Wednesday in the Second Week of Advent, December 10, 2025

Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

 

“I am meek and humble of heart.”  If we forget everything we know or think we know about the Lord and read the Gospels as objectively as we can, we should be struck by two main qualities that characterize Jesus: the way that he talks and the manner of his acting.  When he talks, he says exactly what he wants to say and no more.  He rarely speaks directly about himself, speaking principally of the Father and about those who follow him.  He does not employ many words when he performs his miracles.  When he does speak, his speech is compressed, his sentences generally short.  He even gives the impression of speaking with a certain brusqueness.  He speaks with great authority and does not back away from what he has said.  In short, he speaks in the way a servant does on behalf of his master.  This is why he can say of himself, “I am meek” even while denouncing Pharisees and the Jewish leaders or cursing towns.  As he himself says, “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works” (John 14, 10).  That is, when he speaks harshly or gives commands, he seeks  no gain for himself: he is only acting on the Father’s behalf.  

St. Paul has this to say of the Lord’s humility: “Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.” Philippians 2, 5-8.  We can hear the awe and the hush in Paul’s voice as he says this.  The Son, as the Word, the “image” of the invisible God (cf. Colossians 1, 15), knew himself to be equal to the Father in power and glory, and in obedience to the Father, joined his divinity to a human nature and so took on the “likeness” of men so completely that he died on a cross.  The readiness with which he offered himself up is so hard for us to fathom that we can only begin to glimpse it in the lives of the saints.

As we pass through the days of Advent we ought to pray for the grace of knowing ourselves, of seeing our actions and hearing our words as others do, that we may then look at the Infant lying in the manger and learn what we must do to become more like him.

Tuesday in the Second Week of Advent, December 9, 2025

Matthew 18, 12-14

Jesus said to his disciples: “What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your Heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

In order to understand the parable that makes up today’s Gospel Reading, it helps to have a little background on first century shepherding: A flock of a hundred sheep indicates a medium sized family living fairly well. By contrast, a poor family would own eight to twenty sheep.  Male members of the family would take part in the shepherding, and perhaps they would hire one or two other shepherds to help out. The sheep were not fenced in but ranged wherever they found grass, so a sharp eye had to be kept on them. To prevent loss, they were counted several times a day. A missing or killed  sheep in a flock of a hundred may not sound very serious but it counted as a real loss that could not be made up. And sheep did tend to wander off. Since they lack depth perception, they cannot tell their distance from the flock if they do become separated. And where sheep are grazing, wolves and other predators are waiting.

And so the owner notices that one sheep is missing. He counts again to make sure. He then runs out to the edges of the pasture, looking for a high point in order to aid in his search. He listens for its bleats, for a sheep will bleat when it realizes it is cut off from the others. The owner looks for it for as long as it takes to find it and then he puts it on his shoulders to carry it back. He does not merely retrieve his sheep — he rescues it, for after sundown the predators would certainly make their move.

The Lord Jesus, eying his own flock, says about the owner in his parable: “He rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.” This would have surprised the Lord’s hearers. They could understand the sheep owner to feel relief, but joy? And joy over the sheep that he had recovered more than all the sheep that had remained? While one sheep had worth, this sheep represented one percent of the flock. He should rather rejoice that all these others had not strayed. But here we see the Lord’s point: he treats each one of us as though we were the only one. He loves each of us as though we were the only one. And he did not merely risk his life to save us but sent his Son to die in order to do this.

“It is not the will of your Heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.” Jesus uses understatement here to balance with his revelation of the Father’s infinite love for us. What he means is, “Your Heavenly Father will do anything to save you.” 

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Monday, December 8, 2025

Luke 1, 26–38

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Like many peoples of the time did, the Jews had formalized their greetings. According to the customary form, a Jew meeting another would say Shalom, offering wishes for peace and good health, and then the person’s title or name. Thus, we see Judas greeting the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, usually translated into English as “Hail, Rabbi.”  And then the other party would respond in the same way. In the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, the Angel Gabriel greets her with (as is usually translated) “Hail”, but then a word other than her given name. In place of the name her parents had given her, Gabriel gives the name by which the angels knew her: (literally) “The one who has been graced”, with the implication, due to the tense of the word, that she remains “graced”. No one had ever been addressed in this way before, so no wonder Mary was confused. This greeting gets to the heart of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. At the very instant of her creation in her mother’s womb, she was free from the defect of Original Sin. She came into the world as a gorgeous palace — fit for a King.

