Sunday in the 25th Week Of Ordinary Time, September  21, 2025

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.

Saturday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 20, 2025

Luke 8, 4-15

When a large crowd gathered, with people from one town after another journeying to Jesus, he spoke in a parable. “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold.” After saying this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”  Then his disciples asked him what the meaning of this parable might be. He answered, “Knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you; but to the rest, they are made known through parables so that they may look but not see, and hear but not understand.  This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is the word of God. Those on the path are the ones who have heard, but the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts that they may not believe and be saved. Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they have no root; they believe only for a time and fall away in time of temptation. As for the seed that fell among thorns, they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along, they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, and they fail to produce mature fruit. But as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.”

The Fathers interpret the reasons for the lack of fruit in various ways.  In the main, they teach that the “path” that the seed of Christ’s teaching falls on is an unteachable heart, one so set on sin and wickedness that it does not even consider a different way to live.  The seed is “trampled” in contempt.  The “rocky ground” the seed falls on allows the plant from the seed to begin growing, but in a short time it withers due to “lack of moisture”: the carelessness and sloth of the one who receives it withholds the nourishment which the Gospel, sown in the mind through hearing, requires for growth.  The seed that falls “among thorns” is choked by covetousness and lust.  On the other hand, the seed that falls on “rich soil” signifies the teaching of the Lord that has been embraced and treasured, and is shared with zeal, so that others fall in love with it as well so as to be likewise “fruitful”.  

It is possible for those of us who are firm believers at the present moment to grow cold in our faith and even for it to die.  We see this all the time in all sorts of people.  Often young adults who move on to college stop going to Mass and then stop believing all together.  Adults may stop believing when they are shaken by the scandals in the Church.  Others simply fall into disbelief because belief and faith require work that they are not interested in doing.  How can we prevent this from happening to us?

First of all, we must pray.  In order to pray, we need to make this a regular practice that nothing keeps us from.  We can schedule prayer in our day as monks, nuns, and priests do who pray at set times of the day.  Prayer is necessary because it leads us to the love of God: we cannot love someone we do not talk to.  Lack of prayer eventually results in the loss of faith, and may lead us, step by step, to become the hardened ground of the “path”, holding religion on contempt. 

Second, we must fortify our faith with a deeper understanding of the Lord’s teachings.  We can do this through reading the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, by studying the doctrines of the Church, and by learning about the saints.  We can also get to know the writings of the Church Fathers and to become familiar with Church history.  These things provide the “moisture” our faith needs in order to grow and flourish.

Third, we need to worship God at Holy Mass on Sundays and holy days —and during the week, if possible.  Learning about the Mass enables us to worship God more fully, so that we may become more open to his gifts.  We ought to avail ourselves of the Sacraments, the chief conduits of grace in our world.  Making a monthly confession, for instance, is a good practice.  In this way, we put down strong roots which will keep us from destruction in any storm.

Fourth, performing good works is necessary.  We should perform good works for ourselves and for others.  Good works for ourselves would be restraining our desire to buy things we do not need and to avoid anything that could be a near occasion of sin.  Good works for others may be as simple as a smile or a greeting, or in some way caring for the sick, the poor, and the troubled.  It could be teaching CCD or ushering at Mass.  Through works such as these we become “fruitful” for others in bringing the Faith to them.  We also combat the vices of covetousness, lust, and sloth in these actions.  By continuously working for the good, we do not give temptation any attention.  Thus, we become “the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.”

Friday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 19, 2025

Luke 8, 1-3

Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.

“Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, etc.”  The first verse of today’s Gospel Reading sums up the work the Lord Jesus did in the three years of his Public Life, and it sounds like a very simple statement.  However, St. Luke was writing his Gospel for Gentiles who experienced something very different with their own teachers.  First of all, the Greek teachers and philosophers  did not travel about spreading their doctrines and speculations.  They remained where they lived, for the most part, and taught their, usually outside.  They also did not teach crowds of ordinary people.  They taught a few students at any given time.  They also did not tend to teach religious truths.  Aristotle’s teachings on ethics, for instance, did not cite the gods as an example to be followed, nor did he ever give instructions on how the gods were to be worshipped.  The Lord Jesus moved about constantly, taught very large crowds, and taught mostly exclusively how to live and how to please God.  For the Greeks for whom Luke wrote, Jesus came as something very new.  

