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.

September 14, 2025: Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

A central idea of our faith is that God is more powerful than evil, and He has demonstrated His power by transforming the cross, once regarded as a heinous symbol of death, and has redeemed it to be a means to Life.

This act of redemption resulted because Christ obediently submitted Himself to the Father's Will, humbling Himself even to the point of a horrible death on the Cross.

Having established our redemption, God exalted the Cross.  Indeed, Christ was raised up, just like Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness.  The people who were bitten by the snakes looked to an image of the snake and were cured.  We look to what was once something horrible and now we praise Christ and His Cross because we see our path to salvation in it.

Notably, the phrase Eternal Life is used more than once in the short Gospel passage from John 3.  It is truly a manifestation of God's power that an instrument of death could provide a way to Eternal Life, so that we could be free from sin and live united with God.  Even as we look toward the full manifestation of that reality, we rejoice in how we can experience Heaven now and share in the victory that made it possible.

Surely, this reality motivated St. Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton to overcome the sorrow of her husband's passing and the shaming of those close to her when she became Roman Catholic to live out her call to holiness and do so much good serving others in religious life, including the founding of schools.

We also rejoice in Pope Leo XIV's birthday of 70 years today, and how he has taken on the role of Supreme Pontiff, leading us toward God so that each of us does our part in the Church to confess the name of Jesus, Who submitted to the Father's plan to be our means to salvation.

September 8, 2025: Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary is a great example as the first disciple because she opened herself to the will of God.

Through her, God brought salvation to the world.

As we open ourselves to God's plan for our lives, He will also do great works through us as He continues to make His presence known in our world.

September 7, 2025: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

The first reading from Wisdom makes clear that we mortals are in a vulnerable state.  Only in receiving the wisdom and the Holy Spirit from God do we find meaning in life and keep to the straight path.

And so we can make sense of the difficult words of Jesus in the Gospel reading when He teaches to renounce possessions and to hate family members to be His disciples.  A commentary I read indicates that the structure of the original language uses hate to indicate order of preference.  We should put the focus on God above all and let that dictate how we relate to people and possessions.

And so even in the brevity of life, like Psalm 90 relates, we can find purpose in God Who grants us success and prosperity resulting from a relationship with Him.

This idea is also part of St. Paul's appeal to Philemon, who asks him to receive back the runaway Onesimus not as a slave, but as a brother in Christ.  This suggestion was radical in that time, and shows the power of the Gospel message to transform our lives and relationships.

With great joy, Holy Mother Church rejoices in the canonization of Saint Carlo Acutis and Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati.  In their short lives, they looked beyond this world to Heaven, and let the reality before Him drive them to evangelize with their lives. They are great examples for how encountering God, especially in the Eucharist, can inspire us from worship to action.  We also give thanks to God for our grandparents today and how He manifests His Love through what they have offered with their lives in devotion to God all the way through the generations to their grandchildren.

These principles of Love and Truth are timeless, and so we strive to keep devoted to them above all.