Saturday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 15, 2025

Luke 18, 1-8

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’” The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

“Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”  Most of the Lord’s parables describe some aspect of the Kingdom of God, and about the judgment of the wicked.  Here, he tells us how to pray.  This is most touching because it is not simply about obeying commandments and giving up everything for the Kingdom: it is about speaking to our Heavenly Father.  And, while nearly all of the Lord’s parables contain a bizarre element and end without a real conclusion, this parable features a bit of comedy.  First of all, St. Luke tells us that the Lord wanted to stress the “necessity them to pray always without becoming weary.”  These last few words can also be translated as “and not become faint.”  We learn here that the Lord considers it necessary for us to “pray always”.  We can pray always by speaking to our Lord throughout the day even when we are working.  We may not be able to pray continuously this way, but this does constitute praying “always”.  We can also pray at set times during the day when we are free.  We can offer the day to God in the morning and so our work itself becomes prayer.  Or we can pray the Breviary (also known as the Liturgy of the Hours).  The Lord, of course, knows that we cannot pray uninterruptedly like the angels and Saints in heaven.  Even praying “always” can be difficult, and so he addresses this matter, showing that it is worth the effort.  He particularly speaks here in his parable of the prayer of intercession, in which we ask something for ourselves or for others.

First, he introduces the character of the judge: “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being.”  This is an all-too-familiar character throughout history.  This man is not so much interested in God’s law or human law as in enforcing his will on society.  He is very self-important, and there is barely any space in his courtroom for anyone but himself.  But here comes this woman, a widow who sees herself as wronged and will have justice or else.  The translation here softens the situation.  The Douay Rheims provides a more accurate account of what the widow says to the judge: “Avenge me of my adversary.”  The judge, however, tries to ignore her case.  To him, it is trivial.  But it is of grest moment to the widow.  Finally, she wears down the judge, something no one else has been able to do.  He thinks to himself one day: “While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.”  That is, her hectoring has gotten to him.  She is there in his court first thing in the morning, she interrupts his other cases, she follows him around after the hearings are over.  He begins to fear for his health and safety.  He determined to rule in her favor whatever the merits of her case.

The parable ends there, but the Lord works through it with his disciples: “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?” If the unjust judge gives judgment for the woman he despises, how much more will the just God “secure the rights” of those whom he cherishes?  Now, the Lord asks, “Will he be slow to answer them?”    and then answers: “I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.”  That is to say, he will answer the prayer when it is most efficacious to do so.  There will be no arbitrary delays, no neglect.  Thus, the Lord teaches us not to give up — “to grow weary” — in our prayers because we can count on his answering them.  But why does God have us praying until we are nearly tired out from it?  If he is going to answer a prayer it would seem sufficient for the prayer to be offered only once.  He does this to reinforce in us our utter dependence on him for all that we have and all that we need.  He does this so that we realize beyond all doubt that we receive what we receive comes from him and not from some outside efforts of our own.

The reading here ends with the Lord commenting, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  He has just spoken on the need for faith and perseverance in our prayers, but he bids us look forward to the latter days of the world.  Will any part of the human race persevere in faith throughout the centuries until he comes again?  Or will faith peter out since it seems he is not coming?  In various commentaries on the Book of Revelation, the opinion is that not many people at the end of the world will have faith, but those who do will have very great faith.  Persecution and tribulation, such as will take place then, either makes faith stronger or crushes it completely.  If we persevere in prayer, we will persevere in faith.  And in that case, the words of St. James will apply to us: “Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for, when he has been proved, he shall receive the crown of life which God has promised to them that love him” (James 1, 12).

Friday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 14, 2025

Luke 17, 26-37

Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it. I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left.” They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”

We are all holding out here in the rectory.  Fr. Guillermo, who was just ordained a few months ago, is doing all the weddings, funerals, and Last Rites visits.  Since he was not here when one of us was exposed to the COVID, he can carry on.  I spent a good part of the day reading the Gospel of Matthew in the Greek, carefully examining the vocabulary and grammar. 