This freedom from Original Sin affected not only her actions, but her outlook and her personality.  Since her conception, her will has been turned towards the will of God   Calling herself the “handmaid of the Lord” provides us with her own understanding of what “she who has been perfected in grace” means, as a “handmaid” would be born into a life of servitude and would depend entirely on her owner for her existence.  For the willful who rebelled, this would be a miserable state of affairs, but for one who gloried in her owner, no treasure or false freedom could hold any allure.  

She reveals something of her heart in her Magnificat, which she sang before her cousin Elizabeth: “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”  Her soul always “magnified” the Lord, that is, proclaimed his greatness through the service of her life, and she rejoiced in God her “Savior”.  This line is worth examining, for while she cries aloud that she glorifies God for what she knew God to have done for her in the past and the present, her calling God her “Savior” tells us something else that she knew.  Now, in the Psalms David calls God his “Savior” after he has escaped danger or been victorious in battle: “I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies” (Psalms 18, 3).  In her praise of God she shows an awareness that God has saved her in a special way: she knows well that her Son will save the human race, but she emphatically calls God my Savior.  On some level she knew of her Immaculate Conception and was rejoicing in it.  God had saved her from the enemies that afflict all of us, the devil and sin, but he had saved her in a way that most wonderfully prepared her for her unique part in his plan of salvation for us.

Today we rejoice with her, and in her, for by her prayers her victory is ours, and her Savior, our own.

The Second Sunday of Advent, December 7, 2025

Matthew 3, 1–12

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.  When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The Prophets had vanished so utterly from the land of Israel since the death of Malachi over four hundred years before the Birth of Christ that it must have seemed to the Israelites who lived during the time of the Roman occupation that God would not send another, despite the promise made st the end of Malachi’s book.  Certainly, people did rise up and claim to be prophets, but these were bandits, revolutionaries, and those who would establish their own sects.  None of these lasted for very long.  They gained few followers and these dispersed after their deaths.  The arrival of John the Baptist came like a bolt out of the heavens on a clear day.  And no one doubted that he was a prophet.  He lived in a primitive way, he preached, he foretold, he performed prophetic actions — in his case, baptism.  Even the leaders in Jerusalem knew, though they could not admit, that he was a prophet.  The real question regarding his identity concerned whether or not he was something more, perhaps the Messiah.  The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Jerusalem leadership ruled this out as soon as they heard him criticizing them, and rather sharply.  But they needed to ascertain who he thought that he was, who was he promoting himself to be, what weaknesses did he have that they could use against him when he became too tiresome for them,  and they knew they had to proceed cautiously because it was evident that the crowds who came to him did believe he was — somebody.

“At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.”  St. Matthew reminds his readers, many of whom would have also gone to John, how exciting it was when John appeared.  He shows us how ready the people were for the coming of Christ, that Jesus came exactly when he was supposed to.  The people went to John in droves and let him plunge them in the cold water of the Jordan while they confessed their sins.  No one does such a thing unless they feel the urgent need to do so and that a great good would result from this.  By the time John began to preach and to baptize, the people were so ready for the Messiah that they dropped like ripe fruit into John’s basket.  Every age has its troubles and looks for a savior, a leader.  But by the time of John and Jesus, the whole Jewish nation writhed in expectation.  Everyone, that is, but those who feared being displaced by a prophet or the Messiah.

