Friday, September 12, 2025

 

Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

(I Timothy 1:1-2.12-14; Luke 6:39-42)

C.S. Lewis was baptized as an infant, but at sixteen lost his faith.  He could not believe that a good God would create such a messy world.  However, has he matured, he encountered several highly intelligent men who made him question his atheism.  Feeling pursued by a relentless savior, Lewis one night went down on his knees and prayed.  He then became one of the most effective Christian apologists of the twentieth century.  His story parallels that of St. Paul in today’s first reading.

Although many biblical experts maintain that someone else wrote the First Letter to Timothy for Paul, the letter itself assumes Paul’s voice.  Paul writes that he persecuted the Church as an evidently young and definitely arrogant man.  He shows gratitude for having been rescued from his unbelief and for coming to know Christ. 

Many people today have similar experiences to those of St. Paul and C.S. Lewis.  They have been convinced by the sheer goodness of Christ and clarity of the gospel that egotism and hedonism are not valid ways of being in the world.  They encourage the rest of us when we grow lax in believing.

Thursday, September 11, 2025

 

Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

(Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 6:27-38)

Jesus calls his disciples in today’s gospel to a discipline that would make a marine despair.  They are to turn the cheek when struck and offer their tunic when someone has already taken their cloak.  This agenda of nonresistance will not appear to many as virtuous.  Quite the opposite, the one who accepts it will appear sheepish.

Such a stance is redeemed by two conscious choices.  First, disciples must put on, as the first reading says, “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”  Each of these virtues serves in the rejection of the impulse to defend oneself and one’s belongings.  The second choice is to pray for the grace to overcome the desire for vindication.  One needs the grace of the Spirit to resist the impulse of “fight or flight.”  Demonstrating these compassion and godliness, Christians will be recognized not as cowards but as promoters of a new way of being in the world – the way of divine love.

Today many of us remember the horrific attacks on America perpetrated by Muslim terrorists twenty-four years ago.  The President of the United States at the time, George W. Bush, a practicing Christian, ordered a reprisal against the terrorists’ operating facilities in Afghanistan.  We should ask ourselves whether he violated Jesus mandate to his disciples.  The answer must be “no.”  The President has the responsibility of defending the people.  Still there were limits to the reprisal.  Nevertheless, the counterattacks did not exonerate American Christians from praying for the conversion of their Muslim terrorist enemies.

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

 Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

 (Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 6:20-26)

“There is a difference between the rich and the poor,” the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald told his friend Ernest Hemmingway.  “Yes,” replied the other with characteristic terseness, “money.”  As attractive as Hemmingway’s truism sounds, Fitzgerald makes a better argument.  The poor are generally less educated and more likely victims of various social pathologies.  Also, the poor have God on their side as Jesus makes clear in the gospel today.

Preachers have long noted that the beatitudes in Luke have none of the spiritualizing tendencies that are seen in Matthew.  In Luke it is “the poor” who are blessed, not “the poor in spirit.”  Likewise, those who are simply “hungry” in Luke are being filled, not those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  The needy can now rejoice because Jesus has come to champion their cause.  In contrast, those who know abundance are wise to better beware because Jesus will not allow them much slack at judgment.

Are we to be condemned then if we own a house and a car?  And if we sleep in the night shelter, are we assured of Paradise?  Such conjectures are inevitably made and should be determinedly resisted.  Jesus makes a priority of the poor but sends his Spirit on all of us to take up his causes.  The poor also have to respond to his grace with care for others.  The rich can be saved by showing compassion on the needy.

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

 Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, priest

(Colossians 2:6-15; Luke 6:12-19)

Whatever the author of the Letter to the Colossians had in mind by “empty, seductive philosophy,” it is not difficult to find such sophistry in the world today.  From the amount of pornography available on the Internet, sexual pleasure obviously holds many people captive.  Even more pernicious is the cult of the ego.  People believe the absurd ideas that they are the creators of themselves and may do whatever they please.

The writer sees Christ as the salvation from all such erroneous ideas.  Christ brings people together in mutual love rather than allow them to exploit one another.  He does this not by imposing himself on others as was done with Israel’s Law.  Rather he takes the burden of the Law on himself by sacrificing himself on the cross, a faithful Jew until the end and at the same time the God of all. 

Whether Paul authored the letter or one of his disciples, the writer asks his readers to “walk in (Christ).”  We are to avoid sin, love our neighbor, and depend upon God for moral support.

Monday, September 8, 2025

 

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 (Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 1:18-23)

Final cause denotes the purpose for which something is made.  The final cause of a cup is to hold a drink.  What is the final cause of humans?  Why are they born?  Some will respond quickly “to know, love, and serve God.”  This catechism answer is true but not complete.  Each person has a particular purpose or final cause.  The first reading indicates this truth where it mentions that humans “are called according to his purpose.”

Somehow humans must discern God’s purpose for themselves.  They are to assess personal talents, interests, needs and necessities to determine what God wants of each of them.  Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, was called to be the Mother of God.  Luke’s gospel records how she received this vocation through the message of an angel.  Yet the episode indicates some discernment on her part as she asked the angel how it could happen since she had “no relations with a man.”

Of course, youth is the time when most of us discern the monumental callings of marital state, career, and general stance in life, including faith commitment.  Yet as we age, we are called to refine our choices.  We can turn to Mary for assistance.  She provides more than intercessory prayers.  She also models careful discernment.