Friday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 21, 2025

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple

Luke 19:45-48

Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And every day he was teaching in the temple area. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death, but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.

According to the Gospels, Jesus went straight to the Temple once he entered Jerusalem at the beginning of his last week on earth.  His followers would have expected this, for in their understanding the Messiah was to purge the Temple and restore true worship, and then to declare that the kingdom of Israel was restored with himself at its head.  Thus, the anxiety of the Pharisees in Luke 19, 39.  Going to the Temple and expelling the merchants doing business in the courtyard seemed exactly what the Messiah was supposed to do.  In fact, his actions meant that the worship in the Temple with its animal sacrifices had served its purpose as a sign and had now come to an end: the true worship of God with its offering to the Father of his Body and Blood, was about to be inaugurated.

“It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’, but you have made it a den of thieves.”  The Lord quotes from Isaiah 56, 7.  The whole verse runs: “I will bring them [the faithful Jews] into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall please me upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for all nations.”  Almighty God promises to give joy to those who obey his Commandments in his house of prayer.  His glory will be their glory.  He says that their sacrifices will please him.  The dead animals offered up at that time represented the one making the offering, and so “a sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51, 19).  That is, a heart emptied of its pride, and a will conformed to the will of God.  

Jesus particularly declares the Temple God’s “house of prayer” in opposing the merchants, contrasting it with the “den of thieves” the merchants and their backers, the Sanhedrin, had made it.  A den of thieves is a dangerous place for any person to go.  Because it is hidden, a person could walk into it unwary, realizing his mistake only when it was too late.  In this den, within the rocky hills of Judea, all sorts of evil would be planned, and in this hideout the bandits felt safe.  Here also they would divide their loot and celebrate their successes.  The Lord is declaring that this is what the Temple had become, with the Sanhedrin and Pharisees as the thieves.  It is as if they lured the innocent believers into their den in order to rob and kill them.  That is, they take their money and endanger their souls with false teachings that draw them away from God.

“And every day he was teaching in the temple area.”  The Lord began to cast out the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees with his teaching that enthralled crowds who had thirsted all their lives for the truth about God.  “The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death.”  These thieves could not abide a single challenge and so banded together to find the best way to eliminate the One who showed them for who they were.  “But they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.”  Out of desperation they would finally try to use the hated procurator Pilate to do their work for them.  But what was this teaching that so inflamed them?  Was this man from Nazareth preaching a war with Rome and announcing that he was a king?  No, rather, he taught the people to love God with all their hearts and their neighbors as themselves. Instead of inciting his followers, he was calming them.

“All the people were hanging on his words.”  They clung to his words as though they were jewels — or the ropes of rescue ships.  His words were life to them.  Perhaps many still expected him to restore the kingdom, but all his words were about God.  

The freer from sin we are and the more prayerful, the more we will hang on his words, too, for it will seem to us as we read them that we are hearing him speak them to us.  So let us cast out the vices from us, his temples, and become ourselves true houses of prayer. We can do this through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, herself a perfect house of prayer who prepared herself to do God’s will even as a child, living and learning about her Master in his Temple.

Thursday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 20, 2025

Luke 19, 41-44

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

The Gospels tell us of only two times the Lord Jesus wept: at the death of his friend Lazarus, and here.  This tells us of how personally he took his rejection by the people he had shown the most love for, over the centuries.  Time and again he had sent them prophets and judges to sway them and lead them when they forsook the simple Commandments he had given them.  They cast him aside in the wilderness for a golden calf after he had sent ten mighty plagues against Egypt on their account and led them across the Red Sea to safety out of reach of Pharaoh’s chariots.  They grumbled against him after he had miraculously fed them there, where no other food was to be found.  They gave him up for the worship of alien gods after he had incredibly handed over to them the land of Canaan in which to dwell.  They signaled their lack of trust in him by demanding a king even during the time of Samuel, their greatest judge.  Later, they clung to their idolatry despite the warnings of the prophets of national destruction if they persisted in it.  And, finally, it had come to this, that a few days after the Som of God wept over them, they would cry out against him, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” in the face of the Roman procurator’s wish to let him go free (cf. Luke 23, 21-22).

