The 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 8, 2026

Matthew 25, 1–13

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. Since the bridegroom was long delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise ones replied, ‘No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.’ While they went off to buy it, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him. Then the door was locked. Afterwards the other virgins came and said, ‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us!’ But he said in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

The term “the kingdom of heaven” does not occur in the Old Testament, although God had spoken through the prophets of a renewed Jerusalem and a time when Israel would be free of her enemies, as in Isaiah 65, 19-20: “I will rejoice in Jerusalem,  and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it  an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days.”  In the years after the end of the Babylonian exile, during which the Chosen People suffered from nearly continual occupation by foreign powers, the idea grew from a wrongful reading of these prophecies of a coming of God’s kingdom to earth, when all would be put right and the Messiah would overthrow the nations and reestablish the kingdom of David.  The kingdom of God, then, would be a prosperous earthly kingdom protected by God forever from foreign armies.

John the Baptist is the first, as far as we can tell, to announce this kingdom in as many words: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven draws near” (Matthew 3, 2).  When the Lord Jesus begins his public life, he also announces that the kingdom of heaven is drawing near.  He also explains what he means by this “kingdom”.  He describes it in terms of a buried treasure, as a pearl of great price, as a place where the Gentiles will sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (cf. Matthew 8, 11), and to a man who sowed good seed but then his enemy came and sowed bad seed in it.  Because it is not of this world, it must be described in many ways for us to get any glimpse at all of it.

Here, the Lord compares it to ten virgins “who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom”.  The Lord then specified that ten were wise and ten foolish.  The wise ones brought flasks of oil with them but the foolish ones did not.  Thus, the five wise virgins were ready to welcome the bridegroom when he came and the foolish ones were not.  Why did some of the girls not bring enough oil as a precaution against the bridegroom coming later than was expected?  The answer is that they did not care.  They would do the job on their terms or not at all.  They had no real interest in sharing in the celebration.  Only when they realize their shameful position do they take action.  The girls who had gone to the trouble and expense of bringing extra oil for themselves were looking forward with excitement to the coming of the bridegroom and the wedding celebration.  They wanted to be there.  The foolishness of five of the girls consisted in only seeing their role as a job that had to be done before going back to their normal lives.  They did not see that it lead to festivities in which they would join.

The Christian life requires zeal for serving our Bridegroom, and looking forward to being in his presence, no matter the difficulties and trials that come before we can enter his presence.  It means never thinking we have done enough, but always looking to do more for his pleasure.  When we stand in his presence and he shares his glory with us, we will not look back on past hardships, for, like St. Paul, we will “count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3, 8). 

Saturday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 7, 2026

Luke 16, 9-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”  The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.”

“I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”  This verse properly belongs to yesterday’s Gospel reading in which the Lord told one of his darker parables, and acts as part of its moral, if we can call it that.  The term “dishonest” wealth may not make much sense to us, and so we look at the Greek word, which has the meaning of “unrighteous”.  The Lord as good as calls this wealth “unclean” in the ritual sense — something that cannot be touched without rendering the toucher unclean as well, and unfit to worship God.  This in turn begs the question whether the Lord considered all wealth unrighteous or if such a thing as righteous wealth exists.  It is a question to keep in mind as we work our way through the reading.

“I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”  In the context of the parable the Lord has just told, a dishonest steward has been caught out by his employer.  To ease his way into the hearts and homes of others after he is fired, he substantially reduces the enormous sums they owe his employer, who then commends him for his scheming.  As a result of his deductions, the steward can be sure of a welcome into the homes of these men.  The Lord, in the present verse, urges his followers to do something of the kind: to use unrighteous wealth in charity so that the doors of heaven will swing open to them “when it fails”, or gives out.  Thus, the unrighteous wealth becomes righteous wealth through its use.

“The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.”  This is a separate but related saying.  It speaks of the consistency of a person’s character.  “If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?”  That is, if a person does not use the wealth of this world which is entrusted to him for charity, why should God give to him the true wealth of the beatific vision?  Again, the adjective used to describe worldly wealth is “unrighteous”.  The wealth itself is worthless in God’s eyes: “Truly no man can ransom himself, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of his life is costly, and can never suffice” (Psalm 49, 7–8).  But through the good works we do with unrighteous wealth we may gain our lives, for, “He that has mercy on the poor, lends to the Lord: and he will repay him” (Proverbs 19, 17). 

