THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

15 NOVEMBER 2026

 

          Those who originally heard this parable would have been stunned, for several reasons.  First, masters and slaves were profoundly unequal.  Masters had all rights and privileges.  They assigned tasks, made demands, and used their slaves as they saw fit.  Slaves had no rights and no recourse, even when they were wronged.  Second, the currency at that time was based on weights of precious metals like silver or gold.  One talent weighed about 80 pounds.  Scholars believe that the daily wage during this time was one denarius.  A talent was worth 6,000 denarii.  No master would entrust such an incredible amount to someone who did not share his rank.  These slaves received a staggering amount, along with responsibilities.  It is no wonder that the third slave buried his talent, given what was placed on his shoulders.

            We often interpret this parable through the lens of our current economics – that God entrusts to each of us different amounts of talent to be used to build up the kingdom of God.  But, in its Biblical setting, the parable tells us about our spiritual life.  The master-slave inequality reflects our human relationship with the divine.  God exists at a much higher level.  And yet, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have entrusted to us an incredible share of their divine nature.          

            The first reading from the Book of Proverbs helps us to understand how we should invest these talents given to us out of love.   At one level, the reading explains how a worthy wife should respond to her husband in the ancient world.  But, at a deeper level, we can learn how we should respond, based on our experience of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is the faithful bridegroom.  We are his bride.  The reading gives four examples of how we as individual Christians and as Christian communities should respond.

            Trustworthiness is the first trait of a worthy wife in Proverbs.  Just as vibrant, healthy marriages rely on trust, so too do our sound relationships with the Lord.  The Lord remains vibrantly alive in our individual lives, and in the life of this Christian community.  Not only must we be must be honest with each other.  We need to increase our trust that the Lord will not abandon us, any more than a husband would abandon his worthy wife.

            Second, the worthy wife of Proverbs intends the good for her husband and does it.  Healthy marriages depend on striving for the good of one’s spouse.  The same is true of our relationship with the Lord.  We harm Christ through negative words or deeds or neglect.  When we embrace these sins, we open ourselves to tension, difficulty, or rupture in our relationship with him.  Seeking what is good for Christ begets joy, peace, and a more union in our parish community.

            The third trait of a worthy wife in Proverbs is industriousness.  The wife obtains wool and flax by shrewdly engaging in trade and economic endeavors.  Her active hands speak of manual labor.  That industriousness is an important trait in our relationship with Christ.  The Lord expects us to be folks who are not afraid of working hard in our parish community.

            Finally, Proverbs indicates that worthy wives generously give to the needy.  In our relationship with the faithful bridegroom, we must work on behalf of the needs of others rather than serving ourselves in our parish community and in our surrounding neighborhood.

            Saint Paul reminds the Thessalonians that the Lord will come again.  He tells them that they need to be prepared.  He says the same to us.  We are not in darkness.  Rather, we are children of the light.  We know how much we have been blessed by our faithful bridegroom.  We know how he expects us to use our talents.  We stay awake and sober when we make sure that the traits of a worthy wife are traits that are part of our lives and our parish community.

 

SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS

1 NOVEMBER 2026

 

            In his vision in the Book of Revelation, Saint John describes the countless numbers of men and women who surround the throne of God.  They are marked with the seal.  These are the saints who have taken seriously the Beatitudes of Saint Matthew’s Gospel.  In their pilgrimage to the New and Eternal Jerusalem, they had looked forward toward God with an attitude of poverty of spirit; they had mourned in grief.  They were meek and humble toward others and made righteousness their ultimate desire.  They had shown mercy to those who did not deserve it and had clean hearts toward God.  They did their best to live in peace and made peace where there was hostility.  Many were persecuted and killed because of their faith.  Except for Mary, the Mother of God, they had all been sinners and failed at times to be people of the beatitudes.

            We know the names of those who have been canonized by the Church.  But we do not know the names of most of them, who lived ordinary lives not noticed by people in charge of canonizations.  We have known some of these people, because they had been members of our families, or neighbors, or friends.  On this Solemnity of All Saints, we honor them and ask their intercession.  Like them, we too have been sealed in our relationship with Jesus Christ through Baptism and Confirmation.  According to the First Letter of Saint John, we who are sealed are God’s children now.  What we shall be has not been revealed.  But this Solemnity reminds us to remain children of God and become saints to see the Lord as he is.  For that reason, we need their example to learn how to live the Beatitudes.  And we need their intercession, especially when we are tempted to abandon our status as children of God and attach ourselves to those things that will not last when the Lord calls us home.

