Category Archives: Daily Reflection

Becoming Martha

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In today’s gospel I think poor Martha is sometimes made to be the foil of the story. We easily remember the ending. Mary has chosen “the better part” and poor Martha is left worried and anxious about many things. In our minds, Mary becomes the model disciple while Martha becomes the woman who just doesn’t quite get it. I think Martha needs to be reconsidered.

“A woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.” (Lk 10:38). Jesus arrives, and Martha opens the door inviting Him in. Before Mary can sit at the feet of Jesus, someone has to welcome Jesus into the house. And there is something wonderfully faithful about that.

Luke is very intentional about the order of things (cf. Luke 1:3). Immediately before today’s gospel Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan sees the wounded man, stops, cares for him, takes him to an inn and pays for his care. Jesus concludes the parable with the admonition: “Go and do likewise.” (Lk 10:37).  Turn the page and we find Martha “doing.” Lots of people think today’s gospel is somehow telling us that service is somehow inferior to prayer. He has just told us to serve, so something else must be going on.

The text tells us that Martha was “burdened with much serving.” The word in Greek has the sense of being pulled away, distracted. And therein likely lies the problem. She has become so busy serving Jesus that she is being pulled away from Jesus.

That’s a danger religious people understand very well. We can spend enormous amounts of time doing things for God: a ministry in the parish, teaching faith formation, festival volunteering – the list is endless. And add to that all the enormous amount of time doing things for your family. We priests are not immune from such busyness. We can spend the whole day working for Jesus but very little time with Jesus. It is easy to let all these good things distract us from the reason we are doing them.

Eventually Martha reaches the breaking point. She comes to Jesus and says: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” (Lk 10:40) You have to love Martha’s honesty. She doesn’t break out in a prayer or calculate her words. She tells Jesus exactly what she thinks: Mary is the problem. But then Jesus becomes part of the problem: “Lord, do you not care?”

That question may be more familiar to us than we would like to admit. I think everyone of us can remember a time when we felt overwhelmed and we wondered if God cares. Jesus did not admonish Jesus for asking, nor does he admonish us. He simply says: “Martha, Martha…” He sees what all that doing has done to her: “You are anxious and worried about many things.”

Martha wanted Jesus to change Mary, but Jesus’ response is akin to saying: “Before we talk about her, let’s talk about what is happening inside you.” And notice that Jesus doesn’t tell Martha to stop serving. He calls her back to the center: “There is need of only one thing.” What is that “one thing”? Is it to imitate Mary, in a way become Mary? 

Let us pause for a moment and consider the next time we encounter Mary – when her brother Lazarus dies. “When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.” (Jn 11:20) Martha gets up and goes to Jesus. She’s still Martha: active and direct and still unafraid to tell Jesus exactly what she thinks: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But something is different. During their conversation, Martha says: “I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” (Jn 11:27) That is one of the great professions of faith in John’s Gospel.

The woman we remember for being distracted by many things has come to recognize the one thing necessary. Or better, the one Person necessary. Martha didn’t need to become Mary. Martha needed to become a deeper Martha.

And perhaps that is what Jesus wants for us. He isn’t necessarily asking us to abandon our responsibilities. Meals still need to be prepared, children cared for, work to be completed, people who need our help, and a parish that still needs volunteers. The Good Samaritan still has to stop beside the road and Jesus forever says, “Go and do likewise.”

Let us do what is ours to do, the good things God has given us to do. But don’t become so busy doing things for Jesus that we lose sight of Jesus.

Martha opened the door and welcomed him into her house. Somewhere along the way, she became distracted by everything that needed to be done. And Jesus gently called her back. Perhaps today he is doing the same for us. Amid all the things that seem so urgent, all the things demanding our attention, all the things we think absolutely must get done, we need to hear the echo: there is need of only one thing.”

Don’t lose sight of the One you welcomed into the house in the first place.

Image credit: “Christ at the home of Martha and Mary” | Charles de La Fosse | Private collection in a castle in Lorraine (France); Galerie Didier Chéreau, Paris | PD-US

Heavenly Warning

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Given that last week we celebrated the Feast of the Archangels and of Guardian Angels, it is with curiosity that I notice in today’s first reading to the Galatians St. Paul writes: “But even we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed!” It made me wonder what he had in mind.

In reading different commentaries, it seems that most scholars don’t think Paul has a specific angelic appearance or rival claim in mind. In Jewish tradition, angels were regarded as messengers of God. Paul himself elsewhere refers to the Law as having been mediated through angels (Gal 3:19). Given people understand angels as messengers from God, Paul is likely employing a rhetorical argument: even the highest conceivable authority cannot overturn the gospel once it has been received. And so, Paul is amazed that the Galatians are “so quickly deserting” the gospel (Gal 1:6). 

We know from Galatians that other teachers had come among Paul’s Gentile converts insisting on circumcision and observance of the Mosaic Law in order to belong fully to God’s people.  This is not a matter of church discipline; it strikes at the heart of the gospel itself. Paul is clear: Gentiles do not become Christians by first becoming Jews. Justification comes through faith in Christ and salvation is God’s gift of grace. 