“No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”  The word “mammon” is a straight transliteration of an Aramaic word for “riches”.  Those who attempt to serve both God and mammon are aware of religion and of the need to worship God and live virtuously, but tell themselves they will do this when they have made their money.  They excuse themselves from charitable works on any grounds they can think of, and say they are too tired from their work to go to Mass on Sunday.  They “compromise” in other ways too, rejecting opportunities to promote virtue and the Faith and even adopting wicked policies and opinions in order to make money now.  But they never do convert.  The pursuit of wealth and of one’s own will — for the two are synonymous — turns into a pursuit of the person by his own evil.  There can be no compromise.  It is God’s will or our own.  Thus, to the money-hungry Pharisees who sneer at the Lord’s teachings, he says, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.”

It is necessary for us to understand that in fact we do not own anything in this world.  We do not own land or houses or even our own bodies, for “every best gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1, 17).  All we have is on loan for us to use for the glory of God.  And those who use it in this way will receive a welcome into eternal dwellings.

Friday in the 31st Week Of Ordinary Time, November 6, 2026

Luke 16, 1-8

Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’ He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘One hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.’ And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”

The Lord’s parables often described incidents of terrible injustice which, instead of telling how the offended party was avenged, as the reader expects and desires, ended absurdly, often without any resolution at all.  The reader is left to draw his own conclusions as to the point the Lord intended to make — indeed, forcing him to rethink how he understands reality.  We find this so in his more famous parables such as that of The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan.  The parable the Lord tells here particularly challenges us because at its conclusion, evil seems to be rewarded.  

“A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property.”  The opening line sets us up to expect the Lord to tell us of how this wicked man will be punished, and he is:  The rich man caught him and ordered him, “Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.”  The rich man wants to know how much of his money and property this steward has squandered, but he leaves the steward to prepare the report.  The steward, for his part, may be wicked, but he is a practical man: “What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.”  From this we learn that the steward has truly squandered the property and has not even saved any of it for himself.  

After thinking it over, the steward comes up with a scheme by which he will ingratiate himself with those in debt to his master so that he might later sponge off of them.  He calls in the debtors to pay back what they owe.  The first man owed “one hundred measures of olive oil”.  Calculating from the unit given in the Greek text, this comes to eight or nine hundred gallons of olive oil in modern terms.  In the best of times, as an olive tree can produce only about a gallon of oil a year, we see right away the substantial nature of this man’s debt.  It is far more than he could repay.  This man would have trembled, thinking that he would be sold into slavery or put into debtor’s prison for the rest of his life.  But the steward said to him, “Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.”  Although still a large amount, the reprieve would have left the man shaking from relief.  The next man owed “one hundred measures of wheat.”  The “measure” in the Greek text is a transliteration of a Hebrew measure of volume, not of weight.  Each kor, then, had a volume of fifty-eight gallons of water: the wheat would have taken up as much space as fifty eight hundred gallons of water.  In other words, what would be held by several large barns, also nearly impossible to pay back over the course of a human lifespan.  “Here is your promissory note: write one for eighty.”  The steward makes the debt a little more manageable.  Again, the debtor would have been much relieved that he was not going to be sold into slavery and also that his debt was reduced.

“And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.”  Based on what the Lord has already said, the reader expects the steward to get into even more trouble with his master, but this is not what happens.  The reader is left dumbfounded that the cheated and defrauded master “commends” the steward for taking care of himself in this way.  We are left wondering that the rich man possesses such wealth that these losses mean little to him.  We might also consider that this man  himself became rich through immoral means, such as usury.  The steward then goes off from the man’s employment with his plans to live with the debtors whom he had saved.  The Lord’s explanation for the parable does not shed much light at first: “The children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”  The Lord means that the wicked shamelessly look to provide a hole for themselves to hide in so that they may get away with their crimes.  They even cheat each other to do this.  But the “children of light”, the baptized, often go about as though their baptism alone will save them for the next world.  But those who have been baptized must grow in faith and good works.  They must not become complacent.  St. James reminds us, “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2, 14-27).  That is, without good works, faith dies and the soul is lost.

The Lord tells us to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6, 20).  Let the children of light perform good works for the love of God so that they will be welcomed into heaven when they are dismissed from this earthly life.