In the Lord’s words read at today’s Mass, we see the horror of sin and the dreadful fate of the one who clings to it.

“If this day you only knew what makes for peace.”  Jerusalem, that is, the unrepentant soul, does know what makes for peace.  Through the Prophet Micah, the Lord has said, “I will show you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Verily to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6, 8).  And here, God had come to walk humbly with his people, showing them with his own actions, which everyone could see, how to do judgment and to love mercy. But still they did not “know” this in their own actions.  They were like children who watched but did not apply what they saw to themselves.  “But now it is hidden from your eyes.”  The love of their God was hidden from the eyes of the hearts of the unrepentant, that is, they hide themselves from it, “That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them” (Mark 4, 12), as the Lord said, adapting Isaiah 44, 18.  They hide themselves from his love so that they can avoid the hard work of admitting their sins, begging forgiveness, doing penance, and changing their lives.

“For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you.”  The coming end of our lives is like an army assembling before the walls of a city and erecting siege-works.  We know we are getting older and weaker, that our formerly robust strength is failing us.  From the walls of our city we can see the enemy, out of range from our own weapons, calmly, methodically, preparing for our destruction.  The unrepentant see, but do nothing else.  “They will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.”  Every avenue of escape — to repent — has been closed off for them, and they do nothing but sit, waiting for their doom.  “They will smash you to the ground and your children within you.” That is, the unrepentant sinner and any hope he had of living his accustomed life. “They will not leave one stone upon another within you.”  No chance of respite or recovery will remain.  

“Because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  The time of our visitation, of God’s grace, is now.  The history of the world is filled with the stories of men and women of every time and condition who could have saved themselves from some terrible fate, but did not lift a finger to do so, in spite of repeated warnings.  We have the urgings of the Son of God himself, and whatever time left he grants us.  We pray for our own conversion and for that of even the most abandoned sinners.

Wednesday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 19, 2025

Luke 19, 11-28

While people were listening to Jesus speak, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’ But when he returned after obtaining the kingship, he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money, to learn what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’ He replied, ‘Well done, good servant! You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.’ Then the second came and reported, ‘Your gold coin, sir, has earned five more.’ And to this servant too he said, ‘You, take charge of five cities.’ Then the other servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your gold coin; I kept it stored away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man; you take up what you did not lay down and you harvest what you did not plant.’ He said to him, ‘With your own words I shall condemn you, you wicked servant. You knew I was a demanding man, taking up what I did not lay down and harvesting what I did not plant; why did you not put my money in a bank? Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.’ And to those standing by he said, ‘Take the gold coin from him and give it to the servant who has ten.’ But they said to him, ‘Sir, he has ten gold coins.’ He replied, ‘I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.’”  After he had said this, he proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.

The parable that is read for today’s Mass is similar to the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25, 14-30, and this has caused some scholars to think it is the same.  But this is not so.  The Lord tells this parable before he arrives at Jerusalem and he does so for the reason St. Luke gives: the people “thought that the Kingdom of God would appear there immediately.”  That is, the Lord explained to the people in this way that the kingdom they awaited so fervently would not be established in this first coming of his, but in his second coming. The Lord told the Parable of the Talents, on the other hand, as part of his teaching on the end of the world and on the great judgment at that time.  The Lord told the parable in Luke first, then, before entering the City, and adapted it later in order to teach on another matter.  This shows the genius of the Lord’s parables, that they can be adapted to different situations, audiences, and teaching.  

