October 26, 2025: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God hears the prayers of those who are poor and lowly in a powerful way.  Like the tax collector in the parable of the Gospel reading, they have the humility to recognize who God is and who they are, and how they are not God.  So they open themselves up and are truly receptive to how God fills them.  The Pharisee praises Himself in prayer, and has not made room for God.

Humility is an important virtue for us, the faithful, so we can remember God is God and we are not, and that God alone can meet our needs.  With humility, we position ourselves to rely on God.

Certainly, St. Paul relied on God through his life's difficulties, and was confident that God would bring him safely to His Heavenly Kingdom.  As he neared the end of his life, St. Paul recognized that, reliant on God, he had fought the Good Fight, finished the race, and kept the faith, fixed on God.  He would then receive a reward for being faithful.

We can join with him and all the saints in the great reward of Heaven by constantly striving faithfully in this life, fixing ourselves on God.

October 19, 2025: 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God has created a plan for this world, and He chooses us to be part of it.

I heard a great insight from the All Set for Sunday podcast with Father Andy Syberg as the guest with Scott and Jeff for this 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  "Prayer allows us to know God's will for our lives."  As he elaborates, through prayer, we ultimately come to know God more closely, and then we can know His will.  So we can participate in God's will and God's plan through prayer.

God desires for us to keep striving after Him, becuase the process can benefit us, even as we wait for God to fulfill our needs.  Moses had a part to play in the success of the battle, and he had to keep his arms lifted for success to unfold.  The widow in the Gospel reading's parable kept persisting for an unjust judge to give her a favorable ruling, and he finally granted it.

Even more so, God desires to meet our needs out of love for us.  It matters for us to have faith so we can strive ultimately for God and be ready to embrace what He offers us.

20 years ago on this weekend of the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, I was confirmed.  It began a new life for me of constantly striving for God and the ways He would continue to fill me in the power of the Holy Spirit.

October 18, 2025: Feast of St. Luke

Jesus Christ, by coming to Earth as our Savior, has shown us a new way and given us a mission that emerges from His salvation.

We magnify God, giving glory to Him, and bring peace to Earth as we proclaim the Kingdom.

We do all this in the power of the Holy Spirit, a sure sign that the Risen Christ is at work to heal us in the very depths of our beings, and is present with us to fill us abundantly.

As St. Luke heralded the Gospel, so we proclaim the Good News by our lives.

October 12, 2025: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Throughout the centuries, God has shown extraordinary power in healing people.

But beyond healing, God desires for us to have faith in Him.

Amazingly, Naaman travels from a foreign country to be healed.  After frustration that the prophet Elisha doesn't do something wondrous to heal him, he bathes in the Jordan River and is healed.  He then praises the name of God and pledges wholehearted devotion to God alone in worship for all his days.

Similarly, while Jesus heals a group of ten people ailing with leprosy miraculously, a Samaritan in the group is the only one who returns to Jesus with thanksgiving, praise, and glorification of God.  That's why Jesus commends Him for faith that has saved Him.

Like St. Paul writes, God is always faithful, even when we're not and even when we deny Him.  In response to such great faithfulness, let's keep striving to acknowledge Him, and not cast ourselves away by denying Him.  Let's strive to proclaim the saving power of God, Who has triumphed over all that ails humanity so that, beyond physical healing, all can experience God's salvation.

As we reach the Feast of St. Carlo Acutis for the first time since his canonization, we are reminded of his devotion to faith and his zeal to share it with others, an example for us all.

October 5, 2025: 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God has a great plan for our world and our lives, yet sometimes, it's hard to see how something great can happen for us.

He calls us, like He did the prophet Habakkuk, to wait and watch for this plan to unfold.  He calls us to faith, which truly sustains us.  Even when our faith is small like the mustard seed, when we put it into action with a great heart, it will yield a great bounty.

So we live by faith, in the words of St. Paul, to stir into flame the gift of God and walk with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, God has given us the incredible gift of being in relationship with Him by faith.  We don't need to have firm answers because God has filled us in the fullest way, as we can be so close to Him.  And we know that He has everything secure in His hands, a firm grounding for us, with the Holy Spirit guiding us to respond to the difficulties of the world, while in tune with God's loving presence.

September 28, 2025: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our faith gives us a different perspective on the world.  We look beyond economic conditions that lead to the realities of riches and poverty, hearing a call to respond to needs around us.

We who have riches are called to use them in the spirit of Jesus Christ, Who became poor so that we could become rich.  So we build the Kingdom of God.

At the Last Supper, the night before His execution, Jesus Christ gave a new command, to love one another.

St. Paul surely had this command in mind when he urged Timothy to keep the command as part of striving to fight the good fight of faith, striving onward toward Eternal Life.  We experience it now when we build God's Kingdom by meeting needs.

September 21, 2025: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The fallen nature of our world makes amassing personal wealth so enticing, people abuse others to gain for themselves, like the first reading from Amos shows.

The wealth of this world is meant for a different purpose as we come to understand by faith.

In what is at first a puzzling parable, a dishonest steward is on the verge of being dismissed for incompetence in his work.  To make his life after his job more comfortable, he takes steps to curry favor with his master's debtors, and clearly the master is impressed at his prudence.

If dishonest people can be so shrewd to gain for themselves, we are meant to be just as strategic in building treasure in Heaven, devoting ourselves to God in all we do.  Even St. Paul writes in the 2nd reading from 1 Timothy about praying for our leaders and joining together in fellowship peaceably.

Indeed, we are meant to edify one another, rather than focusing solely on ourselves and what we can gain for ourselves.  With that perspective, in words I often hear in the prayer after communion, we use the wealth of the earth to attain what is everlasting.

Today's liturgy supersedes the Feast of St. Matthew, and it's still worth celebrating him today becuase he is an example of someone who was so focused on building wealth for himself, like many tax collectors were.  When Jesus called him, he was clearly stirred deep within, and left his lifestyle to follow Jesus.  He experienced a great transformation to proclaim the Good News by His life of how, when we repent, God's power is truly manifest in our lives as we build His Kingdom on Earth.