Thursday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 5, 2026

Luke 15, 1-10

The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus addressed this parable to them. “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’ In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

“The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus.”  The events recounted in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass occurred on the road to Jerusalem.  It is not clear whether the Lord is still in Galilee or has entered Judea.  It is a few days walk between Capernaum, where Jesus often stayed, and Jerusalem, but he proceeds only gradually because he often stops to speak to the crowds or to heal the sick.  Here we see that the local tax collectors and “sinners” approach him.  The Jewish people despised the tax collectors as collaborators with the Roman occupiers and as men who coerced people into paying more than was due, for their own profit.  It is not clear what is meant by the very general “sinners” although this might include prostitutes and possibly those who lived outside the cities and towns, like the shepherds.  The derelicts who haunt the fringes of every society and time might also be numbered with them.  The Pharisees and perhaps people in general would have thought of them as “sinners” in the sense that they lived outside the Law in terms of personal morality as well as in that they would have been considered ritually unclean.  That such people approached to listen to Jesus gives us an indication of the wonder and awe that surrounded him.  But this very fact annoyed the Pharisees: “The Pharisees and scribes began to complain.”  We might think that the Pharisees and scribes had better things to do, but they had erected a cult to ritual purity quite unlike anything commanded in the Law.  For them, the presence of a person they deemed “unclean” threatened to contaminate all who around them.  It was, they thought, their responsibility to complain.  But they went a step further, attempting to insinuate that Jesus was unclean through his association with these folks: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  Here, they act out of jealousy and seek to outrage the large crowd against the One they followed.  We note that the Lord at this moment has not “welcomed” them and is not eating with them.  The Pharisees bring this up as an accusation against previous actions.  We see how out of touch the Pharisees are, for the crowd is following the Lord partly because they believe he will reform the religion which they had corrupted.

“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?”  The Lord does not rebuke the Pharisees before the crowd but takes the opportunity he teach everyone about repentance.  To do this, he speaks of sheep and shepherds.  The shepherd has a hundred sheep and “loses” one.  That is, he does not kill it or drive it away; it wanders from the fold of its own accord, perhaps seeking better nourishment.  It will not find it, of course, for if the grass was of greater richness in another place the shepherd would have led his flock there.  Instead, it will find itself in a desolate place.  The shepherd, counting his sheep towards the end of the day, notices that one is missing.  He leaves his flock in the hands of his assistants, who are to stand pat, and goes off into the desolation to find his sheep.  Perhaps the sheep hears the shepherd’s voice and responds, or perhaps, because he carries it back on his shoulders, the shepherd finds it hungry and exhausted.  He returns to the flock with the sheep and “calls together his friends and neighbors” upon his arrival home.  He says to them, “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep!”  His great joy at finding this sheep tells us something of the pains the shepherd took in locating it.  The Lord concludes this parable, saying, “I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”  Why is this?  It sounds as though it is better to sin and repent than to stay clear of sin.  But this is really about the Shepherd and his dedication and sacrifice in finding the sheep that “was lost”.  The meaning becomes clearer when we know that the Greek word translated as “lost” also has the meaning of “to die” and “to perish”.  It is the Lord who brings back the sinner from the dead.

“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?”  The Greek text tells us that the woman had ten drachmas.  A “drachma” was a coin worth a full day’s work, so we can see that this amounted to a lot of money, likely the result of years of saving.  She would have felt the loss keenly.  Therefore, she lights a lamp and goes thoroughly through the house in search of it. “And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors.”  She does so out of the joy that her strenuous efforts have been successful.  

“In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  The Pharisees did not preach repentance from sin.  They preached the need to remain ritually clean, which they associated with righteous behavior.  The Lord discounts this obsession of theirs entirely because it dispenses with a God of mercy and love in favor of a god who counted beans and looked for the slightest dust on shelves.  Jesus teaches that he has come from heaven to save us who are dead in sin and to “raise us up” on his shoulders.  

Wednesday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 4, 2026

The Feast of St. Charles Borromeo

Luke 14, 25-33

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

What leader makes it hard for a person to follow him?  Jesus does not simply make it hard, he sets down conditions for following him that make this nearly impossible.  A person faces the dilemma of either following the Lord and having no other life at all, or of not following him and perhaps only seeing him again when he comes that way.  A leader who is trying to build a movement or an insurgent army does not make many conditions.  In fact, he might make extravagant promises to people, or flatter them, or frighten them with tales of their opponents in order to get them to join him.  We today can see how this works in political campaigns.  An earthly leader needs the backing of a multitude to attain his or her ends.  The Lord Jesus, however does not need a multitude for any reason — but the people need him.  The Lord has something that people want: the truth about God, words that alternately soothe their desires and fire their zeal, knowledge of the kingdom of God, and healing of wounds and illnesses.  Beyond these things, people feel his power, the divine power that hides in human garb.

