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.

Saturday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 8, 2025

Romans 16:3-9, 16, 22-27

Brothers and sisters: Greet Prisca and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I am grateful but also all the churches of the Gentiles; greet also the Church at their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the firstfruits in Asia for Christ. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and my fellow prisoners; they are prominent among the Apostles and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole Church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus greet you. Now to him who can strengthen you, according to my Gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages but now manifested through the prophetic writings and, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Paul’s final chapter of the Letter to the Romans feels almost like a tapestry of friendship woven from the threads of grace. The names come one after another — Prisca, Aquila, Epaenetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junia, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys — each one carrying its own quiet story of faith, courage, and service. The great Apostle who scaled the heights of theology in earlier chapters now descends into the humble plain of names, greetings, and gratitude. In this descent, he reveals something profound: the Gospel is not an abstract idea but a living communion of persons bound together in Christ.

Prisca and Aquila, who “risked their necks” for Paul, stand as the image of discipleship rooted in love’s daring. Their house church embodies the earliest form of Christian worship: faith taking shelter in the home, where the Eucharist was celebrated around an ordinary table. Here theology becomes domestic; sanctity takes the shape of hospitality.

Mary, who “has worked hard for you,” reminds us that the Church’s strength often lies in quiet service. Her labor—unrecorded, unadorned—is part of that invisible foundation upon which the visible Church rests. Andronicus and Junia, “prominent among the apostles,” challenge every notion that holiness or apostolic zeal can be limited by status or gender. Their imprisonment with Paul links them to the Cross, and their being “in Christ before me,” as Paul admits, places them among his teachers in grace.

Each greeting carries the tenderness of a father sending words to his children scattered across the Empire. But the chapter culminates in something still greater: the doxology — a hymn of praise to “the only wise God.” After so many human names, Paul’s final word is divine. The roll call of saints leads upward to the Source of all communion.

In that doxology, Paul draws together the whole mystery of salvation: the Gospel once hidden, now revealed; the obedience of faith extending to all nations; the eternal plan of God now made visible in Christ. The same voice that said “Greet one another with a holy kiss” now turns toward heaven: “To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be glory forever.” It is as though the Church, bound together in love on earth, is lifted into the eternal praise of heaven.

This closing chapter teaches that theology ends not in speculation but in communion; revelation finds its fullness not in words but in faces. Every believer named here — every laborer, prisoner, host, or benefactor—becomes a line in the great hymn of redemption.

And in the end, that hymn belongs not only to the first-century Christians of Rome but to every generation that lives the obedience of faith. Whenever the Church gathers in charity, prays together, and lifts its voice in praise, the ancient list of greetings becomes living again. Prisca and Aquila, Junia and Epaenetus, Paul and Tertius, you and I — all are gathered into the same song:

“To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be glory forever and ever. 

Amen.”  

Friday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, Friday, November 7, 2025

Romans 15, 14-21

I myself am convinced about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to admonish one another. But I have written to you rather boldly in some respects to remind you, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in performing the priestly service of the Gospel of God, so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast in what pertains to God. For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to lead the Gentiles to obedience by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum I have finished preaching the Gospel of Christ. Thus I aspire to proclaim the Gospel not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on another’s foundation, but as it is written: Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.

In these verses we see St. Paul near the end of his letter, speaking with a gentleness that could only belong to one who knows his authority springs not from pride but from grace.  He writes, “I myself am convinced about you, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to admonish one another.”  These are not empty compliments.  Paul recognizes the maturity of the Roman Church.  Yet, as a true pastor, he also knows that memory fades and zeal cools; so he says, “I have written to you rather boldly… to remind you.”  His boldness is not a rebuke but a service  — the friendly urgency of one who tends the flame of faith in others.

Then Paul discloses something luminous: his ministry is a “priestly service of the Gospel of God.”  This is not metaphor.  He sees himself as a priest at an altar, offering up the Gentiles themselves as a living sacrifice, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.  The imagery unites the worlds of temple and mission: the Word he preaches becomes the sacrificial fire that purifies the nations.  Evangelization, in Paul’s understanding, is liturgy; and conversion is the transformation of the human heart into an oblation pleasing to God.

The apostle’s self-understanding, therefore, is profoundly sacerdotal.  He is not the author of the Gospel but its minister — one who mediates the presence of the crucified and risen Christ.  His “boasting” is carefully circumscribed: “In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast in what pertains to God.”  In other words, his joy is not in his labor but in what God has accomplished through him.  Paul’s humility lies not in denying his work but in recognizing its true source.  He sees his whole life as a vessel of grace through which Christ acts, speaks, and saves.

When he recounts that “from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum I have finished preaching the Gospel,” we glimpse both the magnitude of his mission and the unity of his vision.  The arc from east to west marks not merely geography but theology: the Gospel is a single radiant circle, beginning in the city of David and stretching outward until all peoples share in Israel’s promises.  The world becomes one vast sanctuary where the nations themselves are the offering.

Paul’s next words reveal the spiritual engine of the missionary heart: “I aspire to proclaim the Gospel not where Christ has already been named.”  Here we encounter the holy restlessness of the apostle.  He cannot abide the thought that any soul should live without the name of Jesus.  His vocation is centrifugal — ever moving outward to the frontiers where light meets darkness.  Yet even this zeal is ordered by humility: “so that I do not build on another’s foundation.”  He honors the labors of others; he will not claim what is theirs.  His only desire is to plant the Cross where no one has yet seen it.

Finally, Paul quotes Isaiah: “Those who have never been told of Him shall see, and those who have never heard shall understand.”  In that single sentence, the prophet’s vision and the Apostle’s mission converge.  It is God Himself who longs to be known, who seeks the farthest hearts and calls them home.  Paul is but the instrument of that divine yearning — the voice that carries the Word into the silent places of the world.

To read these verses is to feel the beating pulse of the Church’s missionary soul.  Every believer, in some measure, shares this priestly calling: to make one’s life an offering through which others may glimpse the mercy of Christ.  Whether by word, deed, or prayer, each of us participates in that same sacred service of the Gospel, until those who have never been told shall see, and those who have never heard shall understand.