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.”  A viper is a snake with a deadly bite.  John was calling the Pharisees and Sadducees killers, for they let the people astray with their false interpretation of the Law.  That John demands to know who warned them to flee the coming wrath poses an interesting question.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were very self-enclosed groups.  For them to listen to John and to approach him for baptism shows that they knew they needed to go beyond the teachings and practices of their groups in order to be saved.  Logically, they should then have abandoned these groups, but they wanted to have both the identity and security of the group and to take part in the baptism of John at the same time.  But the key to John’s teaching was not baptism, it was repentance.  His baptism was just a sign of their repentance and commitment to live righteously thereafter.  Their coming to him showed that they knew that their practices did not make them righteous, and yet they did not give them up.  John seems to refuse to baptize them until they have left their groups, with their distinctive manner of dress, and they have performed acts of penance.

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  John speaks of the Messiah, whose Baptism would fulfill the sign of John’s.  The fire of which John speaks will destroy sin in us, and the Holy Spirit will then fill us and make us adopted children of God.  In this way we also become prophets, pointing the way to the second coming of Christ.

Saturday in the First Week of Advent, December 6, 2025

Matthew 9, 35 — 10, 1; 5; 6-8

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.  At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the Master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Then he summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

“At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned.”  A dive into the meaning of the herbs here will help us with this Gospel Reading.  First, the phrase Jesus’ heart was moved with pity” actually means the very simple and direct: “Jesus pitied them.”  The phrase “was moved with pity” implies that at first Jesus did not pity them, and then he did, which the Greek does not mean. Second, the Greek word translated as “abandoned” actually has the meaning of “cast aside”: the shepherd has not merely walked away from the flock, he has treated them contemptuously in leaving them.  This describes the state of the Jews at that time.  The priests did not preach to them or teach them the Law as the Law itself commanded them to do, and those self-appointed experts, the Pharisees, misinterpreted the Word of God for the people so that they were not much better off than if they had no teachers at all.  The people yearned for a Savior and desired to do God’s will, but there was no one to aid them in this.

“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  The people are ready to hear the announcement of the approach of the Kingdom of heaven, and the Lord wills to involve them in their own salvation by calling on them to pray, and for many to answer God’s call to bring the his teachings to the world.

 That is, when the Lord makes us aware of a problem, he is pointing to us to do participate in its solution.  To demonstrate this “he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.”  We note here that it is Christ who calls and appoints.  We do not give ourselves authority, but it must come from an authority.  Otherwise we are usurpers and no better than the Pharisees.  The Apostles receive this authority and power not in order to gather followings for themselves but to validate their preaching about the Kingdom of heaven and the need for repentance.  These signs, worked from heaven, prove to all that what they say comes from God.

“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  The Lord forbids the Apostles to go into non-Jewish lands not because he disdains the people in these places but because he wants to give his Apostles a chance to learn how to preach in a familiar setting before going into more challenging locations.  “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  This verse is more correctly translated, The Kingdom of God has drawn near” — it did not suddenly and randomly appear; it has steadily and deliberately approached.  “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”  The Apostles did not have to pay expensive fees to obtain the authority and power to perform these miraculous works.  Nor did they even dare to ask for it.  The Lord gave it to them with their asking and without cost.  It came with their assignment.  Evidently they did heal the sick and cast out devils, from what they told Jesus on their return, but they did not raise the dead until after they received the Holy Spirit after the Resurrection.

We are sent out likewise with such power — grace — given to us as we may need for the individual job each of us is called to do.

Friday in the First Week of Advent, December 5, 2025

Matthew 9, 27-31

As Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Son of David, have pity on us!” When he entered the house, the blind men approached him and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I can do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they said to him. Then he touched their eyes and said, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” And their eyes were opened. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread word of him through all that land.

According to St. Matthew, Jesus performs this miracle after healing the woman with the blood issue and raising the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of a Galilean synagogue.  In both of these miracles, Matthew shows that for Jesus, faith plays an essential role.  In the case of the raising up of the little girl, Jairus approached the Lord and said to him, “Lord, my daughter is even now dead; but come, lay your hand upon her, and she shall live.”  We can try to imagine the man’s state.  His treasured daughter has died, presumably of an illness, but he thinks of Jesus, whom he knows is in his town, and he leaves his house and grieving family, finds Jesus, and has the composure to make this request of him, showing extraordinary faith.  And then, on the way to the man’s house, a woman with an illness that has caused her untold suffering for a number of years, comes up behind him in order to touch only his clothing, thinking, “If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed.”  The Lord rewards her faith both by healing her and by commending her aloud: “Be of good heart, daughter, your faith has made you whole.”