Now, at the time of Luke’s writing, various foreign cults were popping up in Rome and in the provinces.  The cult of Mithras, which had its origins in Persia, offered mystical enlightenment, but its teachings were restricted only to the initiates.  Likewise, the cult of the Great Mother, from Asia Minor; the cult of Isis and Osiris, from Egypt; and the Eleusian mysteries.  The promoters of these cults did not teach non-initiates and had no special interest in right behavior.  They cloaked their teachings in complicated myths which had no historical basis and relied on their exotic origins and strange phrasings to lure in the gullible.  Nor did these various cults allow in just anyone.  The cult of Mithras was for military men.  The cult of the Great Mother only admitted women.  And we can readily imagine that the poor were not welcome at all.

Thus, Luke, with this simple verse, makes a clear distinction between the Lord and the philosophers and cult leaders of the time.  Furthermore, Luke highlights the presence and aid of women among the followers of Jesus: “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others.”  He names only the most prominent of them.  It is interesting that Luke names Mary Magdalene, “from whom seven demons had gone out”, before the others, as though she had a higher place among them, just as the Evangelists always named Peter first in their lists of the Apostles.  Possibly this was a nod to the important role she would play in the events of the Resurrection.  

And so men and women, rich and poor, educated and not, followed the Lord Jesus.  He preached to them all without distinction and healed Gentiles and Jews alike of their sicknesses.  His teachings were simple, and he used everyday experience to illustrate the points he was making.  Luke never feels the need to explain the Lord’s teachings after he has quoted them.  We give Almighty God thanks for sending his Son to us in this way: not as someone unapproachable or incomprehensible, but someone who welcomed even children into his embrace.

Thursday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 18, 2025

Luke 7, 36-50

A certain Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him, and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table. Now there was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee. Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty. Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?” Simon said in reply, “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.” He said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The others at table said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The anointing of Jesus which is recalled in today’s Gospel reading bears a similarity to the anointing of Jesus by Mary, the sister of Lazarus, of which St. John tells us in his Gospel (12, 1-8), but various details tell us that these are two separate events.  The woman in St. Luke’s account, for instance, is known as a “sinner”, while the woman in St. John’s Gospel is Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus.  Again, here, Luke tells us specifically that the woman anointed the feet of Jesus, and John tells us that it was his head.  

Jesus also uses each anointing to make very different points.  In John, the Lord says that Mary has anointed him in preparation for his coming Death and burial.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus takes the occasion to teach about the forgiveness of sins.

Luke says that, “There was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee.”  Luke does not tell us which city this occurs in.  Since Luke locates Jesus in Galilee during this part of his ministry, this may have occurred in Capernaum, the city Jesus moved to after leaving Nazareth.  The “sinful woman” of whom Luke speaks would not have come to the synagogue to hear the Lord preach but could have heard him when he taught on the shore, as he did on at least one occasion.  She could very well have known some of those whom he had healed from their diseases or whom he had released from the devil.  As a prostitute, though. she would have kept her distance.  From her subsequent actions, we know that she possessed a certain humility, a recognition of her own lowliness.  Perhaps she had thought of going before Jesus on previous occasions, but she had shrunk from this out of her shame.  Here, a strong urge, a prodding by the Holy Spirit, moved her from within and she determined that come what may, she must humble herself before the One who had touched her heart, however remotely.  We can wonder if she had heard the story of how the Lord had forgiven the sins of the man carried on the mat by his friends, and desired with all her heart to be forgiven too.