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.”  The Lord Jesus tells us plainly that people will live as they always have up until the very end: “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.”  The people of Noah’s time did this in spite of the fact that signs pointed to some imminent catastrophe.  The most important sign was that Noah, the one just man alive, living in a way very distinct from that of his neighbors due to his piety, was building an enormous vessel.  Undoubtedly, people asked him what he was doing.  The Lord, who had commanded the building of the vessel in very specific terms, had not forbidden him from speaking about it, and so we can imagine him explaining that he was preparing for a great storm.  Perhaps some of his neighbors were impressed by the scale of his undertaking, and perhaps some were amused by it.  Critically, what Noah told them made no difference in their behavior.

In the case of Sodom, the inhabitants must have understood the wickedness of their behavior, for it cried to heaven for justice.  As a result of Abraham’s intercession for them with God, who was minded to destroy the city, if ten just men were found within it, it would not be destroyed. However, not even that many just men dwelt in it.  Life in Sodom continued as normal — “they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building” — up to the end.  Their own wickedness was the sign that retribution was coming.

“So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.”  If we do not see the signs, it is because we are not looking, or that we are in denial.  We have this very moment to repent of our sins, not any other.  And we must repent st once because when the Lord comes, it will not be a gradual event but a sudden one that will put an irrevocable end to the business we are engaged in: “Someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind.”  Our old life is over at that point.  St. Thomas Aquinas considers the question of the condition of the people who are still alive when the Lord comes again.  He points out that all humans must die, so what about these?  He answers that at the moment the Lord comes, everyone alive at that time will die and then in the next moment he raised up along with all the dead.

The Lord next offers various details about this time which is to come.  He admonishes us to “Remember the wife of Lot.”  One moment she was alive and on her way to safety; the next, she disobeyed the commandment given by the angels, and was no more.  Up until the very last moment of our life we can throw away our salvation with one mortal sin.  “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.”  That is, if we somehow intuit our impending death and try to make a deal with the devil to save ourselves, we will die anyway and be received into hell by the devil.  Faced with the prospect of death, many people act in this way.  “I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left.”  It is intriguing that the two men in one bed are said to be “people”, but the two persons grinding meal together are allowed to be “women” by the translator.  In this passage, the Lord emphasizes again the abruptness of his coming and its unexpectedness of the moment.  It is as if to say, Blink, and he is here.  Certain Protestants interpret this line as referring to “the rapture”, an idea that is actually only a little more than a hundred years old, but they are much mistaken.  To believe in “the rapture” one must reject Matthew 24-25 as well as everything else the Lord says about his Second Coming, and what the Church has taught consistently for two thousand years.  

“Where, Lord?”  The disciples want to know where to look for the Lord when he comes.  He does not provide a geographical answer, but a more meaningful one: “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.”  In order to understand what the Lord means, we must first translate this verse correctly, for an egregious error occurs in this translation.  That is, the birds in question are not “vultures” but “eagles”.  The two Greek words are as unlike as the two English words.  From the earliest times, there was never any question of any other kind of bird.  The mistake is a modern one and seems to arise first in the 1970 New American translation of the Bible.  Possibly some translator saw the Greek word for “body” and decided this word meant “corpse”, which it does not.  Then, this person decided, the Greek word for “eagles” is a mistake: it should be “vultures”.  This is very irresponsible work.  The Lord instead is saying, Where the (living) body is, there also the eagles will gather.  So what does this mean?  The Fathers, such as St. Ambrose, understand this “body” to be the Body of the Lord, and the “eagles” as the souls of the just.  St. Ambrose understands the “eagles” as the righteous because they soar high, leave behind the lower things of the world, and live for a great length of time, implying immortality.  He describes the Body of the Lord as surrounded by the “eagles” Joseph of Arimithea, the holy women, and the Apostles.  Ambrose also speaks of those who believe that the Son of God put on human flesh as  “eagles”, aloft through the wings — the gift of faith — of the Holy Spirit.

