Twenty-eighth Sunday of the Year - 2025

This is Thanksgiving weekend in our country. Usually when we think of Thanksgiving, you have images of the bountiful harvest of the fruits of our land for which we come together to give thanks to God. But the image we have before us in today’s gospel is of a man giving thanks to God for quite a different reason. He is a man whose body was being ravaged by leprosy until he encountered Jesus who cured him. Leprosy, or Hansen's disease as it is also known, still exists today. It’s a bacterial decease affecting the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This may result in a lack of ability to feel pain, thus loss of parts of extremities due to repeated injuries or infection. But today it is curable by medication. In the ancient world leprosy was grouped in with other visible skin conditions and was most feared and dreaded. People with these conditions were forced to live apart from the general population, they must keep their distance while warning that they were leprous – unclean, unclean. In this gospel passage there are ten leprous men who are cured by Jesus resulting in two different responses by those cured. Nine simply return to life in their communities but with the thought that they are the luckiest men in town. But one has an entirely different response. Something greater than physical healing has happened to him – has been converted – he has encounter God, person-to-person. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then Jesus said to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” In our first Reading Naaman when he saw that he was cured of leprosy proclaimed, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.” Why, because in those days only God could cure leprosy. Today the wonders of modern medicine leave us in awe over how it is able to cure us. Is our age not unlike the picture we have before us in this gospel passage? Is it not unlike the other nine in today’s gospel, simply to be content with the cure – no need to bring God into it? People of faith gather this weekend to give thanks to God. Even though we know that by our own natural resources we contribute much to our own well-being, we also know that without the guidance of the wisdom of God and his provident hand sustaining us our lives could quickly descend into ruin. Today, as God looks out at these church gatherings of people come before Him to give thanks – yet with so many empty pews – might we not hear again these words spoken by Jesus in today’s gospel: “So many lives have I filled with my blessings, so few have come back to give thanks. Where are all the others? And to us he says: “Go home to your celebrations now, knowing that it is by your faith in me I make all things well.”

.

Twenty-seventh Sunday of the Year - 2025

Commentary on the Sunday Gospel for  the Twenty-seventh Sunday Dr. Brant Pitre, a Research Professor of Theology  at the Augustine Institute. View on Catholic Productions - LINK

Twenty-sixth Sunday of the Year - 2025

Recall last Sunday how Jesus, in Luke chapter 16, warned us that you cannot serve two masters, both God and money. Today’s gospel continues with Jesus warning of the dangers of wealth and its misuse and where we could end up if we are not wise and prudent about how we use it. In the early years of Jewish belief ideas of what was the make up of the afterlife is just developing. It was believed that all souls went to the same place called Sheol, the realm of the dead, where the good, the bad, those in-between all went to the same place. By the time of Christ, the idea had developed. Now within Sheol there is a separate place called Hades, the place of the damned. This is how Jesus uses the expression Hades – a place opposite to heaven, a place of anguish and flames – a place where the wicked go. Now even though there is a great chasm separating these two opposite realms those in Hades can see those in heaven which only adds to their suffering seeing what they have lost. So why is the rich man in hates? What does Jesus parable say about him; does it say he is an idolater, no;  does it say he breaks the Sabbath, no; does it say he stole from anyone, no; does it say he was a liar or and adulterer or a murderer, no none of these things commandments. All it says that he lived a life of luxury and gluttony, causing him to fail the second of Jesus’ two greatest commandments failing to love his neighbour who was languishing right there on his doorstep. He is in Hates for sins of omission. By this parable Jesus is warning of the great danger wealth poses, how it can lead to the sin of pride, a turning in on one’s self and leading to all manner of sins. It well might be that we could be failing to realize there are two categories of sins, sins of commission and sins of omission, what we fail to do. Some may think that because they believe that God exists, that they attend church and that they have not killed anyone that that is all there is to it. I’m in – think again. Let us revisit Matthew 25, I quoted last Sunday: Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." People today often talk about their "bucket list" all those things they want to experience, see and do before they die. A lot of work goes into planning and achieving the bucket list. Perhaps it would be well for us to spend less time on our bucket list and more time on our "to do" list, all those things yet to be done for which we will be held accountable on that day reckoning that surely is to come.

Twenty-fifth Sunday of the Year - 2025

In the Parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16, Jesus describes a very perplexing situation.  Rather than the dishonest steward in the Parable of the Unjust Steward being berated or punished for his treachery, he is lauded by his master for taking the initiative to acquire friends for himself, even by theft, knowing his master was going to release him from his duties.   What's more impressive about this parable of the unjust steward is that Jesus himself encourages his followers to be like this dishonest and unjust steward. What gives?  What is Jesus talking about?   > > > LINK TO VIDEO < < <

.