Paul is saying, in effect, “You have heard the real McCoy.” In fact, he immediately corrects even the suggestion that there might be competing gospels: there is no “other gospel” at all. There is the Gospel and there are distortions of it. Paul’s point is that the truth of the gospel is not validated by the status of the messenger; the messenger is judged by fidelity to the gospel. Even a heavenly messenger must be rejected if the message contradicts the apostolic gospel. Not another missionary, not an angel and remarkably, not even Paul himself has authority to change the Gospel. Think about his claim: even his own visionary credentials are subordinate to the gospel already proclaimed.

Paul’s principle also resonates with the Church’s later discernment of claims to private revelation. An authentic private revelation cannot contradict, correct, or add something essential to the apostolic faith already handed down. Even an approved apparition adds nothing to the Deposit of Faith; at most, it helps the Church live more fully what has already been revealed in Christ.

As people of faith, then, we stand humbly before the Gospel and the apostolic faith handed down to us. Paul reminds us that no messenger stands above that Gospel: not another preacher, not an apostle, not even an angel from heaven. The Gospel is not judged by the authority of the messenger; the messenger is judged by fidelity to the Gospel.

Image credit: ChatGPT – Dalle3 AI generated using the text of the post.

Not how, but Who

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The first reading today continues our journey into the Book of Job arriving at chapter 19. Here is a concise summary of what has transpired up to this point in the narrative: In the first two chapters, we meet Job, a wealthy, blameless, and God-fearing man about whom “the Satan” asserts that Job only serves God because he is blessed. Satan argues Job will curse God if he loses everything and so God allows Satan to test Job. Within moments, Job loses all his wealth, his livestock, and his ten children. But he does not curse God. In Chapter 3 Job laments his existence. He wishes he had died at birth or never existed at all, wondering why God allows light and life to continue for people who are in absolute misery. This is the central theme that this Wisdom literature explores throughout the remainder of the text.

From this point forward, Job is visited by friends. Eliphaz relied on personal experience and a spiritual vision, arguing that no human is innocent before God. Bildad appealed to ancient tradition, asserting that ungodly people always face swift ruin. Zophar spoke most bluntly, claiming that Job probably deserved an even harsher punishment than what he received. All are coming from the idea of retributive justice, the idea that God always rewards good behavior and punishes evil in this life.  (Note: other canonical books of Wisdom will take issue with this premise, but that is for another day…)

Job feels it is all helpless because no human can argue or go to court with God. Job laments that there is no arbiter or mediator to lay a hand on both parties and bridge the gap between a holy God and suffering humanity. This brings us to our first reading:

“Oh, would that my words were written down! Would that they were inscribed in a record: That with an iron chisel and with lead they were cut in the rock forever! But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust; Whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him, And from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing.” (Job 19:23-27)

Clearly, Job is indicating what he is about to say is of great importance and needs to be recorded for generations to come. And yet, the meaning of this passage is obscure because the original text has been poorly preserved and the ancient versions do not agree among themselves. Job asserts three times that he shall see a future vindicator, but he leaves the time and manner of this vindication undefined. 

What does Job mean by “Vindicator”? The Hebrew is goʾali, “my goʾel.” The word has much richer connotations than simply “redeemer.” A goʾel is a kinsman-redeemer, someone who acts on behalf of a family member whose rights, property, freedom, or justice need defending. The same linguistic root is used to describe God as Israel’s redeemer, especially in Isaiah. Some commentators offer that this points to an early belief in resurrection based on the Vulgate translation, but Job is not necessarily saying, in the original historical sense, “I know that Jesus Christ will someday raise me bodily from the dead.” He is saying something more immediate and, given his circumstances, quite remarkable: someone will ultimately take my side. Someone will vindicate me. Someone will establish that what is being said about me is not the final truth.

Job’s friends have effectively constructed a theological case against him: God is just; you are suffering terribly; therefore you must have done something to deserve this. Job knows that isn’t true. But he cannot prove it. So he appeals beyond his friends and in some respects beyond his own present experience of God to a future Vindicator.

Why carved in stone? Because everything around him presently argues against what he is about to say. His children are dead, his property is gone, his body is afflicted and friends believe he is guilty. His experience is beyond his understanding and there is nothing in sight that things will be put right. And that is precisely the moment when he says: “But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives.” This is not a case in which it is all resolved and Job then has the assurance that God is faithful. He says it before anything has worked out. It is a lesson for us.

We usually find it fairly easy to recognize God’s faithfulness looking backward. After the illness has passed, the crisis over, prayers answered, and we made it through. Then we are assured and can say, “God was with me.” Job is doing something much harder. He declares his confidence while he is still sitting in the ashes without a clue how his story ends. He has no idea what vindication will look like or when it will arrive. But he knows one thing: my Vindicator lives.

Image credit: WordPress AI generated using the text of the post.

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