout history, God does not destroy the vile and worthless things that men and women choose to pursue. Poisonous serpents do not disappear; they are always there, lying in wait, ever ready to bite. What has changed then, what does God do?

Jesus tells us in the Gospel: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15). This is the decisive shift: the serpent that saves has now come among us. Jesus, lifted up on the pole of the cross, does not allow the poisonous serpents that attack us to cause our death. Confronting our misery, God gives us a new horizon: if we keep our gaze fixed on Jesus, the sting of evil can no longer prevail over us, for on the cross he took upon himself the venom of sin and death, and crushed their destructive power. That was the Father’s response to the spread of evil in the world: he gave us Jesus, who drew near to us in a way we could never have imagined. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). Such is the infinite grandeur of divine mercy: Jesus “became sin” for our sake. Jesus, we could say, on the cross “became a serpent”, so that by gazing upon him we might resist the poisonous bites of the evil serpents that assail us.

Brothers and sisters, this is the path, the path to our salvation, our rebirth and our resurrection: to behold the crucified Jesus. From the heights of the cross, we can view our life and the history of our peoples in a new way. For from the cross of Christ we learn love, not hatred; compassion, not indifference; forgiveness, not vengeance. The outstretched arms of Jesus are the embrace of tender love with which God wishes to embrace us. They show us the fraternal love that we are called to have for one another and for everyone. They show us the way, the Christian way. It is not the way of imposition and force, of power and status; it never brandishes the cross of Christ against our brothers and sisters for whom he gave his life! Jesus’ way, the way of salvation is different: it is the way of a humble gratuitous and universal love, with no “ifs”, “ands” or “buts”

Yes, for on the wood of the cross Christ removed the venom from the serpent of evil. Being a Christian, then, means living without venom: not biting one another, not complaining, blaming and backbiting, not disseminating evil, not polluting the earth with the sin and distrust that comes from the evil one. Brothers and sisters, we have been reborn from the pierced side of the crucified Jesus. May we be free of the poison of death (cf. Wis 1:14), and pray that by God’s grace we can become ever more fully Christian: joyful witnesses of new life, love and peace.

Image credit: Finding of the True Cross, by Agnolo Gaddi (1350-96). Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence, Italy | Public Domain

Lightly Held

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The first reading today is from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. This is one of those Pauline passages that can sound rather alarming: “Let those having wives act as not having them, those weeping as not weeping, those rejoicing as not rejoicing…” (1 Cor 7:29–30). What are we supposed to make of that? What we are supposed to do is to first ensure we understand the context.

Paul is responding to questions the Corinthians themselves had apparently sent Paul: “Now in regard to the matters about which you wrote…” (7:1). Marriage, celibacy, sexual relations, divorce, remarriage, and one’s state in life all appear in the chapter. At the beginning of our text, Paul turns his attention to the unmarried and explicitly distinguishes his pastoral judgment from a direct command of the Lord: “I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give my opinion…” (v.25) And then come the context: “because of the present distress” (v. 26). Exactly what Paul means by that distress is debated. It could include concrete hardships or persecution, but Paul’s argument clearly also has an eschatological dimension. Paul and the earliest Christians lived with an intense expectation that Christ’s return could be near: “I tell you, brothers, the time is running out” (v.29).

In that light, Paul’s pastoral advice is essentially: don’t make major changes merely for the sake of changing your status. Live faithfully where you are, because everything belongs to a larger reality that God is bringing to fulfillment. He repeats the phrase “as not.” He admonished the people to live married though as not married (so, too weeping, rejoicing, owning).  He’s saying don’t allow anything belonging to this passing world to become absolute. Grief is real but grief doesn’t have the final word. Joy is real but earthly happiness isn’t the fullness of Christian hope. Possessions have legitimate uses but they don’t ultimately belong to us. Marriage matters enormously but even marriage isn’t eternal in precisely its present form. The world is good but this present configuration of the world isn’t God’s finished creation.

