Reflections on the Gospel Reading for the Day

“The kingdom of God is among you.”

Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said in reply, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you” (Lk 17:20-21).

Many of the Pharisees were scrutinizing Jesus’ every word and action, unfortunately, with a hard heart. They were closed to the reality present before them because they were looking for ways to accuse him, to catch him, to have cause to show him to be a fraud. They were closed to the actual events happening around Jesus that the blind saw, the deaf heard, the healings that helped the lame to walk, the lepers to be healed, the dead to come back to life, and the poor had the good news proclaimed to them (cf. Matthew 11:5).

Instead of a curiosity to know, their hardness of hard led to them missing the very reality that the Kingdom of God was in their midst. We see this very much today through the mental posturing of “scientism”, the belief that the only reality is that which can be measured empirically, through the five senses. Scientists have brought about many advances and innovations that we enjoy today, yet there is a reality beyond the physical. This is the spiritual, which transcends the three-dimensional reality that we experience and are aware of through our senses. We understand the world around us better when we embrace both science and theology, the physical and the spiritual, as well as embrace the gifts of our reason and our faith, our faith which is not irrational but supra-rational!

If our mind is closed to an idea, a reality, and/or a belief we will not only resist believing, we will also seek rationalizations to explain it away as did some of the Pharisees. From a hypersensitivity to accept only the physical, we can brush off acts of synchronicity as mere coincidence. Yet, if we are open to the spiritual reality of interconnectedness beyond that which we can measure finitely, these incidences can be termed, God-incidences.

We cannot solve or prove God like a problem because God is not in the genus of being, he is not an animal, a human, an angelic, spiritual, or even a supreme being. There are no words to adequately describe God. This is why pronouns are woefully inadequate as well, for God is neither male nor female. We use Father because Jesus addresses God as Father often. In doing so, Jesus is not saying that God is a being or male. Jesus is showing the intimacy of relationship we can have with God. Such as a relationship that a child has with his or her loving father and so depends on him for everything.

We can say more about what God is not than what or who God is! The best attempts we have are that God is an Infinite Act of Existence or to use the phrasing of St Thomas Aquinas, Ipsum Esse Subsistens – The sheer act of ‘to be’ itself, or as God said to Moses, “I am, who am” (Exodus 3:14). God is completely transcendent, beyond categories, beyond the genus, beyond the grasp of our finite minds, and yet, we can experience an intimate relationship him because as St. Augustine taught, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

We will not encounter God by forcing God to come to us on our own terms, by attempting to force-fit God into our finite conceptions. God meets us where we are and as we are, on his terms. As we open ourselves to his presence, accept his invitation, he then helps us to expand, to experience more broadly, who we, others, and our world are. We experience this best when we truly love, when we go out from our own self-centered stance to will the good of another. We become more when we follow what truly brings us joy and fulfills us. We encounter God through embracing the wonders of his creation!

As Jesus said to Philip, “Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). The Kingdom of God is among us because Jesus is who he said he is. Jesus is fully God and fully man in our midst. By his very presence, he shows us that there is no opposition or competition but a union between heaven and earth. We will never fully comprehend God, but we can come to know and understand God, ourselves, and the world around us better when we breathe with both lungs of faith and reason, embrace our intellect as well as our spirit. As St. John Paul II stated, “Faith without reason is superstition” and as attributed to Albert Einstein, “Reason without faith is boring.”

Photo: God offers himself to us in so many ways that are true, good, and beautiful! Just like in the wonder of each sunrise!

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, November 12, 2026

Making time to be grateful is transformative.

Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you” (Lk 17:17-19).

Bloodline doesn’t matter, gender doesn’t matter, nation doesn’t matter, ethnicity or race doesn’t matter. Ask Mary the mother of Jesus, ask Mary Magdalene, ask the woman who suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years, ask the Roman centurion whose slave was dying, ask the Samaritan leper what matters. Each of them will share with us that what matters is our belief and faith in Jesus the Christ.

