25 October 2025 - this is (not) fine

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way 
they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?

It was tempting to try to imagine that those who suffered had it coming. The reason it was tempting was that it was otherwise hard to be comfortable with the fact that one had not suffered and was flourishing. The corollary to not being guilty for health and wealth was the requirement that those who lacked it must be the guilty ones. This was a common belief in ancient Israel, that such circumstances were the result of divine judgement, just as it was thought that wealth and fecundity were the result of divine blessings. That this didn't seem to be applied in an entirely regular and predictable way, that the guilty sometimes got off scot-free, and the innocent definitely sometimes suffered, was something that could be ignored with sufficient effort.

By no means!
But I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!

Rather than interpreting tragedies as a sign of our blessedness or even our luckiness we ought to see in them signs of our own need to repent. The worst thing is not to die in an unexpected tragic event. The worst thing is to die while our hearts remain unconverted. The way that we do not want to be similar to those people in today's Gospel who died is that we don't want to be taken by surprise, though, in our case, the surprise we want to avoid is spiritual rather than circumstantial. It is this surprise coming of Jesus at the end of our lives that we may perceive to be like a thief if it catches us unprepared. We can, by contrast, be ready any time, such that even if we are surprised by the collapse of a tower or the oppression of a tyrant, our ultimate end is not a surprise. 

For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree     
but have found none.
So cut it down.

When the gardener draws near in search of fruit, finds none, and yet spares the tree, the wrong lesson to learn is that everything is fine and we should continue as before. Instead we should learn to appreciate the merciful patience of the gardener who pleads on our behalf for extra time. The three years of the public ministry of Jesus ought to have been enough to transform our soil and enable us to bear fruit. But it seems that we have been granted at least "this year also" in order to receive the fertilization of his Spirit and to hopefully at last bear fruit. It is important for us to understand that he is the one with the power to change us, more than it is anything we can do alone. But we must be open to his compassionate care. If we resist, even the greatest gardener will be ineffective. But if we open ourselves to him we will bear fruit in abundance.

But if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin,
the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

Matt Maher - Alive Again

 

24 October 2025 - reading the signs

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

You hypocrites!
You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky;
why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

We have the capability to read certain signs and interpret what they will likely mean about the future. We do this in areas that matter to us the most, whether about weather, politics, or the economy. Because we are always trying to read the signs in this way we have less excuse when we don't pay attention to the more important spiritual signs of the times. Chief among these is the fact that Jesus the messiah has come, opening a time of repentance for the world. In Jesus God will one day judge the living and the dead. His presence among us is a sign that now is the time for us to respond. This is what Paul had in mind when he wrote:

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (see Second Corinthians 6:2).

We prepare for future contingencies that we know may impact our lives in some way. If it isn't going to rain we may take steps ranging from watering the flowers to precautions in the event of drought. Depending on the condition of the economy we may buy, sell, or hold onto what we have. But, although we like to acknowledge what Jesus has already done for us, we are still often willing to forget about what he means for our future, the future of our loved ones, and the future of the world. 

We are able to see the present time as a period of unique opportunity precisely to the degree that we understand how it relates to God's plan for the future. We prefer to forget that even we ourselves, let alone those who do not yet know Christ, are still in some measure "at war" within ourselves between the law of our minds and the law of sin. This is a sign we should understand as pointing toward our continued need for Jesus.

Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is not probable that we will manage to completely free ourselves from sin during this mortal life. Because of this we are grateful for the fact we will be able to pay our remaining debt after, in purgatory. Yet it is clearly preferable to do so now, in freedom, out of love for the one who loved us first. Purgatory ought only to be a last resort. To imagine that we can put things off until then and depend on it entirely may actually be indifference, that, if it becomes to predominate, can render purgatory itself insufficient to rectify the deformity of sin within us. 

Let us remember that our debt is not one we can truly repay. It is one that is settled with God on the basis of his mercy. But we must learn to increasingly depend on and live in response to this mercy if we do not want to be held accountable for what we would truly owe apart from it. It is not a call to struggle, so much as to surrender. It does not end in the hopeless of our frail mortality. It ends in thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Vineyard - Help Us Our God

 

23 October 2025 - to set the earth on fire

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!

Jesus longed to enflame the earth with the fire of his Holy Spirit. This Spirit would make it possible for believers to live in victory over sin, motivate them to spread the Gospel no matter the cost, and unite them as one Body in Christ. But there was a step that had to come before the Spirit was given (see John 7:39). This step was not the baptism of John, with which he had already been baptized, although the Spirit did appear on the scene at that time. It was rather the baptism of his death. For the believer, baptism represents the door through which we emerge into the newness of life (see Romans 6:4). But this is the case only because it makes it possible for us to first be united to the death of Jesus, so that we too might share in the glory of his resurrection. It was from his wounded side on the cross that blood and water poured forth in a sign that the Spirit was finally free to flow through the world.

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.