“A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.”  Jesus speaks of himself here, and that he will ascend into heaven, after his Resurrection, to obtain the Kingdom from God his Father, and then, at a time of his choosing, he will return to earth.  “He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’ ”  The number ten signifies totality, and so the Lord gives all his servants the commandment to live faithfully and the grace with which to do so.  “His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’ ”  That is, those wicked leaders and demons who considered themselves the Lord’s equals or betters through their pride and envy, and so are here called “his fellow citizens”.  “But when he returned after obtaining the kingship, he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money, to learn what they had gained by trading.”  The nobleman, now king, said he would return and he did.  Here, the Lord returns to the earth in glory and majesty and the angels gather together all his servants so that they may render an account to him.  “The first came forward and said, ‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’ ”  Now, the Greek text tells us exactly how much each servant received: a mina, worth about $500 in today’s money. The first slave thus earned $5000 by trading with his mina.  This is a remarkable profit, and the king is pleased, and the reward is breathtaking: “Well done, good servant! You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.”  From slavery to ruling ten cities!  The second servant comes next, perhaps a little nervous because he has not gotten such a profit.  But the king is pleased with this servant too: “You, take charge of five cities.”  Again, a stupendous reward well out of proportion with what the servant has done.  We see how the Lord rewards our faith and good works on earth, raising us up from the dust of which we are made to glory in heaven.  

The last servant, who has seen the others rewarded as a result of their labor, is filled with trepidation for he has put forth no labor at all.  He trembles as he tries to excuse himself: “Sir, here is your gold coin; I kept it stored away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man; you take up what you did not lay down and you harvest what you did not plant.”  This servant tries to blame his master for his own failure.  The master is not pleased: “With your own words I shall condemn you, you wicked servant. You knew I was a demanding man, taking up what I did not lay down and harvesting what I did not plant; why did you not put my money in a bank? Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.”  At the last judgment, the Lord will not waste any words with the wicked for they do not deserve them and they know full well that they chose to reject him rather than work for him.  These words, then, are meant for us to hear so that we might understand the teaching.

“Take the gold coin from him and give it to the servant who has ten.”  That is, the wicked lose everything and have no more chance, at the time of the judgment, to repent and do penance.  When the master tells his attendants to give the gold coin to the man with ten, they are astonished.  The king says to them, “I tell you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”  Those who are strong in the faith through continual prayer and repeated good works will profit through perseverance, while the wicked who does not attempt to do the will of God, even in favorable times, will lose what faith they may have once had.  “Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king, bring them here and slay them before me.”  These are those who never possessed faith, rejecting it out of hand, and enticed the wicked to act with greater wickedness.  The devil and his angels are among them.  They are said to be “slain” in that their loss of heaven and their condemnation into the fiery darkness is permanent.

We see here the eagerness of the Lord to overwhelm, as it were, those who are faithful to him.  The holiness we obtain on earth may be a “very small” matter when compared to that of Almighty God, and yet he gives to those who have striven for it a place in the brilliance of his eternal Kingdom.  And let us labor to gain the ten minas simply in order to please him who is the love of our lives.

Tuesday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 18, 2025

Luke 19, 1-10

At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

The context for the Gospel reading for today’s Mass is the final pilgrimage of Jesus to Jerusalem. He is already mere weeks from his betrayal and Death. However, the mood of the crowd traveling with him is triumphant and very righteous “because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately be manifested” (Luke 19, 11) when he stepped into the city. These people saw themselves as the Lord’s royal escort. They had not grasped the Lord’s repeated teachings on his kingdom, which was not of this world. Instead, they clung to what the Pharisees had told them to expect when the Messiah came: the overthrow of Israel’s foes and the restoration of the monarchy according to the line of David. All along the road, though, Jesus had shown just what sort of king he was: he does not rail against the Roman occupation or against Herod; he gives new life to lame and to the blind, and forgiveness to sinners.

“Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was.” It seems strange to us that after three years of continual preaching throughout Israel that there should be someone who had not seen Jesus. But there were at least two: the tax collector Zacchaeus and the tetrarch Herod Antipas. It is possible that Zacchaeus had previously been so tied up in his business that he ignored the Prophet from Nazareth. Or that he had felt too unworthy to hear him. But it is possible that had he, the chief tax collector, gone to join the crowd hearing Jesus that he would have been ridiculed. Climbing the sycamore tree solved two problems, then: short of stature, he could climb up the trees low hanging branches to a height that allowed him to look down on Jesus when he passed by, and because the branches of the tree were thick with leaves, his presence among them could go unnoticed.

“Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” The Lord Jesus who sees all his children and knows them through and through, is the only one who sees Zacchaeus and he calls him down. Reading this verse, it appears as though Jesus had come this way specifically to eat with the tax collector. He addresses him by name and then announces that he will sup at his house. And the Lord does this with us as well. He comes to each one of us as though each was the only person in the world, and he makes his home with us. That is, he finds us welcoming him into the home of our hearts through our faith in him. We show this faith in different ways. Zacchaeus did this through his abasing himself by climbing a tree to see him and then by his repentance, which he does for the Lord’s sake.

There are those who grumble, “He is going to stay at the house of a sinner.” Nothing in the Jewish Law forbade eating with those deemed sinners. The grumbling comes from the very people who hail Jesus as the king, but who do not act as though he were a king, for a king can do as he wishes. But Jesus is more than a king, he is the Savior of the world, and he does more than show his favor by eating with chosen subjects, he brings salvation to their houses. But Zacchaeus not only acknowledges Jesus as king, but he acts in accordance with his belief: “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” In a few days the crowd will lay down palm branches before the Lord as he enters Jerusalem. Zacchaeus lays down his entire fortune before him and counts it as nothing.

We who love God should continuously be asking him to come into the shelter of our hearts. There is no heart so poor or so rich that he will not enter it at our invitation, and when he does, he makes it a magnificent palace.

Monday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 17, 2025

Luke 18, 35-43

As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent, but he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him; and when he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God. 

“Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”  I think of this phrase when I am walking through a hospital hallway, carrying the Blessed Sacrament in my pyx to a member of the faithful who has fallen ill or suffered an accident.  The nurses, doctors, and technicians in the hallway are preoccupied with their work and do not look up when a priest comes by.  But when the priest appears with the pyx in the patient’s doorway, there is happiness and relief.  Jesus is here.  Everything will be all right, no matter what happens. Among the members of the crowd St. Luke describes here, there is mixed opinion of who he is.  The blind man has a strong feeling for who Jesus is.  Jesus has walked this way before, and he has heard of him and his miracles.  He knows that Jesus can save him from his life of blindness and begging.

“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”  The blind man cries loudly so that he might be heard.  This is a prayer, a prayer straight from the heart.  There is nothing fancy about it.  It features not rhetoric.  It is not delivered with a flattering tone.  It is a great cry of need from someone who believes. “The people walking in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent.”  Why would people do this?  Does his need offend their propriety?  Do they think that Jesus should be shielded from such a sight as this blind man would present?  Or do people speak out of their own need to control?  All of these possible motives are signs of inward blindness as terrible as the outward blindness suffered by this man.

“But he kept calling out all the more.”  Jesus urges his followers to persevere in prayer: “Pray always and do not grow weary” (Luke 18, 1).  We see this too in the persistence of the Syrian woman (cf. Matthew 15, 21-28).  It is a sad spectacle, the blind man crying out to Jesus almost against all hope, and the people who could help him try to silence him.  Perhaps this is our modern secular world which wants its Jesus to be a wise man but without any trace of divinity, such as the power to heal blindness.

“Then Jesus stopped and ordered that he be brought to him.”  The Lord halts his progress for the sake of the blind man, whose cries he has heard, and orders the people who had tried to silence him to bring him forward.  He makes them useful despite themselves.  He makes them the means by which the blind man can come to him.  Thus does God show his power, using the people who assail us for believing as the means of drawing us nearer to him.  “What do you want me to do for you?”  The Lord asks us this question continuously throughout our days.  He asks it as one who has come to serve and not to be served.  He does not act as a ruler would on this occasion, asking him his name and where he is from, and why he should grant the favor he seeks.  He does not insist on signs of respect or obeisance.  The Lord simply asks the question, calmly and without any fuss.  Now, the Lord knows the man is blind.  This is even apparent to anyone capable of watching him stumble up over people to get to Jesus.  But the Lord wants him to say what he wants.  Does he want food or money? Does he want to see?  Sometimes when we pray we are too shy to ask for what we really want, as though it would be too much for the Lord to do for us, or that we do not really deserve for our prayer to be answered.  But we should ask for the biggest thing a person can want: eternal happiness with him.  And for cures for diseases, jobs, the needs of others, the conversion of family members — all of these too.  

