Saturday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Wisdom 18:14-16;19:6-9  +  Luke 18:1-8

Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.

In the first verse of today’s Gospel passage, St. Luke the Evangelist is unusually direct in explaining the exact meaning of Jesus’ parable.  “Jesus told His disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”  It is important to note that this parable is about one specific type of prayer to God:  prayer of petition.

Sometimes prayer is defined as “a conversation with God”.  That’s unfair to God for two reasons.  First, conversations normally take place between two persons of more or less equal standing.  While it’s true that prayer involves a dialogue with God, we have to keep in mind that what He has to say to each of us is far more important than what any of us might wish to say to Him.  In prayer, it’s far more important to listen to God than to speak to Him.

Second, prayer at its summit transcends what could be termed a conversation.  The form of prayer in which the believer and God dialogue is meant to be surpassed.  Dialogue is meant to lead to a loving silence, a form of prayer in which God and the believer rest in the goodness of His presence.  Dialogue or conversation is a means to getting there.

Nonetheless, in today’s Gospel passage Jesus teaches us about prayers of petition.  Petition is one specific form that prayer takes during the “conversational” stages of prayer.  In this stage, however, we pray not only with God’s almighty Power in mind (because He can get us what we want), but also with His providential Love in mind.  That is to say, God answers our prayers of petition not only for our own good, but for His goodness as well, so as to lead us into that goodness.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious
Wisdom 13:1-9  +  Luke 17:26-37
November 17, 2017

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man”.

To His disciples, Jesus speaks of “the Son of Man”.  Regarding the Son of Man, Jesus explains that His presence is elusive, like lightning that “flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other”.  Jesus downplays the desire somehow to “pin down” the Son of Man.

At the end of yesterday’s Gospel passage, Jesus spoke about this Son of Man suffering greatly and being rejected by this generation.  Here Jesus is making clear how much His hearers’ expectations will be shattered.  What we hope for is often not what God has in store for us.  In today’s Gospel passage, we hear some of the context of “the days of the Son of Man”.  The context is dire, which shouldn’t surprise us given what the Son of Man Himself suffers.

Jesus’ final words today do not seem hopeful:  “‘Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.’”  Yet Jesus is hopeful, of course.  He is simply not hopeful for the fate of this world.  Everything in this world must finally decay, so we must not be attached to such things.  Our hope must be for God alone, who draws us through this world, not to it.

Thursday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Wisdom 7:22—8:1  +  Luke 17:20-25

“For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus describes the phrases “the Kingdom of God” and “the Son of Man”.  The meanings of both are elusive, and that’s Jesus’ point.

In the Pharisees, who ask “when the Kingdom of God would come”, we can see many in our own day who exert great effort in predicting and spreading news of the time of this coming.  Jesus splashes cold water on them all:  this coming “‘cannot be observed, and no one will announce, “Look, here it is”’”.  Along the same line, Jesus soberly explains to the Pharisees that while they “‘will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man,’” they “‘will not see it.’”

However, in the midst of this sobering up, Jesus declares something provocative, if not confusing.  “‘For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.’”  So while the coming of the Kingdom “‘cannot be observed,’” it already “‘is among you.’”  How are we to understand what seems on the surface like a contradiction?  Perhaps such understanding ought only be sought by the Pharisees of old.  Perhaps our part is simply to live within the Kingdom of God, under the shepherding of the Son of Man.

Wednesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Wisdom 6:1-11  +  Luke 17:11-19

“Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

We may not feel inclined to think of ourselves as lepers.  It’s not an appealing image.  But that’s the plain meaning of these ten persons in today’s Gospel passage.  The ten lepers represent us.  In fact, we’re much worse off than lepers.  Leprosy ends with earthly death.  But the effects of sin—alienation and estrangement from God and neighbor—are unending, ever-lasting, without end if we die in mortal sin.  Without a Redeemer to save us from sin, our suffering will not end with earthly death, but only begin in earnest.

Jesus saves the ten from leprosy with little more than a few words, such is His divine power.  But Jesus saves all of mankind from the far greater penalty of eternal death.  Jesus offers salvation to you not by speaking a few words, but by sacrificing up His complete self—Body, Blood, soul and divinity—to a Passion and Death on the Cross that He suffered out of love:  not out of compulsion, or to get something back in return, or to impress anyone, but simply and completely out of love for us.  If this doesn’t inspire gratitude in each of us, it’s hard to imagine what might.

Tuesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Wisdom 2:23—3:9  +  Luke 17:7-10

God formed man to be imperishable; the image of His own nature He made him.

Today’s First Reading from the Book of Wisdom explicitly proclaims a belief central to Judaeo-Christian thought.  The first sentence of this passage instructs us that “God formed man to be imperishable; the image of His own nature He made him.”

Today’s First Reading is eleven verses long.  The last nine make up a passage often proclaimed at funerals, meditating as it does on human suffering.  But the first two verses offer a frame in which to situate those last nine.

The theme of suffering is a continual theme throughout the seven books of the Old Testament’s “Wisdom Literature”.  Suffering is, for many, what makes or breaks them spiritually.  Many turn away from God because of their experiences of suffering.  Others profoundly deepen their living in God through their experiences of human suffering.  None of the Bible’s “Wisdom Literature” gives an “answer” to human suffering.  Wisdom is not found in answers.  Wisdom is found in resting in the Image of God.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin
Wisdom 1:1-7  +  Luke 17:1-6
November 13, 2017

Love justice, you who judge the earth; think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in integrity of heart….

At weekday Mass during this second-to-last week in Ordinary Time, the Church’s First Reading is taken from the Old Testament Book of Wisdom.  Not surprisingly, the Book of Wisdom is part of the Old Testament group of books called the “Wisdom Literature” (the other three groups of Old Testament books being the Pentateuch, the Historical Literature, and the Prophetical Literature).  There are seven books that make up the “Wisdom Literature”.

This book is fitting for us to listen to as we draw near to the end of the Church year.  Towards the end of the Church year, the Sacred Liturgy draws our attention to the Last Things:  Heaven, hell, death and judgment.  You and I need wisdom to think rightly about these four last things.

Today’s First Reading consists of the first seven verses of Wisdom.  It might surprise some just how “earth-bound” this passage is.  It is not “pie in the sky”, meditating abstractly on ideas and theories about God’s wisdom.  The passage is very concrete.

The first two words of the book are “Love justice”.  A good retreat master could develop an entire week-long retreat exploring just these two words, so profound are they.  Love and justice are both virtues:  the former the greatest of the theological virtues, and the latter one of the moral (or “cardinal”) virtues.  To love justice is to devote one’s self to a right ordering of one’s thoughts, words and actions:  giving to God what is His due, and recognizing God in our neighbors, whom He created for us to love.  In attending to the simple matters of daily life with divine love, we cannot fail to grow in wisdom.

The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Wis 6:12-16  +  1 Thes 4:13-18  +  Mt 25:1-13
November 12, 2017

“Five of them were foolish and five were wise.”

Over the course of the last three Sundays of this liturgical year—that is, today and the next two Sundays—we hear the entirety of Matthew 25.  This is the final chapter before St. Matthew the Evangelist begins his account of the Passion and Death of Jesus.  Matthew 25 prepares us for Jesus’ Passion and Death by relating two of Jesus’ parables, and His description of the Son of Man’s final coming and judgment of the nations.

As background, we need to keep in mind that St. Matthew through his account of the Gospel paints a portrait of Jesus as Teacher.  This does not diminish the core of all four Gospel accounts, which reveal Jesus as Savior and Redeemer.  But as a complement to this central role of Jesus, each Gospel account shows a secondary role of Jesus, which leads us into His saving mission.

St. Matthew’s account of the Gospel is the longest of the four, running to 28 chapters.  Yet only the latter three chapters recount Jesus’ saving Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension.  This might seem odd:  that Jesus’ key mission as Savior is summed up in just three chapters, while His secondary role as Teacher is explored in 25 chapters.  Shouldn’t the key role of Savior be treated in more chapters than a secondary role?

Without answering that question, we can briefly consider St. Matthew’s portrait of Jesus as Teacher.  This portrait begins in earnest with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:  Jesus’ first sermon takes up three chapters [Mt 5-7].  From there onwards through Chapter 25, the evangelist alternates between portraying Jesus as preaching inspiring words, and performing mighty deeds.