The lifeblood of Christianity is our belief in and developing of our relationship with Jesus, the Son of God, who made his dwelling among us. St Irenaeus of Lyons (born in Smyrna about 135-140 AD and died about 202-203 AD) in his work Against the Heresies wrote: “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did through His transcendent love, become what we are, that he might bring us to be even what He is himself.”

That Jesus became one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity is something to be thankful for! Many times when we are feeling down, maybe it is because we are focusing on what we do not have or who is not in our life, instead of being thankful for what we have and who is in our lives. Maybe we are focusing more on the challenges and trials, rather than the One who can help. A way to adjust our perspective is to stop for a few moments and think about three things we are grateful for.

The leper from today’s Gospel helps us to take the next step. Once we allow ourselves to be aware of what we are thankful for, let us thank the One who made what we have possible. Our time on earth is too short to allow the temptations of indifference and complacency to take hold. May we be more aware and choose to reach out to those who are important in our lives and tell them how thankful we are that they are in it, how much they mean to us, and how much we love them. Including God the Father for his constant and abiding presence, the wonderful gift of the invitation of his Son, Jesus, that we are invited to share in his divinity, and the Holy Spirit who loves us more than we can imagine so that we may love one another.

Photo: God offers us the gift of his grace in our everyday moments. When we call the times he does to mind, we experience joy!

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, November 11, 2026

“We have done what we are obliged to do.”

“When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do'” (Lk 17:10).

This closing line from our Gospel reading today can be a hard verse to digest at first glance, especially with our track record of slavery in the U.S. We need to remember and recognize that this was a teaching that Jesus shared in a different time period, in a different culture, and in a place far removed from any clear modern context. The master/slave relationship is also a theme that Luke returns to often.

Another important point to touch upon when reading the Gospels is that when Jesus made the statement that, “we are unprofitable servants; we have done what we are obliged to do”, we are not to read this verse in isolation from the full context of Scripture. Jesus himself modeled service at the last supper when he washed his disciples’ feet (cf. Jn 13:1-17). This was the lowest of menial tasks. St Paul wrote to the Galatians informing them that in the Body of Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male nor female (cf. Galatians 3:28). The ultimate point is that God is God and we are not. We all have a part to play in participating in and promoting the kingdom of God by following his lead.

Jesus was most likely speaking here to his apostles, his hand picked twelve. He is reminding them and us that to be his follower is not about pride and prestige, but about serving who God calls us to serve. As a disciple of Jesus, we are not to seek adulation and glory. We are to serve God and one another without hesitation.

We serve God because he is the director and we are the directed. He is the master and we are the servant. He is our Father and we are his children. In aligning ourselves in this way, we also experience the intrinsic joy of following his will because will come to realize that he has our best in mind. As we follow Jesus’ guidance, we grow in relationship with him and our Father, and experience more of the love of the Holy Spirit. As the apostles followed Jesus, there came a point where he said to them that he no longer called them servants but his friends (see John 15:15). That is to be our hope as well.

No task is too menial or beneath us, nor do we need to be concerned about doing big and grandiose things. We just need to be obedient and act as God leads. Each engagement with another we are invited to smile, to hold a door, to respect and appreciate one another, to be patient and present in another’s pain. Instead of becoming impatient and lose our temper, we can breathe and listen with understanding. When occasions arise where we have been hurt, we can forgive. These are opportunities to love.

Pope Leo shared with the newly ordained bishops who had gathered in Rome on September 11, 2025 that, “those whom Jesus calls as disciples and heralds of the Gospel, especially the Twelve, are required to have inner freedom, poverty of spirit, and a willingness to serve that is born of love, in order to embody the very choice of Jesus, who made himself poor to enrich us (cf. 2 Cor 8:9).” Although not apostles or bishops, through small acts of kindness we are called to serve and to love. As St Mother Teresa said, we are to be a pencil in God’s hand. Let us with the lead of God continue to help him to write his love letter to those in our corner of the world.