Let us also be “eagles”, alert for the coming of the Lord, and eager to greet him when he comes.

Thursday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 13, 2025

Luke 17, 20-25

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.”  Then he said to his disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’ Do not go off, do not run in pursuit. For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”

St. Paul tells us, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard: neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2, 9).  This refers both to heaven and to the spiritual life in the present world of a person in love with God.  Belonging to God through baptism, his adopted child, in fact, this blessed one follows the divine will and even rejoices in suffering persecution for his sake (cf. Acts 5, 41).  The Lord Jesus does not deliver lectures or draw schematics on the nature of the Kingdom of God which consists of heaven and union with God.  Whatever could be said about it would not suffice to give even the well-disposed more than a hint of its reality.  Because of this, the Lord turns to metaphors and parables to talk about it.

The very material-minded Pharisees insist on a very material Kingdom of heaven and so they ask the Lord, when it would come.  They do not see it, and so it must not have come yet.  They have decided that Jesus must be speaking of the restoration of Israel and its independence from foreign rule.  The Lord’s answer would not have made them happy: “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ ”  The Greek text actually says, “The Kingdom of heaven does not come with [or, “after”] watching.”  This means that we cannot force the Kingdom to come, but neither will we see it come.  The Lord then explains, “The Kingdom of heaven is within you.”  Now, the Greek εντός can mean “within”, but also “inside”, “among”, and “in the midst”, among other things.  Some biblical translations go so far as to translate this phrase as “the Kingdom of God surrounds you”, which is incorrect.  The Venerable Bede sums up the opinion of the Fathers by saying that this phrase means that the Lord reigns in the heart of a man by his faith.  

“The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.”  The Lord speaks on another occasion to his disciples here, perhaps after the Pharisees have melted away after his answer to their question.  “One of the days of the Son of Man” refers to the time in which the Lord will return to judge the living and the dead.  This will inaugurate the reception of the fullness of the Kingdom of God for the elect.  “You will long” for the Lord and for his judgment because of the rampant evil upon the earth.  This brings to mind the beatitude, “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill” (Matthew 5, 6).  Indeed, all of the beatitudes will be fulfilled at that time.  “But you will not see it”, that is, the Lord will come in his good time, not ours.  “There will be those who will say to you, ‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’ ”  These would be the spiritual descendants of the Pharisees who desire a physical kingdom of Israel, as well as frauds and fools.  Later, the Lord will tell them, “If any man shall say to you, Lo here is Christ, or there: do not believe him. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets” (Matthew 24, 23-24), and, “But of that day and hour no one knows” (Matthew 24, 36).  “For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.”  His coming will be sudden, unexpected, and unstoppable.  It will also be exhilarating for some, and terrifying and destructive for others.

“But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”  The Lord reminds his disciples of his coming Passion, and locates the time of the judgment, the time of the fullness of the Kingdom, at some point after this.  “Rejected by this generation” does not mean simply the Jewish leadership of his time, as the “generation” extends from the moment of the Lord’s Conception until the moment when he comes again.  When he returns, he will confront those of this generation who rejected him and send them off to suffer greatly from the consequences of their rejection.  And at that time those who longed for him will experience that which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

Wednesday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 12, 2025

Luke 17, 11-19

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 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.”

“As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.”  We can imagine the scene: ten men in various stages of this dread, disfiguring and ultimately crippling disease, cry out to the Lord from a prescribed distance.  The smell of the sores and decaying flesh would have proven nauseating, and the sight would have been appalling.  These ten men would have lived together outside the village in a squalid camp.  They would have begged for their food and more often than not have gone to sleep on the hard ground still hungry.  The sounds of their sufferings would have carried into the town, perhaps with their stench as well.  The road on which the lepers met the Lord was a well-traveled one used by pilgrims making their way to and from Jerusalem.