What might all this mean for us? I don’t think most of us are living with an intense expectation of Jesus’ immediate return. I’d offer that Paul’s lesson for us is to live with a degree of  detachment without disengagement. Consider times when we have turned to career, money, health, possessions, relationships and other things in our plans. None of these things is necessarily bad. Many are very good.

Paul isn’t saying don’t seek these things out or enjoy them, he is saying don’t ask them to bear the weight of fulfillment that only God can bear. Hold these things, but hold them lightly. 

Love your spouse deeply but recognize that your spouse is God’s gift, not your possession. Enjoy what God gives you but don’t build your identity upon having it. Grieve who you lose but don’t believe that who death has taken is therefore lost forever. Use possessions without letting them possess you. Participate fully in the world but remember that this world in its present form is passing away. That produces a distinctively Christian way of living: fully engaged, but not ultimately attached; deeply interested and not indifferent.

Maybe a way to understand Paul’s point is to ask yourself: What am I holding so tightly that I have forgotten it was given to me by God? If we hold things lightly, in almost an open hand, perhaps we will remember the gift we have received.

And I hope that in those moments we realize that everything can be loved, everything passes away but only God can be loved as though He will never pass away.

Image credit: Saint Paul Writing His Epistles |attributed to Valentin de Boulogne | Houston Museum of Fine Arts| PD-US.

Contagious Holiness

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We all know what it means for something to be contagious. Someone in the family catches a cold, and pretty soon everybody is trying not to catch it. We keep our distance. We wash our hands. We don’t want whatever that person has to spread to us.

There is an interesting background to the mindset of today’s Gospel. In the Old Testament there were careful rules concerning what was clean and unclean. Contact with some diseases, bodily fluids, or the dead could render a person ritually unclean. The idea underlying these purity rules was clear: uncleanness could spread through contact, and so boundaries were maintained between what was unclean and what was holy. But when Jesus arrives, something remarkable begins to happen.

Simon’s mother-in-law is suffering from a severe fever. Jesus stands over her and rebukes the fever, and immediately she is restored. Then, at sunset, people begin bringing the sick to Jesus. Luke tells us that Jesus “laid his hands on each of them and cured them” (Lk 4:40). Jesus does not keep his distance. He gets close. And as Luke’s Gospel continues, this pattern becomes even more striking. Jesus will reach out and touch a leper. He will allow a woman suffering from hemorrhages to touch him. He will approach the dead. But something has changed.

The leper does not make Jesus unclean. Jesus makes the leper clean. The sick do not infect Him with their sickness, rather Jesus communicates healing to them. Death is overcome and life restored by Jesus. There is no contagion. In Jesus, holiness has become contagious flows into the world as healing, forgiveness, mercy, restoration, life. And perhaps that gives us another way of thinking about what it means to be a Christian.

Sometimes we can become rather concerned about what we might “catch” from the world around us. And certainly there are things from which we should protect ourselves. But Christians cannot spend their lives simply trying to remain safely separated from everything that is broken. Jesus didn’t. Jesus moved toward brokenness, the sick, sinners, the rejected, people carrying the burden of sin, toward people whom everyone else had decided were better kept at a distance. And instead of their brokenness changing Jesus, his holiness began changing them.

That raises an interesting question for us. What happens when someone comes into contact with me? When I encounter someone who is angry, does their anger infect me so that I become angry too? Or does something of Christ’s peace begin to spread? When I encounter someone who is lonely, do I keep my distance or does Christ’s compassion begin to spread? When someone has failed badly, do I add to the shame or does something of Christ’s mercy reach that person through me? When someone has lost hope, do I join in the despair or does the hope Christ has given me become contagious?

At the end of today’s Gospel, the people of Capernaum want Jesus to stay with them. But Jesus tells them: “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” (Lk 4:43) Jesus will not allow the Kingdom to remain safely contained in Capernaum.