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Photo credit: Blessed to be able to visit with members of and hear Hakuna sing. Hakuna is a young adult Catholic lay movement, a “Eucharistic family” who serve the Church by giving of their time to lead people to Jesus in Eucharistic adoration and song. This was their first appearance in America.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, November 10, 2026

Are we living as if our bodies are a marketplace or a temple of the Holy Spirit?

When I was still teaching, I would ask my students if Jesus ever sinned. Inevitably, someone referenced the account from today’s Gospel. In these verses, we read how Jesus, “made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area” (Jn 2:15). Jesus is not sinning here, rather, he is acting in line with prophetic tradition. Jesus is making a bold spectacle to drive home the point that the temple is not a “marketplace” or a “den of thieves” but it is to be a place of worship and right praise to his Father.

We can see prophetic echoes from Zechariah 14:21 where he prophesied that there would be a time when there would no longer be “merchants in the house of the LORD of hosts” and Jeremiah 7:11 where Jeremiah asked, “Has this house which bears my name become in your eyes a den of thieves? I have seen it for myself!” Jesus not only places himself in the line of prophets and professes their words from God, he acts like them in making such bold statements. There is a difference though.

Greater still than the temple, is the people of God. Further down in the text, when those present ask for a sign to justify this act, Jesus said: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). John makes the point clear that Jesus was pointing to his body as the temple of God and referring to his Resurrection to come. Jesus is the new temple and he is establishing a new covenant.

The temple, the house of God, believed to be the corporal presence, the very seat of God among his people, Israel, was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. This left a tremendous spiritual, political, and social vacuum. Two groups that were intimately tied to the sacrificial cult of the temple, the Sadducees and the Essenes, very soon after the destruction, ceased to exist as a sect within Judaism. The Pharisees, who already were moving to a practice of home worship that mirrored the worship in the temple, would survive and be the ancestral root of different expressions of Judaism today. Another sect would also arise as the followers of the new way of Jesus which became the Church, “God’s building” and “the temple of God”.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, his rising after the third day, Jesus becomes the first born of the new creation. Those who are baptized do not just gather in a church, they are the Church, the temple of God.

Each one of us has a unique part to play in the Church. We are called to bear witness and practice, in our own unique way, our faith in our everyday experiences. We may be the only church someone ever enters and the only Bible someone ever reads. This call to put our faith into action is not an invitation to be overwhelmed by nor an excuse to assume a posture of elitism. We are no better than anyone else.

Pope Leo recently said to students participating in the Jubilee of the World of Education: “How wonderful it would be if one day your generation were remembered as the ‘generation plus,’ remembered for the extra drive you brought to the Church and the world.” May we all hear these words, seek and follow Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and allow his truth and his love to shape and transform our lives. When we are willing to encounter and walk together, we learn and grow from one another. We are also less apt to keep other at a distance and become more willing to draw close.

We need to resist all that contributes in any way to the dehumanization, division, hate, and violence by rooting ourselves in Jesus, the living Temple. In doing so, we will become aware that we ourselves are temples of the Holy Spirit. In spending consistent time in silence, prayer, meditation, study, worship, and service, we not only purify our temple, we better know God and his will, become conformed to and empowered by the love of Christ to be instruments of peace, contemplatives in action, and advocates for healing and reconciliation in a wounded and weary church, politics, country, and world.

Photo: “God is silence, and this divine silence dwells in man” (Cardinal Sarah, 22). In silence we come to experience ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit.

Sarah, Cardinal Robert with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2017.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, November 9, 2026

“A life not lived for others is not a life.” – St. Mother Teresa

Our teen years can be the best of times, but they can also be the scariest of times. It is during our early development that we begin experiencing the awakening of the fullness of our humanity, psychologically, emotionally, socially, sexually, and spiritually. We start to ask ourselves what it means to be open to experiencing life, to accepting the gift of our humanity, answering questions like why do we exist, what is our purpose in life, who am I?

When I was in high school, I asked myself these questions. But I did so, mostly, within the confines of my own mind. I didn’t reach out too much. I kept my questions, emotions, joys, and struggles pretty much bottled up inside. This is not a healthy practice, because, at that age, I hadn’t developed the discipline of discernment, I hadn’t lived enough to have the benefit of the gift of lived experience.