            All of us have fond memories of those ordinary people whose holiness has inspired us.  Think of someone whose influence has helped you to navigate the difficulties of life.  Today, I think of my grandparents.  My mother’s parents lived a few blocks from us in the small town of Decatur, where we grew up.  Because both of our parents worked, my brother and sister and I stopped at our grandparents’ house on the way home from school.  Often, I stayed for dinner, and they taught me how to pray the rosary with them after dinner.  My grandpa took me to see all the exciting things in Decatur, especially in the fall when the farmers brought their harvest of soybeans to the grain silos of Central Soya.  He taught me how to fish at their lake cottage in Rome City and taught me how to play bingo in the church hall.  But as I grew up, I became aware that my Grandma was prejudiced.  She had spent her entire life in Decatur, where everyone looked like her.  To be honest, everyone was related to each other in Decatur.  She was not a mean person.  But she was completely ignorant of the worth of anyone who did not look like her.  When we drove through Fort Wayne on the way to the lake, she would always make us lock the doors of the car.  Her prejudice was motivated by ignorance and fear.

            By the time I was old enough to understand her prejudice, she had slipped into dementia.  I celebrated her funeral and prayed for her.  There were too many Mass intentions for me to say.  So, I sent them to my good friend, Father Larry Kanyike, in Uganda.  It seemed right that the people whom she feared the most would be interceding for her to join the Communion of Saints, where most of them don’t look like her either.  During this month of November, we pray for our deceased loved ones, commending them to the Lord’s mercy.  We ask the intercession of those who surround the throne of God, hoping that those who are prejudiced can see the truth and be healed.  More significantly, we work to imitate the examples of those who have sacrificed and worked to build a more just and loving society.

 

TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

18 OCTOBER 2026

 

          Our Scripture readings today speak of vocation.  The word “vocation” comes from the Latin word, vocare, which means “to call.”  We Catholics speak of a vocation through the lens of a state in life.  Most of you have been called to live as married couples.  Others are called to live as members of a religious order, both male and female.  I have been called to the priesthood.

            However, our readings speak much more broadly of “vocation.”  They reflect the Second Vatican Council’s understanding of vocation as a “universal call to holiness.”  God chooses to call everyone to some kind of holiness.  The prophet Isaiah says that God called the Persian king Cyrus to free the Chosen People from their exile in Babylon.  Cyrus was a pagan and had no idea who the God of Israel was.  But that does not stop God from naming him as his anointed, as his Messiah or savior.  In calling Cyrus, God grasped him by the hand, even though Cyrus did not know him.  Cyrus responded to God’s call in defeating the Babylonians and allowing God’s Chosen People to return to Jerusalem and their Promised Land.  Isaiah makes it clear that even through Cyrus does not believe in God, there is only one God, and there is no other.

            In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees and Herodians flatter Jesus by calling him a teacher who is a truthful man.  However, they are not interested in knowing any truth.  These two groups agree on nothing.  The Pharisees oppose Roman rule and regard it as an unjust burden on God’s Chosen People.  The Herodians cooperate with the Roman rule and prosper because of it.  To trap him, they ask Jesus if it is lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not.  If Jesus answers that it is not lawful, the Herodians will call him a rebel and report him to the authorities, as they had done previously to a Galilean teacher and had him executed.  If Jesus answers that it is lawful, then the Pharisees will accuse him of being in league with Rome and supporting an unfair tax that puts unjust burdens on the people.  Instead of falling into their trap, he asks to see a coin.  He asks them whose image is on the coin.  They reply, “Caesar’s.”  We are familiar with the first part of his answer, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.”  It reminds us that we need to pay our taxes every April 15 as faithful American Catholics. 

            But we often forget the second part of his answer, “…and to God what belongs to God.”  Everything belongs to God, including Caesar himself, who was made in the image and likeness of God, as are all of us.  That is the message sent by Paul, Sylvanus, and Timothy to the church of Thessalonica.  And through this living Word of God, it is the message they send to us.  Like them, we live out our universal call to holiness when we work as a labor of love for others.  Some of us have been called to work as married couples.  Others have been called to work as religious men or women.  Some of us have been called to work as priests. No matter what our individual states in life may be, we share a team approach to the universal call to holiness by working together to make the presence of God more visible in a divided and hateful world.