Holiness goes outward so that the Kingdom grows. And that is still the Church’s mission. The Church has long spoken of evangelization happening through the ordinary witness of Christian lives: through the way we love, care for those in need, treat our neighbors and strangers, and live our faith in ordinary circumstances.

Today, we will receive Christ in the Eucharist. The same Christ who laid his hands upon the sick, approached the outcast, forgave sinners, and brought hope to people who had lost it will come to us. And then we will leave this church carrying Christ into the world. So perhaps today’s Gospel invites us to worry a little less about what we might catch from the world and ask a different question: what might the world catch from us?

May the holiness of Christ become contagious through us. May we infect the world with Christ’s compassion, mercy, peace, hope and love.

Image credit: Created in Dalle-3 | Aug 31, 2026 | prompt: image with vibrant colors that portrays Jesus’s holiness going outward for healing, casting out spirits, and such.| CC-BY-NC

When the Word Disagrees with Me

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Today’s gospel is the familiar story of Jesus in his home town synagogue in Nazareth. He proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor….Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18, 21) At the beginning of today’s Gospel, everyone in the synagogue is impressed with Jesus. By the end, they’re trying to kill him. Why? There are likely reasons,e.g., misplaced familiarity with the “home town boy” – “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” (v.22) What is the old adage about familiarity breeding contempt? Perhaps there is a corollary: familiarity leads us to think we know just enough and so we stop listening.

Jesus knows that the people want him to “Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.” (v.23) It is the OT equivalent of the modern slang, “show us a little love.” One might guess they are feeling a little entitled. This is very similar to last week’s parable of the workers in the vineyard who had been at it all day, come the end of the day and they felt entitled to more. I wonder if they too stopped listening to the vineyard owner’s explanation?

But what about us? This is not likely the first time hearing this gospel or a homily about it. Are you still trying to peel back the layers of the story to discover how this story impacts you at this time in your life which is no doubt very different from the first time you encountered this episode.

The people in the synagogue heard scripture selectively. The people are provoked when Jesus quotes their own history back to them. They know Elijah, Elisha, the widow and Naaman. Their problem is not a lack of familiarity with Scripture. It’s a selective memory. Israel’s Scriptures contain both election and God’s concern for the nations. Nazareth likes the first and doesn’t want to hear the implications of the second.

We are equally capable of building a Christianity from our favorite verses. We can emphasize justice and forget mercy or emphasize mercy and forget justice. We can insist upon personal morality while ignoring our responsibility for one another. We can become passionate about changing society while avoiding our own need for conversion.

It is not just this story. Countless times we have heard the Beatitudes, the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. We know the words of Eucharistic institution. We know when to stand, sit and kneel. The danger isn’t necessarily unbelief. It can be overfamiliarity especially when we stop expecting the Word to surprise us. Sometimes knowing the Bible story is precisely what prevents us from hearing the Bible story. Familiarity can create the illusion our understanding is complete.

Jesus senses that he has touched something the listeners don’t want touched: God’s saving mercy for the “others”. The widow was a foreigner. Naaman was a Syrian and not merely a Syrian, but a commander in the enemy army. It is at this point that their admiration turns toward fury. It is just like the first workers in the vineyard parable: God’s generosity becomes offensive when God is generous to someone we don’t think deserves it.

We all have portions of Scripture we love because they reinforce what we already believe. The more revealing question is which parts do I wish Jesus hadn’t said? We readily hear Scripture when it supports our instincts about morality, politics, economics, social questions or whatever issue happens to matter deeply to us. The real test comes when Scripture challenges a position we already hold. We are very good at hearing the Word of God when it tells somebody else to change. The harder question is whether I will allow the Word of God to disagree with me.

The people of Nazareth thought they knew God. They thought they knew Jesus. They even knew the Scripture stories Jesus was telling them. What they weren’t prepared for was allowing those stories to change them.