“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”  The Greek text literally says that the leprous men “lifted up their voices” and said this.  The cries must have sounded pitiful.  Luke says they called Jesus “master” or “teacher”.  We might wonder how they knew who he was.  Possibly they had called to one of the crowd following the Lord and he had called back that it was Jesus.  We might also wonder what exactly they were begging him to do for them.  Were they asking for food or money?  Or did they know that he had the power to cure them?  The Lord knows what he will do, whatever it is they want.  He calls back to them: “Go show yourselves to the priests.”  This probably confused them at first.  He does not set down food or money for them to fetch after he has departed, nor does he say any prayers or pronounce any blessings.  The lack of drama here is itself dramatic, as the situation of the lepers seems to remain unresolved.  The lepers probably stood and waited for some other command, some other words, but none came.  Did the Lord watch them go, or did he turn back to the road and resume his journey?

The lepers were left with these words, and to their credit, they also walk, parallel to the road, to the priests, presumably in Jerusalem.  This would have made for a considerable journey for men as sick and frail as these, and they carried no provisions.  Some of the group may have grumbled and resisted making the trip but were prevailed upon by the others.  At any rate, they go, and they go quickly enough that they disappear from the sight of Jesus and the others who were present.  At least some of the group were excited by the prospect before them.  According to the law of Moses (as found in Leviticus 14) one who was healed of leprosy underwent a complex ritual conducted by a priest over the course of eight days outside a city.  The priest, let it be noted, did not heal the leper; the ritual was one of sanctification and cleansing following the healing that had taken place.  The ten leprous men who encountered the Lord Jesus still suffered from their disease at the time they went their way, and they showed a certain faith in this.

“As they were going they were cleansed.”  No thunder from the sky, no swelling orchestra, no heroic words.  The men were cleansed as they went their way.  How did they notice?  Now, disease often creeps up on us so slowly that we do not notice its symptoms: a cough here, a scratch there, a little loss of appetite.  Did the lepers feel their limbs strengthened, their breath coming easier, the smell vanishing?  At some point they stopped, looked at themselves, looked at each other, and knew the truth: they were cured.

“And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice.”  This jubilant man hurried back, rejoicing in his new freedom and good health.  He could hardly believe what had happened, but he did, and he shouted God’s praises at the top of his voice.  His life had been given back to him.  “He fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.”  The cured man knew, when he looked into the eyes of Jesus, that he was looking into the eyes of God, and he fell at the Lord’s feet in absolute gratitude.

St. Luke tells us that the cured man who came back “was a Samaritan”.  This would have been apparent from his clothing and likely from his accent as well.  It would not be surprising that a Samaritan had joined with the other lepers, as the road near which they lived went through Galilee and Samaria.  “Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”  The Greek word translated here as “foreigner” literally means “a man of another nation”.  Jesus may have used this word ironically in that this man, and not the nine Jews, showed himself to be a true lover of God.  But where are the other nine?  It is easy to think of them celebrating in some tavern.  But we might also think in a different way.  St. Luke tells us that “one of them, realizing he had been healed, etc.”  Did the others not realize they had been healed?  Did it seem impossible to them that they could be healed?  Certainly, they had followed the command Jesus game them to go to the priest.  Did they think the priest would heal them, or that the priest would give them something to eat?  This would more easily explain what Jesus says to the Samaritan at his feet: “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”  That is, the others did not believe that Jesus could cure them, had cured them, despite the evidence of their senses.  But this other, he did: he possessed real faith.  This would also be in line with the attitude of the Jewish leadership to Jesus: they saw his miracles, but did not believe in him.  They did not believe Jesus had such power.  They twisted themselves into knots explaining away his healings and exorcisms, even claiming that he worked by the power of the devil.  And so it is to the Samaritan, the outsider, signifying the Gentile, to whom the Faith would go.

If we open our eyes, we can see miracles all the time.  They go unannounced, so they often go unnoticed, even by the person to whom they occur.  Let us pray for the grace to see the Lord’s marvelous works, and to believe ever more firmly in him.