            As Paul reminds the Thessalonians, he reminds us that we endure with hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, especially when we experience difficulties and pain and challenges in our individual vocations.  Last week, we priests participated in a workshop focused on how we can face the difficult situations that we encounter in our particular vocation.  As with married couples, our ultimate hope rests in our faith that the Lord is present in the grace we have received from our Sacramental commitment.

            As we live out our common call to universal holiness, Saint Paul reminds us of our conviction in our faith and beliefs.  In each of our vocations, the Lord has clearly manifested himself to us.  We remember those times and continue to make the Lord’s presence more visible.

 

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

11 OCTOBER 2026

 

          Those who gave up everything to become disciples of Jesus of Nazareth certainly would have known the prophecy of Isaiah (our first reading).  Convinced that Jesus was the promised Messiah, they expected he would fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah in a glorious victory on a famous mountain, like Mount Sinai, or the Mount of the Transfiguration, or in the beautiful temple on Mount Zion.  Their hopes would have been shattered when he was executed on a horribly dark day on Mount Calvary outside the city walls.  Instead of being clothed in glory and surrounded by faithful witnesses, he died a horrible death stripped of everything, surrounded by thieves, and buried in a borrowed tomb.

            After his resurrection, they began to understand how Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy in unexpected ways.  He had destroyed the veil that veils all peoples.  In other words, he had removed the need for a veil to be worn at funerals.  He had destroyed death forever by entering death himself.  Grateful for his complete gift of self, they obeyed his command to carry the Good News to the ends of the earth.  God had wiped away their tears and had provided them with a feast of rich food and pure choice wine in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.  Nourished by this Sacrament and guided by the Holy Spirit, they had the courage to give themselves in loving sacrifice to all who would open themselves to this message of salvation.

            We share this same understanding of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.  In today’s parable, Jesus builds on that understanding.  The king in the parable is God, the Father.  His son, Jesus Christ, is the faithful bridegroom who as given himself totally to us as his bride.  God continues to invite everyone to the great wedding feast at the end of time.  Through the missionary activity of the Church, God does not force anyone to accept the invitation.  Too many people are so tied up with the ordinary affairs of life that they make excuses for not responding.  Others brutally murder the Lord’s servants, as committed Christians have been martyred over the centuries.  The Father continues to invite everyone, bad and good alike

            The Father also invites us to repent and to make sure that we clothe ourselves with righteous deeds.  That is what happens to the man who is not dressed in a wedding garment.  There is no dress code in the kingdom of God.  But the Lord expects us to wear our baptismal garments.  When we were baptized, we were clothed with a white garment.  That white garment stands for our efforts to embrace the Mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and make mystery more completely a central part of our daily lives, turning away from sin and growing more fully in the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. 

            The king refers to the man without a wedding garment as “my friend.”  There is only one other time in the Gospel of Saint Matthew that Jesus refers to someone as “friend.”  That is when he calls Judas Iscariot his friend before he betrays him with a kiss.  He calls each one of them a “friend,” because he gives them one last chance to repent and change their minds.  Both refuse, and both are cast outside in the darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

            After his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Saint Paul spent his life proclaiming the Good News to Gentiles throughout the Mediterranean world.  He knew times of abundance and times of being well fed.  He also knew times of humble circumstances and hunger.  Fed by the Eucharist, he never lost sight of the wedding banquet at the end of his life.  He encourages us to imitate his example and continue to turn more completely to the love of Christ Jesus, trusting that God will supply whatever we need.  In turning more completely to Jesus Christ, we are preparing ourselves to participate at the Wedding Feast at the end of time.

 

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

4 OCTOBER 2026

 

          The prophet Isaiah uses a vineyard to describe the care of God in taking his people from slavery in Egypt and transplanting them in the Promised Land.  Vineyards played a critical role in the life of the people of ancient Israel.  They produced the grapes that were made into wine, the important drink that nourished people and provided work for laborers.  The vineyard became an image for what God had done.  God took his cherished vine from Egypt and transplanted it in the Promised Land.  With great care, God placed his people on a fertile hillside like a landowner would plant a vineyard.  God spaded the hillside, cleared it of stones, built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press.  But Isaiah laments that instead of finding good grapes, God found wild grapes.  His people had forgotten the care he had taken into settling them in the Promised Land. They chased after false gods and abandoned the Covenant.  As a result, their enemies defeated them and trampled down the vineyard God had planted.