During my last two years of high school, I experienced some intimate interactions with God that I have shared in past reflections as well as even just for the briefest of seconds, his absence. I remember one evening while in bed I tried to imagine life without God, an eternity without God. I then tried to imagine absolute nothingness. I don’t remember for how long, but I do remember the instant and split second that I experienced that sense of nothingness and feeling an absence of God. It was not pleasant, it was unnerving, and it was a wake-up call.

No matter our age, we have a lot on our plate, there is a lot that we are dealing with. There are a lot of temptations that pull at us, that if we give in to can destroy our relationships, that can take our very lives. The most dangerous one to buy into is the lie that we walk this journey of life alone. We need one another, we need to risk reaching out to share our fear, our pain, our questions, with somebody, even better a core group of those we can trust. Yes, there will be those who we reach out to, that will not be there for us, there will be those who do not nor want to understand, there will be those that we encounter that will be cruel and aloof. But this we can be clear about, please let these words soak into the very core and fiber of your being:

Always remember that you are unique, you are one of a kind, you are special, you are loved, and you are a gift to your family, friends, your parish, church, or place of worship, community, and the world. Read this section again, aloud if you have to. From the very moment of your conception, our Father has written on your heart that he loves you more than you can imagine, and I am always, always, here and with you.

As we age, we hope to progress in wisdom, as wisdom is considered the “perfection of prudence,” as is shared in the first reading from Wisdom. Prudence is the virtue that we develop which allows us to make the right decision, at the proper time, and especially while facing temptations, stress, and exhaustion. “Resplendent and unfading is wisdom, and she is readily perceived by those who love her, and found by those who seek her” (Wisdom 6:12).

Seeking Lady Wisdom leads us to seek a life worth living, which is to live outside of one’s self for the purpose of willing the good of others. This is to be true even despite the forces that will work against us. Living our faith means taking a risk: a risk, that we will not be understood, a risk that we will be hurt, a risk that we will be rejected. All the same a risk worth taking.

Do we allow our fears, anxieties, doubts, and a minimalist approach to just settle to rob us? If you thought yes, then you are not alone. We all do! But we don’t have to stay in that state. God invites us each day and each moment, to breathe, to receive, to rest and abide in his love for us. When we do, we will begin to experience his love and know that we are not alone after all. As we experience more of God’s love and trust him more we feel that wonderful feeling of being seen, known, and that we belong. From that place of knowing God and experiencing his love, we want to share that love we others, we want to serve.

St. Mother Teresa said, “A life not lived for others is not a life.” How can she say that? Because she knew Jesus intimately, she experienced him in the depth of her soul, answered his call to serve the poorest of the poor, even, when for the last fifty years of her life she experienced an absence from him who called her.

How do we live our life for someone else?

Like St. Mother Teresa, we look for Jesus in each person we interact with and we do so when we treat each person we meet with dignity and respect. We resist judging another and accepting them as they are and where they are. We welcome them as our brothers and sisters. This stance ought to be our foundational approach. From that point, each of us also has a unique vocation of service. Some way that we can contribute to the Body of Christ that God uniquely calls us to.

We need to be careful though that our day to day demands as students, employees, family providers and caregivers, material and social pursuits, don’t consume all our time and distract us from our greater purpose in life.

This is the point of The Parable of the Ten Virgins. We can only develop a relationship with Jesus, only develop our faith for ourselves. We can’t do it for others. I can share stories from my experiences to show you the possibilities, the reality from my perspective as life in relationship with Jesus but you have to experience Jesus for yourself. You must see the relevance of Jesus in your life. You must be willing to receive his forgiveness and his love and answer his call to begin your vocational path.

