The Solemnity of All Saints, Saturday, November 1, 2025

Matthew 5, 1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

We call these the “Beatitudes”, a word which comes from the Latin beatitudo, which means “happiness”, because the one who lives out these words attains eternal happiness.  

If we take the Beatitudes together we find that the “blessed” are those who espouse what the world considers weakness and lay themselves open to harm.  The “merciful”, for instance, refuse to take vengeance on those who injure them.  The “meek” are those who go about their lives, minding their own business, and so are not setting out traps for others or seeking to climb over them at work or in politics.  The “pure of heart” single-mindedly serve their Master: “Jesus said to him: No man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9, 62).  Nor do they look to the side at improper things, or the sorts of things worldly people delight in.  These innocent folks do not conform to the world in order to gain safety at all costs, or position themselves in authority in service to their pride,  nor do they act out of fear or lack of confidence but rather out of strength, out of solidity in their purpose, and out of love for Jesus.  

It is significant that the Beatitudes  come at the head of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount because all that follows over the next three chapters derives from them.  They are an epitome of the Lord’s teaching.  We can see them acted out in each of his parables, his deeds, and his other teachings.  And it is necessary, if we are to know what they mean, to define their terms as the Lord does.  If we want to see how the Lord defines “mercy”, we can look at the parable of the Good Samaritan, and then at the Lord’s Death on the Cross.  If we want to understand what he means by a “peacemaker”, we look at the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, and then recollect that our Lord came among us not with lightning bolts and fire, but as an infant lying in a trough.  We follow the definitions of the Lord, not those that the world would impose.

At the end of the Beatitudes we find two that call “blessed” those who are persecuted for justice and for the Lord himself.  The living-out of the Beatitudes puts us at odds with a world that cannot bear criticism or opposition, even something as simple as the word “no”.  The world is a willful two-year old child, ever on the verge of a tantrum.  And so those who pursue the Beatitudes are bound to suffer persecution of one kind or another, either intermittently or continually, all their lives.  The Christian does not shy away from persecution but stands humbly and confidently with Jesus Christ, who came as “a sign that will be contradicted” (Luke 2, 34).  We are “signs” in the “Sign”: signs to the world that there is a different way to live, a way that does not involve the darkness of lies and delusion, a way that is bright with Truth and freedom.  In this way we fulfill our Lord’s commandment to preach the Gospel to all nations.

The saints in heaven are signs to us of Jesus Christ who both gives us the Beatitudes and exemplifies them in his life. We pray through their intercession that we may so shine in our living them out in our lives that we may join them in shining in the glory of heaven.

Friday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 31, 2025

Romans 9:1-5

Brothers and sisters: I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience joins with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are children of Israel; theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Few passages in Scripture are as startling in their emotional intensity as this one. Paul — who has spoken so exaltedly of the Spirit’s power, of divine love triumphant over every adversity — now turns suddenly inward, and we see the cost of that love. The Apostle who soared into the heights of grace now descends into the depths of anguish. For true love, in the image of Christ’s own, cannot rejoice in heaven while brothers remain estranged from it.

Paul begins solemnly: “I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie.” These are not casual words, but the language of oath and conscience. He knows what he is about to say sounds almost blasphemous—“I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ.” It is as though he offers himself as a substitute for his people, yearning to bear their loss that they might find salvation. Here the Apostle mirrors the very heart of the Redeemer: he would descend into the outer darkness if only others might see the light. It is an impossible wish, yet it expresses the perfection of charity — a love that measures nothing, but gives all.

The object of his anguish is Israel, “his kindred according to the flesh.” These are the people among whom he was raised, the people who first received the promises of God. Paul enumerates their privileges with reverence: “the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs.” It is a litany of divine intimacy. In every age God had drawn near to them, teaching them to hope for the Messiah. How painful, then, that when the Christ finally came—“who is over all, God blessed forever”—many could not recognize Him. The tragedy of unfulfilled expectation pierces Paul’s heart like a sword.

Yet even in lament, Paul’s tone is not one of reproach but of adoration. His grief becomes a prayer. He begins with sorrow but ends with praise: “Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever.” His anguish is enfolded by doxology. This is the mystery of redemptive compassion — the pain of love that does not despair. The same heart that breaks for the lost can still bless the Lord who saves.

For us, this passage invites a searching question: how deeply do we allow the sorrows of others to enter our own hearts? Do we, like Paul, feel “great sorrow and constant anguish” for those who wander far from God? Or do we shield ourselves from such pain? The apostolic spirit is one that refuses indifference. To be joined to Christ is to share in the burden of His longing — that none be lost, that every heart find its way home.