            Jesus uses that same image in his parable directed at the chief priests and elders of the people.  His Father is the landowner.  They are the tenants placed in charge of the vineyard.  For centuries, God had sent prophets to instruct the tenants on how to produce good fruit.  But the religious authorities ignored some, killed others, and dragged his only son outside the vineyard to kill him.  Because the religious authorities refuse to listen to this parable, the vineyard is taken away from them and given to a people who will produce good fruit.

            Instead of judging the religious leaders who refused to listen to this parable, we must realize that the Lord is speaking to us.  We are the current tenants entrusted to producing good fruit for the vineyard.  The stone rejected by the builders has turned hard, stony ground into fertile soil.  Now, we are entrusted with the work of producing good fruit.  For many decades, our bishops have set aside the month of October as “respect life month.”  They urge us to use this month to be tenants in the vineyard to produce the good fruit of respecting human life from the moment of conception through natural death.  Sadly, that is not at the heart of our current secular society.  Instead of regarding each human life as a gift from God, too many people regard human life as worthwhile if it is productive.  That transactional view of human nature means that we can determine the worth of another human being based on how useful they are.  In this view, it is easy to exclude people because of their disabilities, their ethnic makeup, their place of birth, their racial makeup, their advanced age, or any aspect factor not deemed to be useful.  Last week, I heard a story on the radio about the current debate about immigration and ICE activity.  In a small town in a very red state, the reporter marveled that the people of the town rallied around their immigrant neighbors and blocked ICE agents from coming into the town.  But, as the reporter continued the story, it became clear that the townspeople did not act out of concern for their inherent dignity.  They were more concerned that the removal of their neighbors would hamper the work of the major industry in town and cause the price of beef to go up.

            The Lord has given us the task of producing good fruit in his vineyard.  We need to build a wall of peace that guards our hearts and minds.  Then, we can make our requests known to God by prayer, petition, and thanksgiving.  Like Paul, we can learn from each other.  We rely on what we received from our elders who have gone before us and handed down our tradition.  We hear the Word of God spoken to us each Sunday.  We see how we can carry out our mission to bear fruit.  With the support of this community and the strength of the Eucharist, we can practice ways of seeing each human being made in the image and likeness of God.  As faithful tenants trusting in the Lord’s love, we can bear much fruit in this vineyard God has given to us.

 

TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

20 SEPTEMBER 2026

 

          The prophet Isaiah tells his people to seek the Lord while he may be found.  They are in exile in Babylon.  Some of them have abandoned God’s law and have become scoundrels and wicked.  Others have become so complacent in Babylon that they have resisted God’s call to return to Jerusalem from their exile and rebuild their nation.  The prophet insists that God can be found, because he is near.  Then the prophet describes the Lord whom they seek.  God embodies mercy and generosity.  Speaking for God, the prophet affirms the obvious:  God’s thoughts and ways are far from human thoughts and ways.  They are ways of compassion and reconciliation.

            After his dramatic encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Saint Paul never stopped seeking the Lord.  By seeking the Lord and trusting in the Lord’s presence in his ministry, Paul has become the Apostle who has spread the Good News throughout the known Mediterranean world.  In his proclamation of the Gospel, he has urged countless converts to seek the Lord and trust in his presence in their lives.  Today, we hear his letter to the Philippians.  Although he is confined in prison, he continues to seek the Lord.  He does not know what will happen to him.  But, because he is so confident in the ways the Lord has responded to his seeking, he says that it does not matter whether he will die soon or remain alive.  He prefers to die in the Lord, because he trusts that his earthly life is already centered in Christ.  But he is also willing to continue his earthly life, because he trusts in his fruitful labor.  Even his current suffering bears fruit.  His example encourages the Philippians (and us) to seek the Lord even when they are suffering.  He may be the last of the Apostles.  But he knows that the reward of faithful discipleship applies just as much to him as to those twelve Apostles who had been with the Lord in his ministry and in his death, resurrection, and ascension.