Like I imagined nothingness for that briefest of moments, can you imagine living 20, 30, 50, or 60 years, or your whole life, never knowing your purpose?  Unaware and without hope, like St. Paul wrote about in the second reading today (cf 1 Thessalonians 4:13)? Do we want to just go through the motions, to fiddle our life away, and to miss out on a life of joy and fulfillment that God has in store for us? The good news is that it is never too late to begin. And even if we have already said yes, each day is a new beginning, each day we are called to deepen our relationship, to rededicate our willingness to go out to love God, love others, and make disciples.

“What is my purpose in life?” No matter who we are or what our status, we are loved by God. Please receive the reality of that Gift from the God of all creation. Then from a place of thankfulness, may we seek to pursue the freedom for excellence that embraces life with a singular purpose that guides us every day. What is it that God would have us do? What brings us fulfillment and joy? If we do not know how, or where to begin, Jesus knows, let us turn to him to seek his wisdom and guidance.

May we embrace the gift God has given us, his life for us, the dignity of our own humanity, and that of one another. In today’s gospel reading, the problem with the five virgins who had not filled up their oil lamps was that they did not bother to do so. Fr. James Martin, S.J. shared in a talk that, “Sin for Jesus was a failure to bother to love.”

Being a Christian, embracing our humanity, is to bother. We are made to care. We are to go out from our comfort zones empowered by the Holy Spirit to live life fully with joy, to receive our unique purpose, to treat each other with love, mercy, caring, and kindness. We don’t have to have all the answers, we don’t have to fix ourselves and those we meet. We are not machines to be fixed, but daughters and sons of God to be loved.

Unfortunately, election season can be a challenge and we can forget to see each other as brothers and sisters. With the end of the mid-terms, let us work for healing and reconciliation. We can start by seeing each other as human beings first and foremost. That does not mean that we all have to agree. We can though be more willing to listen to and respect the dignity of one another.

Photo credit: Eddie Adams – AP – St. Mother Teresa encountered Jesus in the Mass and so could better see Jesus in each person she served.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, November 8, 2026

Each moment we choose who we serve.

“No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Lk 16:13).

Jesus consistently emphasizes the priority of making God primary in our lives. Anything that moves into the slot of preeminence before God is idolatrous. Anything, even family, as we heard a few days ago. We cannot have two firsts, because either we will “hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” This balancing act is not an easy discipline.

It becomes especially challenging when we look at mammon, money, or material wealth. Many of us seek our security in having a home, insurance policies, savings, retirement plans, market investments. Setting up this security is often considered prudent. The problem is when material security becomes the foundation of our life, our fulfillment, our god.

This has certainly influenced the Church at times with movements governed by a prosperity gospel. The approach to a faith life that is not so much building up a relationship with our loving God and Father, but one of seeking God as a holy investor. There is a perspective offered on verses such as the Parable of the Sower (cf. Mark 4, Matthew 13, and Luke 8) in which the primary intent in giving is to reap a financial return of ten, twenty, or a hundredfold. God certainly wants us to be good stewards, and he will indeed bless us and wants us to be generous and cheerful with our giving, but again, if in our giving the primary intent is to receive more of our treasure, we are serving Mammon and not God.

We are not to seek the gift, but the giver of the gift. The greatest gift we can see is the love and affirmation of our Father. The cost is to place ourselves in a position to breathe, receive, rest, and abide in his love. Also, we are to place the love of God before any other affections. By making this shift, then any wealth that we have we realize is gift from God. We have no need to cling to the gift, but recognize we are to be good stewards of the gifts that we have received.

Following are two scriptural verses and two Church Father quotes that may help us to see that in giving away and not accumulating the material, trusting in God for our security, is the more prudent path:

“If one of your kinsmen in any community is in need in the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand to him in his need. Instead, you shall open your hand to him and freely lend him enough to meet his need” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8).

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35).

“When giving to the poor, you are not giving him what is yours; rather, you are paying him back what is his” (St Ambrose of Milan, 340-339).

“If each one of us took only what is necessary for his sustenance, leaving what is superfluous for the indigent, there would be no distinction of rich and poor” (St Basil of Caesarea, 330-379).