Tuesday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 11, 2025

Luke 17, 7-10

Jesus said to the Apostles: “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ ”

We can see from the first line of today’s Gospel reading that the Lord was speaking to people who owned slaves.  The Greek word doulos means a “male slave”; diakonos means “servant”, that is, one who is paid.  Thus, the line should read, “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, etc.”  

The Lord’s words would have left his hearers scratching their heads because after he describes a common situation during the workday. he tells his hearers, “So should it be with you.”  That is, he tells them that they themselves are as slaves before God.  And he tells them that just as a slave earns no reward for his labors, “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ ”  Obedience to God’s commands does not merit praise from God or any remuneration from him.  We are not hired servants.  We cannot negotiate wages with the Almighty.  A hired servant can expect a reward for going beyond his manager’s expectations, but such is not the lot of a slave.  

The difference between the slave of a human master and the slave of God is that although we deserve nothing for our hard work on his behalf, he does reward us,  This comes simply out of his free love for us, a love so sublime that it cannot be imagined.  And so while the slave of a human master works all day in hopes that he will be allowed to work the next day, we who are slaves of Almighty God do his work out of love for him who has such great love for us, and he gives us reason to hope that we may reign with him one day.  This helps us to appreciate the momentous event we hear of in John 15, 15: “I will not now call you slaves . . . but I have called you friends.”  The Lord not only frees his Apostles from slavery, but calls them “friends”, raising them to his level.  Indeed, the Apostles were slaves, giving up their families, employment, and property in order to travel with the Lord and to serve him in whatever capacity he chose.  And in the Holy Spirit, they become more intimate with him, becoming his adopted brethren, coheirs with him of eternal life.

We ought never to lose sight of what God has done for us, raising us out of the drudgery of life without knowledge of him, then making us his slaves, then freeing us by his grace out of his own love for us.  We do none of this on our own.  Without his love and grace, we serve the most miserable and hopeless slavery of all, that of our basest instincts (our flesh); that of the world; and that of the devil.  And while we can be nothing more than “unprofitable slaves”, God cherishes us, and the fact that we serve him as best as we can. 

Monday in the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, November 10, 2025

Luke 17, 1-6

Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him.”  And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the one through whom they occur.”  Sometimes our English translations miss the point of the text in their efforts to simplify their meaning.  Here, the Greek says, “It is impossible that scandals do not come; however, woe to the one through whom they come.”  The Greek word skandala, which I have translated as “scandal”, means “a snare” or “a stumbling-block”.  This understanding, as well as what we read further on, shows that scandal has to do with actions that impede or destroy faith, rather than the too vague “things that cause sin”.  The Lord is warning his followers that such snares and stumbling-blocks will certainly arise during a person’s lifetime and during the history of the Church.  Fellow believers will act like pagans, leaders of the Church will disgrace their office.  This will shake the faith of those whom they should be strengthening.  The wicked, sometimes hiding under clerical clothing, will blaspheme, apostatize,  and encourage others to do so.  They will teach falsehoods.  Their sins will shock people into anger and cause them to wonder if they have been duped all along.  The Lord vividly describes scandal for us: “The sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light. And the stars of heaven shall be falling down and the powers that are in heaven shall be moved” (Mark 13, 24-25).   These are popes, bishops, priests, deacons, and religious whose sins damage the faith of believers, as the Fathers (such as the Venerable Bede) teach us.  We also see this in Revelation 12:3–4: “And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.”  The devil uses these wicked people as weapons which he hurls at the Church on earth.

“It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.”  No punishment can to be too terrible for those who cause scandal to “these little ones”, those with simple faith.  

“Be on your guard!”  The Greek means something more like, “Watch yourself”, that is, fortify yourself against scandal through prayer and through “testing” — as St. Paul says, “Test everything.  Retain what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5, 21).  Also, a study of the Church’s history is helpful.

“If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.”  This is a separate saying from the above.  The Lord here urges us to chide our fellow believers when they sin.  We do so in a way that leads to repentance, so  prudence is required.  Not every time and place is suitable, and not every word we wish to speak is the right one.  If this person sins against us, rather than against another, and then expresses regret and the desire to make up for his actions, then we forgive him.  “And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times, etc.”  The Lord emphasizes the need to forgive by using this expression.