Paul’s lament is not the cry of one who doubts God’s justice, but of one who loves with God’s own compassion. It is the echo of Christ’s lament over Jerusalem: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.” Such love does not fade into bitterness; it endures, hopes, prays, and waits.

And so the passage closes not in darkness but in light. Israel’s story, Paul will show, is not ended but fulfilled in the mystery of Christ. The same God who chose them will yet reveal His mercy in ways the apostle himself cannot foresee. For divine election is not annulled by human failure, and the covenant written in sorrow will one day be perfected in joy.

Wednesday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 29, 2025

Romans 8, 26-30

Brothers and sisters: The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will. We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.

There are moments when our words fall silent before God — not from indifference, but from the weight of what lies within.  The Apostle here speaks to that silence.  Prayer, he says, is not our achievement but our surrender.  “We do not know how to pray as we ought.”  The Spirit himself must breathe within us the words we cannot form, translating our inarticulate longings into the language of divine love.  What a mystery — that the very breath of God stoops to pray in us, uniting our weakness to his own strength.  When we sigh, it is God sighing through us; when we ache for grace, it is the Spirit himself laboring to bring forth life in the soul.

And “He who searches hearts” — the Father who sees into the depths — recognizes in these wordless groanings the voice of his own Spirit.  Thus prayer becomes an interior conversation of God with God within the human heart.  We are caught up into that holy dialogue where the Trinity dwells: the Father knowing, the Son redeeming, the Spirit pleading.  To pray in the Spirit, then, is to be drawn into the very circulation of divine love.

From this hidden mystery Paul turns to a sweeping vision of Providence: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”  This is not the easy optimism of those untouched by suffering, but the faith born from the Cross — that even pain, loss, and failure are threads in the great tapestry of redemption.  Nothing is wasted in the economy of grace; everything is turned toward good for those who love.  The same Spirit who intercedes in our weakness also orders the whole universe toward the fulfillment of divine purpose.  What appears as chaos to our eyes is harmony to his.

Then Paul traces the golden chain of salvation: foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified.  Each link is the work of divine initiative.  Before we loved, we were loved.  Before we spoke, we were called by name.  Before we believed, we were chosen.  The goal of this design is not merely our rescue, but our conformity to the image of the Son — that Christ might be the firstborn among many brothers.  The destiny of every soul is to bear the likeness of Christ, to reflect in time what He is in eternity.

And so the passage moves from sighs too deep for words to glory too great for telling.  Between these two — the sigh and the glory — stretches the whole of Christian life.  We live in the tension between weakness and perfection, between the groaning of creation and the fullness of redemption.  But even in our frailty, the Spirit intercedes; even in our trials, all things work toward good; and even now, beneath the weight of mortality, the likeness of the Son is being shaped in us.  The story that begins in our groanings ends in glory, for the same Spirit who prays within us will one day raise us up to the presence of the Father, and we shall be what He has always seen us to be — his beloved, perfected in Christ.

Tuesday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 28, 2025

The Feast of Saints Simon and Jude

Ephesians 2, 19-22

Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

As in the case of the other men whom Jesus named as his Apostles, Saints Jude and Simon were Galileans.  Jude is called Thaddeus in the Apostle lists in both Matthew and Mark’s Gospels.  St. Luke calls him “Jude, the brother of James”, that is, James the Less who served as the first bishop of Jerusalem. The Armenian Christians regard him (along with St. Bartholomew) as having first brought the Gospel to their country, in the years following Pentecost. St. Simon is surnamed “the Zealot” or “the Canaanean”, both of which words come from the same root, but the Greek text listing him should be read as “Simon the zealous”. He is said to have preached, after Pentecost, in the east, possibly in the Parthian Empire. St. Jude and St. Simon share the same feast day because, according to an ancient tradition, they suffered martyrdom together in the city now known as Beirut in Lebanon.

St. Paul’s words to the Ephesians, used here for the First Reading for this Feast, form one of the most beautiful summaries of the mystery of the Church: a people gathered from every nation and age, no longer strangers or wanderers, but citizens and family members within the household of God. What was once divided — Jew and Gentile, heaven and earth—is now made one in Christ. The Church, for Paul, is not simply an institution or an assembly; it is a living architecture whose stones are persons, bound together by faith and love.

“You are no longer strangers and sojourners.” The world often leaves people feeling displaced—moving through life without a true home. But in Christ, exile ends. The baptized are not outsiders searching for belonging; they are already known and claimed, adopted into a divine household. Each soul has a room within the Father’s house, and that house is being built even now, silently, in the midst of history.