Our reactions to the above can be a barometer as to whether we are putting gold first or God first. God is to be our source, security, and foundation. The blessing we receive, the hundredfold we seek, is to be measured in love, mercy, and generosity received and given.

Do we place our trust, faith, and security in Mammon, or God? Do we build up treasure for ourselves at the expense of or indifference toward others or build up our treasure in heaven, aware of and reaching out to those who are in need? Were someone to observe us objectively, and closely would they say about us, “There goes someone that lives their life believing: In Gold we Trust.” Or would they say, “There goes someone that lives their life believing: In God we Trust?”

Photo: God is the light that shines in our darkness and reveals the truth that sets us free from our attachments and disordered affections.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, November 7, 2026

May we ponder our choices and be prudent in our actions.

In the Parable of the Dishonest Steward, the man who is on the block to lose his job for squandering his lord’s property comes up with a plan to settle his lord’s accounts. He lessened the amount owed with the intent to gain some support from those indebted to his master. He could have been giving up his own profits in settling these debts, much like a real estate agent or car salesman today foregoing their commission to make a sale. There is no evidence though within the account to support this premise.

Pushed up against the wall, this dishonest steward is not even repentant. He does a quick assessment, realizes he is not strong enough to work for a wage nor is he willing to beg, he makes the judgment that his best course of action to save himself is to cheat “his master to gain favor with his debtors” (Gadenz, 282). He hopes that this gesture will at least grant his some good will when he is seeking a place to stay.

Although continuing his dishonest ways, his master recognizes his prudence or cleverness. He is commended not because of his continuing dishonesty but because he had utilized foresight, which was a better quality to develop than the original squandering that landed him in this predicament in the first place.

Jesus commenting on this parable also acknowledged those who were clever in worldly ways. Being shrewd and having the foresight to navigate potential conflicts to acquire the desired goal is admirable. Again, Jesus is not holding up the dishonesty of the steward as a model, but his prudence. We see again a common feature in Jesus’ parables, as well as a common teaching practice of the rabbis of the time. Jesus builds on a lesser example to lead his listeners, most likely here his disciples and for any Pharisees listening in, to the greater.

Jesus pointed out that in the ways of the world, many like the dishonest steward, can act with prudence and so the “children of the light” ought to act with prudence also. “The parable thus instructs disciples to take initiative and plan wisely so as to enter God’s kingdom” (Gadenz, 282). Our creative energy and cleverness ought to also be expended to help in evangelization. As we spread the Gospel, we do so, not in a one size fits all approach. We are to be present and adjust to each person’s unique dispositions.

Many in the Church have gone before us aware of the needs of those people in their midst and coming up with creative ways to minister to them. Often they utilized the model of the steward’s prudence in today’s Gospel, although for more other-centered outcomes, giving up their opportunity for immediate gain to provide for the needs of others.

St. Francis of Assisi, lived his youth, not as a faithful steward, but as a pampered troubadour, part of the social elite. Then as his transformation began to take hold, he began to sell off his father’s cloth and gave it to the poor. He would ultimately renounce his family name as well as all material possessions, and give all to follow Jesus.

St. Mother Teresa, left her home at eighteen, never to see her family again to become a missionary in India with the Loretto Sisters. She became a school teacher in Calcutta, by no means squandering what the Lord gave her, but she too was called to go deeper. She left the convent to serve the poorest of the poor in the streets, those in the most deplorable of conditions.

Jesus has a unique call for each of us. We too are called to be faithful, prudent stewards, to be holy, and to be saints. What needs do we see in our midst? In what ways can we meet those needs? Each of us is invited into a deeper embrace of the Gospel. “We experience faith and encounter God in our own particular time in history, and faith lights up our journey through time. Faith must be passed on in every age” (Pope Francis, 20). May we allow ourselves to ponder the unique way that Jesus is calling us to serve and pass on our faith, one encounter at a time.

Photo: Enjoyed a moment to ponder the view, although was not prudent in my choice of seat which was an outdoor padded chair soaked through after a few days of torrential rains 🙂

Gadenz, Pablo T. The Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018.