So perhaps when the Word of God unsettles us, irritates us, or challenges something we have long assumed, our first response shouldn’t be, “That can’t be what Jesus means.” Perhaps it should be: “Lord, what are you trying to change in me?”

Image credit: Created in Dalle-3 | Aug 28, 2026 | prompt: create an image of Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue as described in Luke 4 – keep in an icon style with vibrant colors. Have Jesus centered with listeners on either side, seated. Include an open scroll or book | CC-BY-NC

Becoming Wise

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Today’s reflection is based on Matthew 25:1-13, the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and is part of our parish elementary school Friday Mass celebration. 

I grew up in Florida, where hurricanes were simply part of life. Back then storm tracking wasn’t nearly as good as it is today, so experience really mattered. Back then lots of new people began moving to Florida who had never experienced a hurricane.

One of our new neighbors worked in the aerospace industry. We assumed he was a “rocket scientist”—so obviously he was really smart. But being smart is one thing. Knowing how to prepare for a hurricane is another.

My dad was wise in the way hurricane preparedness and made an effort to share his experience and wisdom of how to prepare the house and the family for the experience. It was a lesson in character. Not only for us to prepare for the coming storm, but also to help the “hurricane rookies” prepare and make decisions about boarding windows, filling sandbags, taking in lawn furniture and plants – and the things “rookies” might not think about. You needed to have several days of food that did not need refrigeration. No electricity, no refrigerator. That means you needed easy to eat food, peanut butter and jelly, trail mix, a camp stove, and canned goods…. And a manual can opener. No electricity, no electric can opener.  

Trust me the list goes on and on: water, flashlights, batteries, and for our modern times: portable power banks for phones, cash because the ATMs and credit card machines might not work.

You get the point. Our neighbor was a “rocket scientist” but not wise in the way of hurricanes. My dad was wise in such things and was possessed of the character to share with our neighbors.

Today’s gospel is about wisdom.

Were the young women in the gospel smart? Maybe they were all the “rocket scientists” for their day. But it seems there were two kinds of young women described in the parable. The ones who brought extra oil and were prepared for the unexpected – in this case the late arrival of the bridegroom. Was the late arrival likely? Possible? Who knows, but it is a celebration and such things are prone to go “off schedule.” And so some were prepared and brought extra oil.  The others did not.  

Knowledge often comes from books; wisdom often comes from experience. The ones who brought extra oil thought ahead and acted responsibly. They did not know when the groom would arrive. They simply stayed ready. Wisdom means making good choices, not just knowing information.  Wisdom prepares for tomorrow.

How might this apply to you? 

  • Pack your backpack the night before.
  • Do your homework before it is due.
  • Pray every day, not just when there’s a problem.

Wise people prepare before the moment arrives.

And there’s something interesting about the oil. When the moment comes, the young women can’t simply borrow readiness from somebody else. Some things have to become part of us before the moment arrives. 

You can get help with math from a teacher. You can get help with homework from your parents. But you cannot borrow somebody else’s kindness. You cannot borrow somebody else’s honesty. You cannot borrow somebody else’s friendship with Jesus.

And remember something else about my dad. His wisdom wasn’t just knowing what our family needed. Wisdom made him notice the family next door. He shared what he knew so they could get ready too. Christian wisdom doesn’t just ask, ‘Am I ready?’ It also asks, ‘Who can I help?’

Knowledge often comes from books; wisdom grows as we learn to make good choices.

Jesus tells us today: Don’t wait until the last minute to become the person God is calling you to be. Don’t wait until you need God to begin praying. Don’t wait until someone is lonely to learn kindness. Don’t wait until you’re tempted to lie to decide that honesty matters.

Every day we make little choices that put a little more oil in the lamp.

So this school year, learn as much as you can. Be smart. That’s one reason you’re here. But ask Jesus for something even greater. Ask him to make you wise. And every day, fill your lamp.

Be smart, but become wise.