She brought with her “an alabaster flask of ointment”.  Alabaster is a soft stone that is easily carved.  In ancient times the highest quality alabaster was mined in a particular place in Egypt.  A bright white stone, in those days it was often carved into vials for perfumes and ointments.  “She stood behind him at his feet” must mean that she positioned herself behind him, since she could hardly have kissed his feet from a standing position.  She “began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.”  Why does she cry?  Perhaps she was overpowered by the Lord’s powerful presence.  She may have looked into his eyes briefly and seen the love for her in them, a love which she had never felt before in her life from anyone.  At the feet of this holy man, she would certainly have wept over her sins.  She completely abases herself here, her hair disheveled, sitting on the floor where only the lowest servant would have gone, subject to shameful rejection.  But she would rather be there at the feet of Christ than anywhere she had ever been.

The Pharisee, who had most likely invited Jesus to his house to learn from him who he claimed to be, reasons: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.”  This is a fair question.  If the woman is unclean, then she makes Jesus unclean by her touch.  Would not a prophet know the clean from the unclean?  Jesus, without making any claims, shows himself to be something more than a prophet by taking up the man’s unspoken question.  In so doing, he brings up the Pharisee’s shocking lack of courtesy: he had provided no water for Jesus’s feet, had given him no kiss, and had not anointed his head, all expected ways of welcoming guests.  This behavior on the part of the Pharisee came through no accidental oversight but was purposeful and calculated to make clear that Jesus was not honoring him by his visit; he was honoring Jesus by inviting him to his house.  The omissions flew in the face of eastern culture which prized the guest, and represented a jarring breach of etiquette.  It is, in fact, a sign of contempt.  Jesus contrasts this with the behavior of the woman who has washed his feet with her tears and hair, kissed his feet, and anointed them with her perfume.  

“So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”  A better translation might read: “Her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much.”  There is no justification for “she has shown great love.”  For one thing, this would have the verb in the perfect tense, whereas it is in the aorist.  The aorist tense is used to show that a single action happened in recent past, and so Jesus is referring to her washing, kissing, and anointing his feet, rather than some action completed before this one, as indicated by the use of the perfect tense.  This woman did not love in the past, but now she did.  The word translated here as “hence” (that is, “therefore”) actually means “because”.  The lectionary translation makes it sound like the woman loved because she was forgiven, rather than that she was forgiven because she loved.  Jesus then implicitly compares to the Pharisee the woman’s state with his own: “Her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much.  But he who has not loved much is not forgiven much.”  We note here that Jesus is referring to love for himself, as well as claiming to be able to forgive sins, which only God can do: “He said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven . . . Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’ ”  He makes an unequivocal statement here regarding his divinity, and the people at table with him know it: “Who is this who even forgives sins?”  

Jesus shows here how love and faith lead to forgiveness and salvation.  Love of Jesus leads to faith in him, which leads us to seek his forgiveness knowing that he is himself the source of forgiveness, and this leads us to peace with him, and salvation.  It all begins with the spark of love, which induces humility in us, allowing us to truly love.

Let us look deep into the eyes of the love of God in prayer and fall deeply in love with him so that we might also rejoice in hearing the words, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Wednesday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 17, 2025

Luke 7, 31-35

Jesus said to the crowds: “To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’  For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

“The people of this generation.”  The Hebrew word for “generation” is dor, and like its Greek equivalent, it has a more general meaning than the one we usually associate with the English word.  Dor could mean generation as in a period of forty years), or an age, or a cycle of time.  The Jews of the time of Jesus believed that they were living in the sixth age, that of the Messiah; the seventh age being the age of the Sabbath.  The early Christians adapted this, understanding the sixth age, or generation, as beginning with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and concluding with the end of the world and the final judgment.  The resurrection of the just and their entrance into heaven would inaugurate the seventh age or eternal Sabbath.  Jesus is speaking here of this sixth age, which continues to the present time.  The people of “this generation” attempt to interpret him according to their ideas, conceits, ideologies, cultural norms, and even their own personal sinfulness.  Many seek in Jesus a political liberator, a mere heroic example, a wise man, a misunderstood prophet, a wandering story-teller, or a man as sinful and given to weaknesses as any of us.  So few these days (or any other days) seek to understand him as he knew himself to be.  This requires, among other things, setting aside all preconceptions and foreign cultural prisms — indeed, our pride.  More than anything else, it is this pride that makes Jesus so hard for people to know.  Only the little ones, the child-like, can know him well.  The merely childish cannot.