Walking With Pope Francis: Thirty Days with the Encyclical The Light of Faith. New London, CT., Twenty Third Publications, 2013

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, November 6, 2026

God, extravagantly and relentlessly, seeks us.

Luke records Jesus being critiqued for eating with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus responds to the criticism from the Pharisees and the scribes as well as his disciples who are present as well by sharing three parables, two of which we read today, and the third, the Prodigal Son, which is often reserved for reading on Sunday during this liturgical cycle of readings.

The two parables we are given today display the extravagant love that our God and Father has for his children. Though we may not find being compared to a sheep or a coin endearing, the imagery of the shepherd going to find the one lost sheep and the woman searching all over her house for the one lost coin is a message well worth meditating upon.

This is a wonderful distinction about our faith. Many within and without many religious traditions seek God. In Catholicism we believe, God seeks us out and never stops looking and inviting. He never tires of forgiving, guiding, and loving us, even when we may time and again walk away. God’s patience is ever present. “God relentlessly seeks out the sinner” (Gadenz, 273). Being compared to a sheep or a going doesn’t sound so bad now, does it? 🙂

Someone hearing this parable might say, “Why bother looking for the one sheep when you have ninety-nine other sheep or why bother looking for one insignificant coin when you have nine other ones?” But if we reflect upon this parable for a bit we might recall a time or feel right now in this moment that we may be feel lost, insignificant, or alone. What Jesus is telling us is that we matter. That God loves us more than we can ever imagine, and he is constantly seeking us out. God is the creator of the vast expanse of the cosmos while at the same time he cares for each and every one of us in a radical love of particularity. He cares for you as if you were the only person in the world.

We do not need to look for God so much as we need to just stop, be still, and notice he is already waiting for us. If we feel a bit worn, weary, misunderstood, lost, lonely or under appreciated, rest assured. God cares. God is present, yes, even in the midst of any conflicts, challenges, trials and/or tribulations that we may be going through. Even if we have separated ourselves from him through our sin, Jesus loves us more than we can ever mess up and he is the shepherd that watches over us and seeks us out even when we walk away from him. Return to him and allow yourself to experience the healing balm of his forgiveness.

We return by letting go of control, breathing, and allowing ourselves to experience the loving embrace of Jesus, allowing ourselves to be loved, to be filled up. Making the time to rest, receive and abide in God’s love, we will then have more to share with someone we encounter who may also need to know that they matter, that they have dignity, are not alone, and that they too as we are – loved.

Photo: One of my favorite pencil drawings by Kathryn J. Brown, 1982. Come let us rest in our Lord’s embrace and be loved by the Good Shepherd for a while.

Gardens, Pablo T. The Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, November 5, 2026

We are to love Jesus more, than our possessions, our family and friends, even our own life.

I can visualize the opening scene of today’s Gospel in my mind’s eye. Jesus striding along with a gathering of people walking, talking, and moving about, and then he just stops. The turns. Those closest to Jesus pull up with him, others continue right past, while at the same time others bump into and trip over those who had stopped before them. The subtle hum of random conversation then slowly comes to a halt. A stillness ripples through the crowd, and then there is silence. The dust begins to settle. Those closest have their eyes locked on his, while those further back are craning their necks, moving left and right to get a better look. Still others are cupping their ears to catch the sound of Jesus’ voice.

Those following Jesus consisted of disciples to be sure, while the greater majority were those on the periphery gathering because of curiosity, intrigue, and maybe even wonder. Jesus then begins to speak, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife or children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life,…” and then, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me…” and then he finishes with “In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” (cf. Lk 14:25-33).

Those who may be hearing these words second hand, as they were further away from the point of direct hearing, may not believe that the message was transmitted to them correctly. These words cut to the quick, just as surely as when Jesus shared about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and when he told another follower, who wanted to bury his father to let the dead bury their dead. Luke does not say, but it is likely that many of those gathered around him were just as shocked and began to walk away.