And then, “as Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out, ‘Son of David, have pity on us!’ ”  These two probably sat together on the street, begging for alms, perhaps hoping that the sight of the two of them together would evince mercy from passers by.  Perhaps one of them could see just a little and could assist the other in getting around.  They would have made quite a sight, scrambling along behind Jesus and his followers, knocking into other people, slipping on loose or broken stones on the street.  They would have clung to each other for safety and support, and helped each other up when they tripped.  They would have looked scraggly in their ragged clothes, and people probably shoved them away when they got too close.  But desperation drove them on.  

“Son of David, have pity on us!”  They knew who he was.  Perhaps they had heard him preach or one of the crowd told them who was the cause of the commotion on the street around them.  To call on him as the “Son of David” was at least partly flattery on their part, an attempt to gain the Lord’s attention.  But there must have been some admixture of faith in this as well.  They were not addressing him as a passing physician, after all, but as a wonder worker, and maybe something more.

“When he entered the house, the blind men approached him.”  Jesus tested their faith and their perseverance in it by continuing all the way to the house in which he was staying.  They did not give up, no matter how great their difficulty in trailing him.  Did some of the crowd take pity on them and assist them, even taking them by the hand?  We would like to think so, but Matthew does not tell us.  “Do you believe that I can do this?”  The Lord poses an interesting question.  The answer would seem self-evident, so why does he ask it?  He wants them to make a public statement of their belief that they can be cured.  He also wants them to show that they believe that he can cure the blind, and that he can cure them.  He wants them to confess their belief that he has power and authority over their blindness.  “ ‘Yes, Lord,’ they said to him.”  Their answer is plain and clear.  They put themselves in his hands.  “He touched their eyes.”  In doing so, he entered into their blindness and cured it from within it.  The Lord does not remain on the outside, unaffected, but goes into the depths of our misery and cures it by taking it upon himself.  “Let it be done for you according to your faith.”  That is, according to their capacity for receiving the grace of the healing, which is according to the extent of their faith.  “And their eyes were opened.”  The first thing they saw in the moment of their healing was the face of Jesus.  They blinked, they rubbed their eyes, they looked around.  They could see.  Thus did Jesus show his power, but also the faith of the two men, especially to themselves.

“Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this.’ ”  The Lord’s words indicate that they must have been alone in the house.  Possibly the Apostles were present, and the owner of the house.  Still, the Lord makes a seemingly impossible demand.  Surely, these two men were known in the town: someone was bound to ask them how they could see now.  And as for the men, even if no one asked them, how could they keep silent about this incredible gift from the Son of David?  Nevertheless, the Lord “warned them sternly”.  The Greek word translated as “warned” actually means “to scold”, “to groan”, “to express displeasure”, even “to snort”.  St. Mark uses the word to describe how the dinner guests reacted to the sinful woman anointing Jesus (cf. Mark 14, 5).  This phrase is usually translated as something like, “They murmured against her”, which is not strong enough.  Elsewhere, St. John uses the word to describe the Lord’s reaction to Mary the sister of Lazarus saying to him that her brother would not have died if he had been present (John 11, 33).  This is usually translated along the lines of, “He groaned in spirit.”  In the case of the two formerly blind men, Jesus may have been displeased by their expressions of joy.  Did they thank him, or were they merely congratulating each other?  Or is Jesus putting their faith to the test?  If they truly believed that he was the “Son of David”, then they ought to obey him.  If they believed that he had power over their blindness, then he had power over them as well.  If they submitted themselves to his power for healing, then they must submit himself to whatever command it pleased him to give them.  The “stern” command he gave them to see to it that no one learned of this was a hard one, but they had shown their ability to overcome difficulties in coming to the house.  

The two formerly blind men must have agreed to do this before leaving, but they do not seem to have made any attempt to keep their promise, for “they went out and spread word of him through all that land.”  They may have had faith sufficient for their cure, but not enough for them to obey the Lord’s command.  They were not thinking of the Lord, at this point, but only of themselves.