            Today’s parable gets our attention, because we tend to sympathize with those who started working at dawn and got paid the same amount as the workers who came at sunset.  Like those who worked all day, we think that this pay scale is not fair.  We wonder if those who got paid for doing very little will encourage people to become lazy.  That is why Jesus tells us this parable in the first place.  We tend to think only in human terms.  But Jesus insists that his ways are not our ways, echoing the argument made by Isaiah the prophet in his day. 

That is why today’s Gospel parable speaks to us as surely as it spoke to the original listeners.  The landowner is God.  The vineyard is Israel.  The harvest reflects the final judgment.  The first workers hired to work in the vineyard are the religiously observant of Jesus’ day.  But the landowner finds that there are still others who are seeking to work in the vineyard.  The landowner goes out five times to hire those who continue to seek, with the last being tax collectors and sinners who have responded to Jesus’ call very late.  The Lord is aware of so many people who are seeking him, even without knowing it.  And he responds by sharing the fullness of his justice and mercy not only now, but at the harvest time.

We open ourselves to the Lord’s mercy and justice when we realize that we are created in the likeness of God.  We do not earn mercy and justice, nor are mercy and justice owed to us.  The Lord’s mercy and justice are pure and simple gifts.  Today’s parable encourages us to be like Saint Paul and turn more completely to the Lord, so much so that we realize that we are in Christ Jesus, whether we live or die.  The parable also calls us to turn to the Lord while he is near.  If we live our faith more completely, then we might attract more people to the Lord, whether they know they are seeking or not.

 

 

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

13 SEPTEMBER 2026

 

          Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  Peter thinks he is being generous about offering forgiveness, because 7 is a biblical number meaning “a lot.”  But Jesus shocks him by saying that he needs to forgive him not seven times, but seventy-seven times.  There is no limit to the times we need to forgive.

            His parable explains the reason for unlimited forgiveness.  The king represents God.  The servant represents us.  The servant owes the king a huge amount.  The Old Testament has two primary metaphors for sin.  The first is that sin is a weight to be carried around.  The second is that it is a debt that needs to be paid.  The servant carries a heavy weight and has acquired a debt that needs to be repaid.  Because of the power of sin, we can never remove the weight of our sins or repay the debt we owe.  God, represented by the king, removes the weight from our shoulders and repays the debt through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

            The king treats the servant harshly when he refuses to forgive the much smaller debt of a fellow servant.  He hands him over to torturers not because the other servant deserved to be freed of the weight of his debt, but because the king himself had forgiven the servant’s debt.  Jesus says that we are expected to do the same – to forgive others by taking the weight from their shoulders and forgiving their debts.  We must treat others with mercy, because God has forgiven us by lifting the weight from our shoulders and erasing our debts.

            This message can be very difficult, especially for those who have suffered greatly from the sins of others.  Part of the problem is that we do not fully understand the essence of mercy, forgiveness, lifting weights from those who have hurt us, and letting go of their debts.  Forgiving another person does not mean that the evil done by that person is ok.  Nor does forgiveness mean that we have to like the person who hurt us so badly or even be part of their lives.  Especially for those who have been abused or who living in abusive relationships, it is critical to move away from the offender and try to begin life anew.  Jesus calls us to take this radical action, not because the offending person deserves it, but because of what God has done for us.

            Years ago, I encouraged a woman to join the RCIA process in our parish.  She had been away from the Church for many years and wanted to resume the practice of her faith.  As she participated in RCIA, she revealed the deep hurt that caused her to walk away from the faith in the first place.  When her five children were all under the age of 10, her husband abandoned the family.  She was devastated and nursed her anger for years.  Her children and grandchildren wanted her to come back to the church, because she was so angry and short with them all the time.  I encouraged her to use the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and she did.  Even though she confessed her anger and hatred often, that bitterness remained.  One day, as she was working on her job at the local hospital, she saw her husband for the first time in decades.  As he was being wheeled into the emergency room, she saw that he was in terrible health instead of having a good life after abandoning her and their children.  At last, she was able to let go of her anger and be at peace.  She finally realized that her hatred and anger had no effect on him.  Instead, she had become a bitter mother, grandmother, and friend.

            We forgive others only because God has forgiven us.  I’m also convinced that one of the graces of the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the courage to offer that mercy to others.  I have also learned that this kind of radical forgiveness cannot be accomplished by us alone.  At a certain  point, we need to humble ourselves and go through professional therapy to be healed.  We need the grace and mercy of God to forgive as Jesus has forgiven us.