He sets stringent conditions for those who wish to follow him.  He does this because in order for them to receive what he has to give them, their hands must come to him empty.  If our hands are full with our own goods, how can we receive another’s, no matter how desirable?  And our hands must be clean, too.  What did our mothers tell us before we sat at the table for dinner?  Wash your hands!  We wash them out of necessity, but also out of respect for our mothers who have prepared good things for us.  And so we free our hands of our “goods” — our own wills.  We give up everything and everyone in our lives in order to have Jesus.  We may receive things and people back from him, but from that point on, we know them only in that way, as allowed by him.  

“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  The “cross” of Jesus is the suffering he endured in expiating our sins in obedience to the Father.  Our “cross” is the suffering we endure in preaching the Cross of Jesus and in living the life to which he calls us.

“Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?”  Here, the Lord speaks of the need for a person to seriously consider whether he or she can become a disciple — that is, whether they are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.  Many folks, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, join movements only to find, after a few weeks or months, that the work is harder than they thought, or that the reality of life as a follower does not match their daydreams of how it would be.  Disillusioned and maybe a little embarrassed, they slink home.  The Lord Jesus does not cloud the difficulty or sacrifice necessary, and insists that his would-be followers think hard before committing themselves.  No one can know exactly how it will be, but everyone can measure themselves against their calling.  Perhaps for many the answer is a sad No, or for some a reluctant Not Yet.  But for a few at least, there is the joy of a new life in Christ through his grace.

We celebrate today the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo (d. 1584).  Living during the time of the disastrous Protestant reformation, he saw the need for a new way of training priests that would educate them in theology and form them more perfectly in Christ.  Previously, the training of young men for the secular priesthood (as distinct from priesthood in a religious order) took place within a sort of apprenticeship.  Young men would live with a local priest and he would teach them what he knew.  At a certain point the priest would present his charges before the bishop, who chose whether to ordain them.  St. Charles established seminaries where young men were engaged in formal studies by priests expert in various fields.  This system led to better educated and self-disciplined men prepared to lead the worship of God, to preach his Word, and to administer his Sacraments with charity and zeal for souls.

I attended St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia for six years.  The buildings for it were built beginning in the late 1860’s, and thousands of men have have prepared for the Priesthood there since that time.  The saint’s Feast Day came as the climax of the Forty Hours Adoration at the beginning of the seminary year.  It was a great day with processions and a big Italian dinner.  It was also the day when the new seminarians first wore their cassocks, a sign of their commitment to become priests in The Priest, Jesus Christ.  Let us pray for all seminarians that they will prosper in their studies and in their love for Jesus.

Tuesday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 3, 2026

Luke 14, 15-24

One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

“Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”  Jesus takes up this exclamation, which seems self-evident, to teach the assembled scribes and Pharisees about the people who will in fact dine in the Kingdom of God.  The speaker thinks that the kingdom of God will be filled with people like himself.  Jesus says otherwise.

“A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.”  That is to say, he did not invite the whole town, or even most of its population.  He invited “many”.  It is safe to assume that he invited the people most important to him.  Now, we are told explicitly that this was a “great dinner” — it was not a wedding feast or a birthday or something of the kind.  As we are not told the cause of the feast, we take it for granted that it was an expression of the man’s generosity.  “When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ ”  The day-long work of slaughtering, preparing, and roasting goats or cattle would be nearly completed, bread would have been made, and wine purchased.  All that was needed was the guests.

“But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.”  The invitation would have been issued days, if not weeks beforehand.  The date would have been carefully chosen so as not to come during religious holy days or times of planting or harvesting.  If an invited guest could not attend the dinner, the time for excusing himself was at the time the invitation was received.  Declining such an invitation would be a serious matter in those days.  An invitation entailed a virtual obligation to attend.  The excusing here amounted to a very serious breach of social custom.

“ ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ ”  The fact that these excuses are insincere is plainly shown by the fact that these transactions were foreseen — these are not emergencies that occurred suddenly.  The obvious insincerity is a sign of contempt for the man hosting the dinner.  “And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ ”  This might seem a more plausible excuse, but, again, it is not.  The invited guest did not suddenly run off with a woman.  This too would have been foreseen at the time the invitation was accepted.  Besides this, the man hosting the dinner would almost certainly have gone to this guest’s recent wedding feast and would have known he could not come.  It is possible that he had not married after all, then, and was openly lying.  It is this recognition of the contempt that explains the next line: “The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant.”  If the excuses had at all seemed valid, there would have been no occasion for the rage.  Meanwhile, time was passing and the feast needed to be eaten or the food and all the work of the feast would be wasted.

“ ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ ”  That is, bring in people who are hungry, people who otherwise would not eat that day.  They would eat and be thankful.  Their joy at having good things to eat would exceed any joy and gratitude the original guests would have shown, and the host would bask in this.

“ ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ ”  The servant does not merely carry out his master’s orders, but intercedes for other hungry people of whom he knows, pointing out that more people could be accommodated.  The master is pleased to know this and orders as many needy people as possible be brought to his house: “ ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled.’ ”  These people lived, as it were, on the edges of the world.  They were the rejects of society, those not good enough to dwell in the town itself.  “ ‘For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ”  There seems a causation between this line and the one previous to it: even if those invited originally changed their minds and came anyway, they would take one look at those who were feasting and they would have departed in a huff.  But the main idea here is that those who were hungry were fed, and those who expressed no hunger were allowed to stay away.

This “hunger”, of course, is the hunger for the company of Almighty God, and for the feast of love that only he could provide.  The invited guests were the very people whose appetites should have been cultivated by their study of God’s law and words.  Their study, however, left them feeling self-sufficient, maybe even “autonomous” to use a term that has become fashionable among those who are truly blind.  Those who hunger for God’s feast are the ones who should have been “fed” by these teachers of the law.  They are in fact starving.  Unable to work because of their infirmities, they sit in the streets and beg.  They might buy a crust of bread with what it takes them a day to earn in this way.  The servant who goes in search of the beggars and the rejects is the zealous priest or religious or layperson who teaches the Gospel to these folks and brings them into the Church where they feast on the Holy Eucharist.

We can see the Lord Jesus as this man’s servant, toiling away at his Father’s command to bring all people to the feast, going to the furthest corners of the world in order to do so.  His is perfect, uncomplaining obedience.  And the only ones who did not eat that day were the ones who refused the meal offered to them.

The Feast of All Souls, Monday, November 2, 2026

John 5:25-29

At that time, Jesus said to the multitudes of the Jews, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live. For as the Father has life in Himself, even so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He has granted Him power to render judgment, because he is Son of Man. Do not wonder at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but they who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment.”

On this feast we commemorate the souls of the just whose love is being perfected in purgatory as they are stripped from all longings that are not for God, for only the perfect may look upon the face of God.  Thus, we see the necessity of doing this work now ourselves with the help of the grace of God, and we have our lifetimes in which to do this.  It is easier to do this now than in the world to come.  At that time, the intensity of our love for God will increase, making every moment apart from his vision almost unbearable.  For this reason, we speak of the “flames” of purgatory.  The souls there live in hope, for one day they will most certainly see the Lord and rejoice in his presence into eternity. 

The Gospel reading which is the source of this reflection is from the 1962 Missal.  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God.”  It is easy to see why the crowds remarked about how differently Jesus spoke than their scribes and Pharisees — that he spoke “with authority”.  He speaks definitively here of how the dead shall shortly hear his voice.  Jesus speaks here of the souls in the limbo they inhabited before the Lord’s Death and Resurrection.  After his Death, he preached to the souls and led those who believed in him to eternal life — “those who hear him shall live” — while those who rejected him in their pride they descended into hell.  The souls in purgatory now hear the words of Jesus in their memories and console themselves with his promises.

“For as the Father has life in Himself, even so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself.”   The Lord speaks of his Father as the Source of all life, human and divine, and by his will his only begotten Son joined himself to a human nature and became the “Son of Man”.  Because the Son has become one of us, he is entitled to judge us.  And he who judges us is the very one who died for us on the Cross.  We can know, then, that he will be most strict on those who reject the salvation he won for us by such awful suffering, and most compassionate with those who strove for it on earth, though they fell just short of the perfection of love needed to receive it immediately after death.  Purgatory exists as a result of this compassion.

“The hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God.”  How long these souls have waited to hear this voice!  Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and all the just souls through all the long ages.  Thousands of years passed between the creation of the First Adam and the birth of the Second Adam, as St. Paul designates the Lord Jesus.  “And they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but they who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment.”  At the sound of his voice, in answer to his preaching, the righteous rose up into heaven on Easter Sunday.  One day, each soul in purgatory now will hear the Lord calling and shall then rise into the jubilation of heaven, with choirs of angels crying out in welcome.

We are able to assist these souls with our prayers, sacrifices, and our attendance at Mass on this feast.  Let us especially help them with the recitation of the Holy Rosary as we meditate on the mysteries by which we are saved.