Created by Dalle-3 on 8-26-26 with elements: word “Wisdom”, wooden letters, light bulb, warm wooden background

Dem bones, dem dry bones

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Today’s first reading is from the Prophet Ezekiel chapter 37, the famous “dry bones vision.” Ezekiel has been the source of all the first readings for this week. It has been a week in which the Word of God came to the prophet and directed him to preach a word of destruction against Jerusalem, the kingdom of Tyre and the shepherds (kings) of Judah and Israel. Then the Word of God changes.

In Wednesday’s first reading, after condemning the shepherds (kings), we have the wonderful passage from Ezekiel 34:11 “For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep.” And indeed, God sent his only son to be the King of kings and the Good Shepherd.

Thursday, the Word got even better

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees…you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” (Ez 36:25-28)

That is what God plans to do and in today’s reading Ezekiel is given the vision of result of the promise

“Thus says the Lord GOD: From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain that they may come to life. I prophesied as he told me, and the spirit came into them; they came alive and stood upright” (Ez 37:9-10)

It is always good to pay attention when God breathes into the world. The ruah (breath/spirit) hovered over the void of chaos at Creation and there was life. God sent the Good Shepherd at whose baptism the Holy Spirit hovered. The ruah of God hovered over the disciples at Pentecost and their was new life for the Church – all this just as God promised.

The ruah, breath, Spirit of God is present in the world, fulfilling the promises of the Covenant, fulfilled in Jesus Christ. “…you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” God is fulfilling the divine side of the deal. We are called to let the Spirit heal our dry bones and be the people of God in the world.

Figure out the part of your life, the hard part of your heart, or whatever burdens you. Ask the breath of God to instill new life in you.

Image credit: “Vision of Ezekiel” by Paul Falconer Poole, c.1875; Tate Museum Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0)

Not without skills

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The first reading is from the Prophet Ezekiel from a larger section known as the “Oracles Against the Nations.” In our reading the charge leveled against the prince of Tyre is simple and direct: you have become arrogant, or as we read “haughty of heart”. The prophet outlines three dimensions of his hubris: the king claims to be divine, possessing divine authority and divine intelligence/wisdom. It is not hard to think about animating the prophet’s words with a strong measure of sarcasm.

The prophet seems to acknowledge that the prince of Tyre has some skills and savvy, but notes it is only for the accumulation of earthly riches and power – nothing that will last beyond the end. An end that is coming soon at the hand of  “the most barbarous of nations. They shall draw their swords against your beauteous wisdom, they shall run them through your splendid apparel…Will you then say, “I am a god!” In the end it will all come to another bonfire of the vanities.

Apart from the novel by Tom Wolfe, “bonfire of the vanities” refers to the evangelical call of the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola who in 1497 called the city of Florence to burn any objects that might tempt one to sin, including vanity items such as mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, playing cards, and musical instruments. Savonarola campaigned against what he considered to be the artistic and social excesses of Renaissance Italy, preaching with great vigor against any luxury.

None of us would suffer the delusion of thinking ourselves to be divine as did the Prince of Tyre, but then again none of us would say we are without skills or savvy. The question then, in Florence, and now, is to what end do we direct those God-given skills? Do we seek security for our families? Maybe security and comfort? Perhaps security, comfort, and luxury? Or are we on the verge of becoming like the Tom Wolfe character Sherman McCoy, a successful NYC financial whiz, who has given himself the moniker, “Master of the Universe.” Somewhat like the Prince of Tyre, yes?

To the prince, Sherman McCoy and to us, the gospel simply says: “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.“

It is not the wealth, the security, the comfort or the luxury – it is the lure of those things, the lure to sin against the most basic of commands: “what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

From time to time, we all need to consider what parts of our life, our possessions, that are candidates for the bonfire of the vanities. Consider what weighs us down on our journey to the Kingdom of God.

A painting by an unknown Florentine master depicting the execution of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, on May 22 1498. Photo: Wikimedia commons.