The Lord’s commandments to love our neighbors as ourselves, to despise our possessions, to be prepared to leave our families for his sake, to preserve our chastity, to forgive our enemies, may seem as impossible to carry out as what he ordered the two cured blind men to not do, but the Lord does not command what we cannot do: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tested above that which you are able: but will allow you to be tested in such a way that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10, 13).  The proof of whether we really believe is in whether we can and will carry out his commands, which we know lead to life.

Thursday in the First Week of Advent, December 4, 2025

Matthew 7,21; 24-27

Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  [Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in your name, and cast out devils in your name, and done many miracles in your name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.]  Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass is taken from the final verses of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount in chapter seven of the Gospel of St. Matthew.  Strangely, the reading leaves out verses 22 and 23 before skipping ahead to verse 24.  It is hard to see the purpose for cutting them out as these excised verses provide the basis for understanding what follows.  These are included here enclosed in brackets.

The purpose of the Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew 5-7 is, like so much else in this Gospel, to prepare the early Jewish Christians for the final judgment.  The Lord Jesus says to his disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  That is, many people will address Jesus as “Lord”, but not many people will act as though they believe that he is the Lord.  These will either consider him inferior to themselves and their own judgments, or they will attempt to manipulate him for their own profit.  Of the first group, some will pick and choose which of his commandments to follow and decide for themselves how to follow them, and some will say to themselves that Jesus is an important historical figure but whose commandments are limited to a certain time and place and so are no longer relevant.  Of the second group will be those who found cults and “churches” claiming that they have finally uncovered the authentic message of the Gospel, the meaning of the Lord’s commandments, and the “true” identity of Jesus.  Often, these people will combine thin shreds of the meat of the Gospel with fatty chunks of Eastern or New Age/gnostic  beliefs.  Others of this group will seek political power by invoking the Lord’s name when convenient and falsely claiming to belong to him. “Only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” will enter the Kingdom of heaven — those who have his name engraved on their hearts.

“Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in your name, and cast out devils in your name, and done many miracles in your name?”  Many false Christians — particularly the manipulators — will say this to the Lord when he comes to judge.  These used the Lord’s name to justify their religious cults or political statements and policies.  It is because people even in early times did this that St. Paul told the Thessalonian Christians: “Test everything.  Hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 51, 21).  How can we know if something or someone is good or not?  Earlier in the sermon Jesus told the crowd, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7, 15-16).  That is, we must examine their works closely to see if the fruit is fresh or rotten.  The Fathers comment that these false Christians only seem to perform miracles and to cast out devils, but they do not in fact do this.  The claims, which are bald-faced lies, these people will make show the desperation of those who make them: lying even to Christ himself.   “I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.”  The Lord will tell these liars and frauds that he “never knew them”, not that he did not know who they were or that they were false, but that he never knew them as his own followers: “My sheep hear my voice. And I know them: and they follow me” (John 10, 27).

Having established that there will be false prophets in whom people will believe and choose for their lords, Jesus now tells what will happen to these and what will happen to those who believe in him: “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”  A person who is careful and skillful does not build his house just anywhere, but first looks for a place to lay a solid foundation.  He does not choose swampy ground, even though it may be inexpensive, nor a site that is near a body of water and is below its level.  He looks for rocky ground, or a flat place where he can pour concrete for a foundation.  This foundation will hold up the walls and ultimately the roof of the house.  For the Christian, this means knowing the teachings of Christ and faithfully following them, and knowing him in his teachings and through prayer.  “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house.”  The “rain” which falls on the house is the darkness of superstition and false teaching which assail the Christian through the voices of non-believers.  The “floods” are interior temptations against the virtues, such as those against chastity, modesty, and temperance.  The “winds” are persecutions and tribulations that the faithful suffer.  None of these is strong enough to tear the true believer from belief in Christ.  One who does not have faith, or whose faith is weak, will certainly fall because of one or more of these.  He will collapse and be “completely ruined”.  He will lose everything, including his life, because he “built his house” — put his faith — in the obviously unsuitable sandy ground of those who promise false freedoms.