“Lord, please let me see.”  Let us note the simplicity of this prayer, right out of the heart.  We should pray like this: Lord, give me faith.  Lord, make my child well.  Lord, give me justice.  Lord, forgive my sins.  The simplicity is not for the Lord’s benefit, but for ours.  We put ourselves not in the position of a bargainer or someone owed a favor, or of a flatterer at court, but as we truly are, utterly dependent upon him.  “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” And the Lord replies just as simply and directly.  And he does not demand arduous rituals or sacrifices in order to facilitate the healing.  He simply heals.  He is the server who makes a reply to the master.  He adds only, “Your faith has saved you.”  The faith that increased each time he was told to be silent and he shouted anyway.  The faith that grew “the more” in the face of opposition and the temptation of others for him to give up.  This is precisely how faith grows, not so much in favorable times.  For those whose faith is weak, that is, faith that is not fought for, it may be snuffed out altogether by opposition: “For he that has, to him shall be given, and he shall abound: but he that has not, from him shall be taken away that also which he has” (Matthew 13, 12).  In adverse times such as these, when the leaders of the Church and of our society seem to flaunt the law of God with impunity, this is important to remember.

“He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God.”  We hope that when we open our eyes after death the first thing we see is the face of Jesus, and that was the case with this man.  And he is not leaving to celebrate his sight elsewhere.  He is where he needs to be, close to Jesus, giving glory to God.  “When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.”  The people had been walking with Jesus to Jerusalem, but they had not been rejoicing.  The Lord used them to bring him the blind man, and he uses the newly sighted man to bring them to him.  It all works in God’s Providence.

Let us be patient in these days and ask the Lord to increase our faith.  If harder days come, we will be able to withstand them, with the help of God, and even to see our faith continually increase.  In this way we help others, too, or, God helps them through us.

The 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 16, 2025

Luke 21:5-11

While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, “All that you see here– the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.”  Then they asked him, “Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?” He answered, “See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.”

I’m afraid I’m late posting this, I had a late night call from the emergency room for a person who had suffered an aneurysm.  Please pray for her.

According to Jewish expectations of the time, the Messiah, whose arrival was due any time, would be born of the House of David, purify the worship in the Temple, and wage a war of independence against the Romans.  He would then rule Israel for a thousand years, after which there would be the resurrection of the dead and a great judgment.  The Lord’s words to the Apostles, “All that you see here– the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down”, would have shocked them.  He was telling them that everything they had been raised to believe about the future of Israel was false.  This came harder to them because they believed firmly that he was the promised Messiah.  If anyone would know the future of Israel, he would.  They must have been crushed, and minutes may have passed before they could speak.  This is how we are to hear their muted questions to him, “Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?”  Though this went against what they always been told, they believed him.  But they were struggling.  

“See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them!”  We are reading these words with hindsight: when he says this, we are thinking about the Lord’s return in glory.  But he had not taught his Apostles that he would come again, to this point.  He had taught them that he would be arrested, beaten, killed, and that after his Death he would rise, but not yet that he would return in judgment.  He would do this a little later in his discourse.  But what would his words have meant to the Apostles just then?  He was telling them that they were to accept no one outside their company as speaking on his behalf.  (For us today, this means to accept no claims from outside the Church about the Lord coming).  The Lord tells them, in addition: “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.”  The expected war against the Romans was thought to come at the beginning of the Messianic age, but when Jerusalem rose up (as it did in 66 A.D.) they were not to think this signaled his return.

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.”  All of these events have taken place regularly since the creation on the human race, except for the mighty signs that “will come from the sky”.  Wars and plagues do not signify his immediate coming back to the earth but signify that sin and its effects will continue to build up, requiring a judgment.  We can also understand the natural catastrophes of which the Lord speaks as the signs of the world continuing its “passing away”: “Heaven and earth will pass away” (Matthew 24, 35), and: “The first heaven and the first earth was gone: and the sea is now no more” (Revelation 22, 1).

The Lord teaches us that “we have not here a lasting city: but we seek one that is to come” (Hebrews 13, 14).  With whatever time we have left we ought to make ourselves ready for our migration to heaven.

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

Luke 18, 1-8

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luke 17, 26-37

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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