“Increase our faith.”  This is a prayer.  This prayer shows that the Apostles have come along far enough that they know their faith must be increased and that only the Lord can increase it for them.  This is quite extraordinary and we see how they believe that Jesus is more than a man and can intercede for them with Almighty God.  The Lord answers with something like a riddle: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”  The Lord lays out before them the marvels their faith will accomplish even before it comes to full maturity.  He foretells for them the conversion of the Gentiles, who will “uproot” themselves from their former religions and ways of life and “plant” themselves in the fresh waters of grace, through the preaching of the Gospel.

Prayer will enable us to look past the scandals that inevitably occur through men and women who succumb to their fallen human nature, and it will also enable us, through grace, to continue to obey Christ’s commandment to “teach all the nations” (Matthew 28, 19).

The Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, Sunday, November 9, 2025

John 2, 13–22

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me. At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his Body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

It is in St. John’s Gospel that we learn of the three Passover’s the Lord Jesus spent in Jerusalem.  If not for John, we would have to suppose, based on the first three Gospels, that Jesus’ Public Life lasted only one year, since they describe only one journey to Jerusalem.  John also tells us that on two of these visits Jesus cast the money-changers out of the Temple precincts.  He does this on his first visit very early in his Public Life, not long after the Wedding at Cana.  St. John, providing precise details of these visits to the Holy City, tells us through Jewish witnesses to his actions at this time that the construction on the Temple had been ongoing for “forty-six years”.  Knowing when Herod began the construction, we can date this episode to 26-27 A.D.  This further leads us to conclude that the Lord died on the Cross in the Spring of 29-30 A.D.  

The Lord comes to the Temple with his newly acquired Apostles after the miracle at the Wedding at Cana where St. John tells us, he “manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (John 2, 11).  To show that his mission is not only to the Jews in Galilee, he takes over the Temple: “He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.”  No one had challenged the authorities of the Temple before.  He acts as though the Temple belongs to him, and to confirm this interpretation of his actions, he declares: “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”  He does not speak here of “our” Father, but of God as his own Father — as though he has a unique relationship with God utterly different from any other’s relationship with him.  Thus, he begins here to reveal himself as the Son of God, and acting on behalf of his Father.

“Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”  The cattle and birds sold in the courtyard made sacrifices convenient for pilgrims.  Joseph and Mary probably bought the birds they offered in sacrifice when they brought their baby to the Temple to present him to his Father.  The Lord’s action here, then, makes clear that the time of the sacrifices of the old law is over.  The Lord here begins the public offering of himself for our sins as he encounters mockery and derision from the Jewish leaders.

“Zeal for your house will consume me.”  The disciples recall this line from Psalm 69, 9.  The implication is that zeal for God’s house did not consume the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leadership.  Zeal for profits, culled from the money-changers and animal sellers, however, did.  The Greek verb translated as “consume” can be more graphically translated as “eats [me] until there is nothing left”.  The love of his Father and of his Father’s house as a sign of his Father did utterly consume him.  It ate him alive.  Or, as fire also consumes, it inflamed him until not even ashes remained.  We remember how he himself said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!  I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12, 49-50).  His heart was on fire to do the Father’s will.

We celebrate today the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which took place in 324 A.D. by Pope St. Sylvester.  The building had served as a palace for the Laterani family.  It came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine I and was given by him to the Church.  It is the seat of the Roman Pontiff and is considered the “mother church” of the Faithful.  As such, it represents the Catholic Church. 

The fiery zeal of the Lord Jesus for the Temple in Jerusalem is a sign of his zeal for the Catholic Church, his Bride.  May we share in his passion for her, defending her reputation and preaching her Gospel, so that we may rise with her in victory at the end of time when the Lord returns to lead her home to heaven.  And let us pray that the Lord will purge his Church of all that is evil and corrupt so that she may shine brightly, leading all people to him.