Paul calls the Apostles and prophets the foundation, and Christ the capstone. Foundations are hidden, buried beneath what they support. The witness of the prophets and Apostles sustains the Church’s faith quietly, unseen by the world. Yet the capstone—the keystone at the summit—holds the entire structure in harmony. Christ unites both the low and the high, the hidden and the visible, the ancient and the new. He is the point where all weight converges and all tension finds rest.

“Through him the whole structure is held together and grows.” The Church, then, is not a finished edifice but a living organism, always under construction in the Spirit. The mortar that binds its stones is not mortar of earth but the bond of charity. Each soul sanctified by grace becomes another course in the wall; each act of faith another support in the rising temple. We are not merely within the Church; we are the Church as it takes form in us.

And Paul adds a final marvel: “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” This is not poetry but theology of the highest order. The divine presence that once filled the Temple in Jerusalem now indwells the communion of believers. The Spirit who overshadowed the Ark now inhabits human hearts. The Church is thus both universal and intimate—vast as the Body of Christ extended through time, yet personal as the indwelling of grace in the soul.

To belong to this household is to live already in the threshold of heaven. The pilgrim becomes a citizen; the wanderer a son or daughter at home. Every act of faith, hope, and love sets another stone in the eternal sanctuary until, when all is complete, God will be “all in all” and His dwelling will be with his people.

Monday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 27, 2025

Romans 8, 12-17

We are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 

We continue with reflections on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which is used for the First Readings this month.

In this brief but profound passage, St. Paul draws back the veil on what it means to live as a Christian. We are not merely forgiven sinners; we are reborn sons and daughters of God. The Apostle begins by reminding us of what we are not: “We are not debtors to the flesh.” The “flesh” here means more than the body — it is the whole condition of fallen humanity that measures life only by pleasure, comfort, or self-preservation. To live “according to the flesh” is to live as if God’s Spirit had not entered the world. And so Paul warns: such a life leads to death, not only the death of the body, but the slow suffocation of the soul, which forgets how to breathe the air of grace.

But the Christian is not bound by that old servitude. The Spirit of God has entered our hearts like a new breath, a new vitality. “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This is not an invitation to despise our humanity, but to let grace govern it — to let the Spirit direct even the impulses of flesh and blood toward what is holy. The Spirit sanctifies the human, not by erasing it, but by filling it with divine life.

Paul then reaches the summit of his message: those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. The language is astonishingly intimate. We are not merely subjects in the kingdom; we are family members in the household of the Father. The Spirit we have received is not one of “slavery to fall back into fear.” The Law once made us servants who obeyed because we must. The Spirit now makes us children who love because we belong. And so we cry with Christ himself: “Abba, Father!” — that tender Aramaic word that Jesus used in Gethsemane when he spoke to his Father from the depths of obedience and love.

In that cry the mystery of adoption is made real. The Spirit does not merely tell us we are God’s children; he bears witness with our spirit — an interior testimony, deeper than words—that our identity has changed. Grace does not hover over us like a legal declaration; it transforms us from within. We become capable of addressing God not as a distant Creator but as a loving Father.

Finally, Paul extends this dignity into a promise: if we are children, then we are heirs—co-heirs with Christ. The Son’s inheritance becomes ours, because we are joined to him. But Paul reminds us that sonship and inheritance come through the same path the Son himself walked: suffering leading to glory. “If only we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.” Our sufferings, then, are not meaningless; they are the birth pangs of divine life within us. They shape us into the likeness of the Son, preparing us for the inheritance that will be revealed when we are finally made perfect in him.

Thus, to live “according to the Spirit” is to live as one who already shares in the divine family. We walk the earth not as slaves afraid of punishment, but as sons and daughters learning to love as our Father loves. The more we live in that Spirit, the more our hearts echo the voice of Christ within us: “Abba, Father!”

The 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 27, 2025

Luke 18:9-14

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity - greedy, dishonest, adulterous - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The Lord Jesus speaks here of two distinct ways of looking at oneself and at God.  The Lord identifies the first man in the parable as a Pharisee.  He need not have done this.  He could have left the man unidentified as to his religious party and attained the same basic result in his parable.  He chooses to identify him as a Pharisee, though, in order to show the weakness of their theology and its essential uselessness in aiding a person to become truly righteous.  The Pharisee in the parable does everything the Pharisees taught was necessary for righteousness: the proper fasting and tithing, and the avoidance of the ritual impurity which they believed sinners such as tax collectors contracted by their sins.  He also observes that he is not “greedy”, “dishonest”, and “adulterous”.  What he highlights, however, are merely outward actions in which he is not engaged.  To look at the Greek text, the man thanks God that he is not an extortioner, which is translated here as “greedy”.  He also is pleased that he is not an “unjust” or “unrighteous” man, translated here as “dishonest”.  And he rejoices that he is not an adulterer, translated here as “adulterous”.  He may very well be greedy, dishonest, and adulterous, but he has kept these vices to himself.  As far as appearances go, he is in a righteous state: he is a good Pharisee.