“For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ ”  In preparation for the feast of grace the Lord would bring when he came, John and his disciples fasted often.  They fasted to such a degree that people felt intimidated, and so they accused him, at least among themselves, of being “possessed by a demon”.  But the people seeing that the Lord and his disciples did not fast, said, “Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”  In this way, they also let themselves off the hook: Fasting is bad, just look at that John the Baptist fellow; and, There is no need for us to talk with sinners so as to bring them back, just look at that Jesus of Nazareth character.

So let us throw off our pride and learn who Jesus truly is, which we can do through the study of the Gospels and through gazing at him on the crucifix and at the altar.

Tuesday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 16, 2025

Luke 7, 11-17

Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, “A great prophet has arisen in our midst,” and “God has visited his people.” This report about him spread through the whole of Judea and in all the surrounding region.

Only St. Luke tells us this story about Jesus.  It takes place in Naim, a town a short distance south of Nazareth in Galilee.  Luke tells us that “his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him.”  We might wonder why the large crowd accompanied him.  Did they want to hear more of his teaching?  Did they want to see more miracles?  What did they want?  This event took place in the early stage of the Lord’s Public Life, so perhaps the people simply wanted to see who he was.  And who were the people who made up this crowd?  They would have had to be in a position where they could take time off from their work.  Maybe some of these were fishermen from Capernaum, and perhaps their families too.  Maybe some day laborers who could move from town to town.  It would be interesting to know.  “As he drew near to the gate of the city.”  It is significant that Luke tells us that the town had a gate.  All that is left of the old town is ruins, so we can know from the fact that a wall with a gate went around it means that it was fairly well populated and that there was some wealth in the town.  “A man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”  The Jews buried their dead before sundown, so the man had not died long before.  His body would have been anointed by his female relatives and then wrapped in burial cloths.  Because Luke mentions his mother but not a wife, he may have not yet reached the age to marry.  The Jews were carrying his body out on a bier so as not to touch it and become unclean.  They were bringing it outside the town’s walls because they buried their dead outside of towns and never within.  The body of the man would might have been on its way to the family sepulcher, since the town lay in a hilly location where tombs could be carved out of the rock or, if the family had no money, his body would have been buried in the ground.  The fact that this woman was a widow tells us of her grief and of her dire situation.  She would have been dependent on her son’s earnings for her living.  If she had no one to take her in after her son was buried, she would have to beg in the streets.  “A large crowd from the city was with her.”  This may indicate that the family had been an important one in that locality or that the people of the town were simply moved with compassion for her.

“When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her.”  Here we see, through Luke’s eyes, the humanity of the Lord Jesus, for he evidently had not known the man or his bereft mother.  He grieved for her as he grieved for his dear friends Martha and Mary when Lazarus died.  And we also see something of the Lord’s divinity too, for he comes on the scene at exactly the right time.  He does this several times in the Gospels.  He goes to the very much out-of-the-way Gentile region of the Gerasenes and seems to have no object there other than to cast out a legion of demons from a possessed man.  Naim, too, is away from the Sea of Galilee where he spent so much time preaching.  “Do not weep.”  When we ask others not to weep, it is because their weeping makes us sad.  But Jesus says this to the woman to prepare her for the raising up of her son.  We should not miss the strangeness of the Lord, whom she does not know, speaking to her, and at a time like this.  Many in the crowd must have found this behavior shocking and outrageous.  “He stepped forward and touched the coffin.”  The Greek word here translated as “coffin” can mean an open bier or a coffin, but since the Jews of that time did not use coffins, it should be translated as a bier.  