Chapter 25 is the culmination of St. Matthew’s portrait of Jesus as Teacher.  As any teacher will tell you, it’s effective to save the best lesson for last.  Or put another way, a teacher may structure her course so that the earlier lessons build upon each other, and lead up to the final lesson.  St. Matthew records Jesus’ final spoken lesson in Matthew 25:31-46, concerning the future event of Jesus’ Final Coming and Final Judgment.  This final spoken lesson not only helps us understand Jesus’ prior lessons, but also prepares us to understand the final three chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel account.

Given all this, what are we to make of today’s Gospel passage, which is the first third of Matthew 25?  We might note several similarities between Jesus’ parable about the ten virgins and His account of the Final Judgment.  In the latter, the Son of Man calls the sheep into eternal life, while in today’s parable, the bridegroom calls “those who were ready” “into the wedding feast with Him”.  Likewise, as in the latter we hear of the separation of the sheep from the goats, so in today’s parable we hear of the separation of the five foolish virgins from the five wise virgins.

In that second similarity, however, there is an important distinction that we might take for our chief point of reflection today.  In the account of the Final Judgment, it is the Son of Man who does the separating.  But in today’s parable, the five foolish virgins on their own initiative leave the wise.  They must leave, because owing to previous foolishness, they’ve failed to maintain preparedness for the bridegroom’s arrival.

Sin is always based upon human initiative.  Sin, which if clung to leads to eternal separation from the Son of Man in His glory, is based upon failure to focus upon God:  failure to be ready for God, and failure to do what His arrival demands from us.  Sin is preoccupation with our own interests and desires, and a failure to recognize that the Son of Man wants to lead us into something far more interesting and desirable than anything we can achieve on our own.  Wisdom, on the other hand, means being ready for the lesson and the course of the Cross.

St. Martin of Tours, Bishop
Romans 16:3-9,16,22-27  +  Luke 16:9-15
November 11, 2017

“You cannot serve God and mammon.”

This sentence of Jesus is sometimes falsely and simplistically interpreted to mean that you cannot have both God and money in your life.  In other words, this false interpretation says that there’s a sort of competition in your life between God and money which is a zero-sum game.  Or to use a picture metaphor:  this false interpretation says that there’s a see-saw in your life:  God and money are sitting at opposite ends of the see-saw.  If one goes up, the other goes down.  The holier you are, the less money you will have, and the more money you have, the less holy you must be.  This interpretation of Jesus’ words is false.

Our spiritual well-being and our financial well-being are not in competition with each other.  Rather, when Jesus plainly tells you that “You cannot serve both God and mammon”, the key is the word “serve”.  “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  You can serve God, or you can serve mammon.  But you cannot serve both.

The beautiful thing about serving God is that through this form of love, we become more like Him.  After all, “God is love”, as St. John taught the first Christians.  So in the very act of loving God, we become like Him:  that is to say, we enter into His very way of life, His very way of being.  This is as God wants, and in fact this is as each of you wants, in the deepest center of your heart, because God planted that desire there when He created your heart:  the desire to serve Him, and so become more like Him.

St. Leo the Great, Pope & Doctor of the Church
Romans 15:14-21  +  Luke 16:1-8
November 10, 2017

…because of the grace… in performing the priestly service of the Gospel of God….

There are differences among Christians, and then there are disagreements.  Differences can be of various types, including those willed by God Himself for the sake of the Church.  Saint Paul has preached about “diversity for the sake of unity” in the First Readings of recent days.  Differences can come about through human sin, contrary to the will of God.  But disagreements often point to something more difficult to reconcile:  beliefs that are contrary to the mind of God.

There are disagreements among Christians about Christians serving others as priests.  A priest, of course, is a mediator:  in more common parlance, a “middle man”.  He stands between God and another human person in order to serve that person:  in order to bridge the gap between God and the other.  Is there such a thing as an authentic Christian priesthood?  If so, what form or forms does it take?

Saint Paul in today’s First Reading shows us that the answer to the first of these questions is “Yes”.  Speaking to the Romans about himself, St. Paul speaks of his “priestly service of the Gospel… so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable”.

Among Christians who speak regularly against Catholic teaching and practice about the priesthood, you will often hear that there is only one mediator, Jesus Christ.  Therefore, there ought to be no human mediators between “me and Jesus”, as they might put it.  But St. Paul’s words today—inspired as they are by the Holy Spirit—clearly show such an idea to be contrary to the mind of God.  This is only the first principle by which to understand Christian priesthood, but it’s good for us to reflect on it today.