The familial bond for ancient peoples was strong. Though the invitation of salvation that Jesus offers is for all to be saved, he is not going to dumb down or sugar coat his message just to get numbers. Jesus presents, time and again, that the way to live a life of fullness and wholeness, to restore that which has been lost, is to put God first in our lives. God must be the primary focus, the primary relationship in our lives, nothing else can have priority of place before him. When we do so, everyone and all other things will fall into their proper place, will be properly ordered. We will experience a peace and rest.

Do we want to be an onlooker, just someone looking at Jesus from a distance? Or do we want to be a disciple, willing to be his servant sent forth to share the Gospel and invite others into relationship with him? Are we attached to possessions, false substitutes, even members of our family, such that we place them before our relationship with God? Idols are anything that we put before God and will distract and divert us from the very flow of his life force that fuels our existence. If we are willing to walk the path of discipleship, we must be willing to surrender our will to God, place him first in our lives, take up our cross, and be open to being transformed by his love.

Jesus is the interpretive key that opens our understanding. All that which is material and finite in our lives only find true meaning in relation to him. Only when we are able to let go of the attachments to the things of this world will we then truly be free and experience then healthier relationships to each other. St. Francis embodied this in a radical way. One of his foundational prayers, which he sometimes would pray for hours was, “My God and my all!” And that is the life he lived and which Jesus invites us to live.

Photo: Blessed to concelebrate Mass at St. Anastasia a few weeks ago as we gathered to pray and prepare for World Youth Day in South Korea.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, November 4, 2026

We are to love one another as family, for each of us are beloved children of God.

“[W]hen you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you” (Lk 14:13-14).

Jesus means what he says here, though I am not sure many of us are ready to live this Gospel out. If we are going to get to the point where we can, we must understand the deeper point that he is making. The words of Jesus above give us an example of what it means to love unconditionally. We are to resist the temptation of doing anything with the primary purpose of receiving thanks or praise. We are to instead reach out to those in need because they are in need seeking nothing in return.

We embrace our dignity as human beings when we recognize the inherent dignity of another and serve them without hesitation, without holding anything back. Today’s parable puts flesh on the bones Jesus’ teachings because he shows that “the radical demands of discipleship in the kingdom involve renouncing ‘possessions’ (Luke 14:33) and even ‘hating’ one’s family: ‘father and mother, wife and children’ (14:26). The demands are worth it, however. Hence, even if the excuses seem like good ones (see 9:57-62), they pale in comparison to the blessing of dining in God’s kingdom (14:15)” (Gadenz, 266).

This is the root of what we mean when we say that we are believers in the God of Jesus Christ. God is a divine community of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father gives all that he is to the Son perfectly, infinitely, holding nothing back. The Son receives all that he has been given perfectly, infinitely and returns, in like fashion, what he has received back to the Father, holding nothing back. The infinite love shared between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.

The Son of God became incarnate, one with us in our humanity, and he also gave all of himself to us on the cross, holding nothing back. He conquered death, rose from the dead, ascended to the Father so that we now can participate in that same divine love given and received between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We do not give of our time, talent, and treasure, so that we will receive more of each. We give, we love, we will the good of each other, because we have been loved into existence and are continually loved more than we can ever imagine by God. We are to receive his love and love in return because that is who God created us to be.

The very fact that we exist, that we have life, is a gift, yet we are not meant to merely exist. Jesus teaches us that the height of our humanity is to allow him to love us and through us, love others unconditionally. When we look into the eye of each and every person we meet, we are to see a brother, sister, mother, father. With each smile, each embrace, each listening ear, each act of invitation to walk not ahead, not behind, but with another, and by simply being present, we reaffirm to each other that we have dignity. This is true because each and every one of us has been created in the image of God, who is love.

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Photo: St. Martin de Porres lived out this gospel literally. From the Dominican monastery in Lima, Peru, he fed several hundred people a day, provided healing, financial support, and began a school for street children. St. Martin, pray for us that we also may be people of prayer and service.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, November 3, 2026.