“At this the bearers halted.”  They stopped in their shock at the impropriety but also that a man had purposely contracted uncleanness.  The bearers would have preserved their clean state because they would have touched only the long handles of the bier, but Jesus touched it itself.  “Young man, I tell you, arise!”  The Greek verb is in the passive, so what the Lord said would be more like, “Be raised up!”  That is, rise not by your own power but by mine.  “The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”  This verse has an eerie sound to it, for Luke says “the dead man spoke”, and the Greek could also have been translated as “the corpse spoke”.  Luke speaks this way because he wanted to make clear that the man had indeed been dead, and had not been merely brought out of a deep sleep.  

“Fear seized them all.”  This is the Greek word phobos, which is usually translated as “terror” but can also mean “reverence”.  Both seem to fit here, for the crowd also “glorified God”.  We can easily understand the terror people felt at seeing a corpse on its way to burial suddenly sit up and begin to talk.  And they could hear him talk because the moment Jesus touched the bier and the bearers stopped, the crowd would have quieted quickly.  “A great prophet has arisen in our midst.”  The people attributed the raising up of the dead man to the Lord immediately and they identified him as a prophet, remembering that Elijah had raised up a widow’s son (cf. 1 Kings 17).  The widow responded by saying to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God.”  This may be the beginning of the notion that some people had that Jesus was Elijah come back again (cf. Matthew 16, 14).  “God has visited his people.”  The crowd also knows that a mere prophet could not raise the dead on his own: God worked through him.  The people thus proclaim the Lord’s humanity and divinity, inspired by the Holy Spirit.  

The Lord Jesus raises us from the dead when he forgives our sins and hands us back to our mother, the Church.  We are so careful these days with anything to do with our physical and psychological health.  If we were half so careful with the health of our souls we would become great saints very quickly.

The Feast of our Lady of Sorrows, Monday, September 15, 2025

John 19, 25-27

Standing by the Cross of Jesus were his Mother and his Mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your Mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

The sober wording of this passage of St. John’s Gospel underscores the horror of the action it describes.  Let us consider for a moment that men put the Savior of the world on a cross, there to hang in torment until he died of it.  Even if we did not love him, the image the word would produce in our minds would sadden us to some extent, depending on our store of compassion.  And for those who recognize him as an innocent man who went about doing good, it wound wring out some deeper feeling of grief,  and those who know of his immense love for each and every human being so that he willed to die for them, even more.  But for those who knew him personally and for many years, and experienced the passion of his love, the grief would be overwhelming.  This is still true, even today. Many saints recorded that they could not read the Gospel accounts of the Lord’s crucifixion without weeping copiously — for the more intense the love, the greater the sorrow when the one we love is caused to suffer.  

Most especially is this true of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Throughout her life as a Mother, her pure love for her Son brought her tremendous pain.  For the three years of the Lord’s Public Life, for instance, she followed him at a distance, mostly unrecognized, just another of his female followers.  She did nothing to draw attention to herself, but trailed along in humility and listened carefully to every word, treasuring them in her heart, watching him cure all those who came to him, seeing him hungry and exhausted and misunderstood and slandered, and she could do nothing to help. The Lord even seemed to distance himself from her, as though to show in his own life what he taught his followers: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14, 26).  And she could not even look for solace from members of her family, for as St. John recalled, “for neither did his brethren believe in him” (John 7, 5).

And so at the Cross, standing below her Son, torn to shreds by scourges and barely able to draw breath as he hung there, her heart, united to his and broken as though beyond repair, she hears him say to her, “Behold your Son.”  Behold the love of your life, he says to her, see how the joy of your soul hangs here in tatters amid the mockery of all who stand around or pass by. With these words, the Lord does more than to show her himself: he offers her the work of suffering with him for the salvation of the world.  Wordlessly she accepts, her whole life lived according to her words to God through the Angel: “Let it be done to me as you have said.”  

There is nothing like the pain of innocent suffering, and there was nothing innocence so pure as that in the hearts of the Lord Jesus and his Mother.  On this day, we ponder the love that binds these two hearts together, and which are so full of love for us, for whom they suffered.