But that is all he is, a good Pharisee.  In his concern for outward righteousness, he has neglected the inward righteousness essential for salvation.  He has, in effect, chosen the easy way.  He has stayed away from unbecoming conduct without the conversion of heart all of us must have in order to serve God.  Furthermore, the pride to which he feels entitled insulates his innermost self from making a correct appraisal of himself.  Even when he does sin outwardly, his pride will prevent him from noticing, or will provide him a ready excuse for his deed, while looking for a way to blame others.

The tax collector, on the other hand, goes into the Temple (which indicates that he is in Jerusalem for one of the holy days) and he simply prays from his heart for mercy.  He recognizes himself as a sinner, makes no excuses or speeches, and is abject enough to allow us to think that he will make amends as best he can and avoid sin in the future.  Jesus says that this man “went home justified”, or, “having been made righteous”.  That is, by God.  While the Pharisee did no more than confirm for himself his feeling of being righteous — free from uncleanness — the tax collector was actually made so by God.  The Pharisee did not pray to God to be made righteous, but the tax collector did, though not daring to put it in so many words, and God answered his prayer.  In this way, too, the Lord showed how true righteousness differed from how the Pharisees understood it: it is a matter of freedom from sin, inward and outward, and not merely the avoidance of breaking the Law in outward actions.

“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  The one who humbles himself before God will be lifted up by God and the one who lifts himself up will be cast down, for the Lord will not hold him up, and he will not think he needs God’s help.

Saturday in the 29th Week of Ordinary Time, October 25, 2025

Romans 8, 1-11

Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh are concerned with the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit with the things of the spirit. The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace. For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God; it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.

There are moments in Paul’s letters when one feels the gates of heaven opening before the reader; this is one of them. The long struggle he described in the previous chapter—between the good he willed and the evil he did—finds its resolution not in greater human effort but in the entrance of divine grace. “Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” These words are not the conclusion of a moral argument but the proclamation of a new creation. Humanity, burdened by the law and the weakness of the flesh, has been drawn into another order of existence: life in the Spirit.

Paul contrasts two laws — one of sin and death, the other of the Spirit of life. The law of Moses, good and holy though it was, could not heal the inner wound of human nature. It could prescribe but not empower. The law of the Spirit, by contrast, is not written on stone but infused into the heart. It is the divine energy of the Risen Christ, the very breath of God dwelling within the believer, accomplishing what the old law could only desire. This is the central paradox of redemption: what the law could not do, God has done, through the sending of His Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” The flesh in which sin reigned becomes the instrument through which sin is condemned and overcome.

To live “according to the flesh” does not mean simply to live according to the body, but to live under the tyranny of self-enclosed desire—the human condition turned inward upon itself. To live “according to the Spirit” is to be opened outward and upward, to breathe with the divine life that animates the saints. The one life contracts and withers; the other expands and quickens. The concern of the flesh is death, not merely because it ends in mortality, but because it resists communion; it cannot submit to God’s law of love. The concern of the Spirit is life and peace — life because it unites us to the source of all being, and peace because it reconciles the divided heart.

Paul then turns from teaching to personal address: “But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.” This is more than exhortation—it is a declaration of identity. The Christian is one in whom the Spirit of God has taken up residence. God is not only above us, but within us; not only commanding, but transforming. The divine indwelling is not symbolic; it is the real participation of our souls in the risen life of Christ. This is why the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies. The Resurrection, already begun in Christ, begins mystically in every soul where grace reigns. The body remains subject to decay, yet even now it carries within it the seed of immortality.

To read this passage is to hear the heartbeat of the Gospel. Christianity is not a moral improvement project but a transference of being — a passage from the realm of death to the realm of life. “If Christ is in you,” says Paul, “the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” What greater consolation could there be than this: that beneath the frailty of the flesh and the dust of our mortality, the breath of the eternal Spirit already moves?

Here, the Apostle speaks not only to the intellect but to the soul’s deepest longing. We are not condemned; we are “indwelt”. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the tomb has entered into the dark places of our own nature to quicken them with divine light. To live by that