Jesus didn't desire the cross as an end in itself, but rather endured it for the sake of the joy set before him (see Hebrews 12:2). So too with the division he would cause between peoples and even within families. He knew it would be necessary for his followers to be willing to choose him above any earthly alternative, and desired to see them express their desire for his lordship over their lives by doing so. But he did not thereby despise those others who did not choose him at once. It might often be the case that the death of these relationships between those who chose for Christ and those who chose against him would one day give way to resurrection to new life. It could, for example, inspire those who saw others prioritize Christ above all else to wonder what was so important about him, what all the fuss was about. Certainly Jesus did not desire anyone to reject him. But he did understand that as a consequence of giving people the ability to make a free choice for or against him that he would be rejected. He did prioritize making the choice available to others above the fact that not all would accept it, and taught his disciples to do the same, when he sent them out with the expectation that they too would encounter rejection (see Matthew 10:14).

Jesus wanted people to be drawn together into a unity that existed at a higher and more spiritual level than that of mere blood relationship. He desired a union that was based on the highest truth and goodness and beauty, rather than on the mere coincidence of circumstance. This might make it sound as though he didn't value earthly family at all. Yet we know that is untrue. He himself chose to be born into a family, and insisted on the sanctity of marriage and the value of children. The fourth commandment, to honor one's parents, was, after all, his idea. It was not that he despised the idea of family. It was rather the case that he wanted to spiritually supercharge marriage and family by giving it higher ground for a more firm foundation. We do see this evidenced in the lives of saints, who, by choosing to love Jesus above all else, were able to love their families better as a result.

For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We all need to receive the gift of God given through Christ Jesus, the true life without which the life we claim to have is merely an empty shadow. If we insist on so-called life without him we will continue to receive the due payment for the wages of our sin. In such a condition even family fails to rise above the downward gravity of our fallen nature. But once we open ourselves to the Spirit and life that Jesus longs to give us we experience the reality of the fact that he truly does make all things new.

Jesus Culture - Set A Fire

 

 TobyMac - Catchafire (Whoopsi-Daisy)

22 October 2025 - the faithful and prudent steward

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming,
he would not have let his house be broken into.

It isn't meant to be the case that we behave well only in specific moments where it matters especially much. Rather, the Gospel is meant to define our entire life. We may sometimes find Jesus's concern with a moral lives to be intrusive, since it is meant to extend to every moment. To this extent it will also be unpredictable. We will be preoccupied with ourselves most of the time, and occasionally notice him apparently interfering in our business. If he isn't welcome all the time we will not welcome him when we occasionally notice his presence. It is different if we are trying to live the Gospel and welcome the constant involvement of Jesus in our lives. Then his coming is less no longer like that of a thief. Though still surprising, it is the welcome surprise of the return of the master from a wedding.

Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward
whom the master will put in charge of his servants
to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?

Though this passage applies in a special way to clergy, we are all meant to be faithful and prudent stewards of the gifts with which we have been entrusted. Priests have to make the celebration of the sacred liturgy a priority, since, in doing so, they give us the food allowance of the Eucharistic bread at the proper time. But we too have been entrusted with specific and unique gifts that are meant to play a part in the physical and spiritual nourishing of the world. The challenge for all of us is whether we will selfishly exploit the gifts we have been given, and the positions of authority with which we have been entrusted, or whether we will instead use them with reference to the master's will, to his reasons for giving them to us in the first place.

But if that servant says to himself,
'My master is delayed in coming,'

Perhaps it is possible to start out by desiring the return of the master, but letting our all too human sense of absence and delay lead us to eventual disappointment and discouragement. At such times we may decide that he is not, after all, worth the wait. The experience of his absence leads quite naturally to doubts about whether he really loves us as much as we thought or if he can really deliver on the promises he made. And if we decide that he can't, we have no recourse but to take matters into our own hands. The further our hearts are from Jesus at his return the more unwelcome we will find it.

then that servant's master will come
on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour
and will punish the servant severely
and assign him a place with the unfaithful.

We can maintain a good disposition toward Jesus even during his physical absence because we can know his will for us during this time. Not only do the parables about remaining alert and persevering help us remain grounded when Jesus feels distant, but, at such times, we still have access to a dynamic knowledge of how to live moment to moment through the gift of his Spirit. He may not be walking this earth with us right now but he did not leave us as orphans. Nor even did he merely leave some lifeless text explaining and justifying the situation. The Spirit animates the Scriptures, making them come alive for us, and providing encounters with the risen Lord himself, even across the divide of earth and heaven. The gifts of the Spirit include the prudence, wisdom, and knowledge we need to live well during this period of history. It is a period not so much defined by the fact that Jesus is ascended and visibly removed as it is defined by the superabundant presence of his Spirit here with us. This is the much with which we have been entrusted. It is a gift we must not take for granted.

Phil Wickham - House Of the Lord

 

21 October 2025 - servants who await their master's return

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.

If we remember that we are meant to be servants of the master things will go well even when he is visibly absent. But we all face a temptation that goes back to the serpent and the tree. It insinuates that we are meant to be are own masters. It makes us want to push back against any prospect of hierarchy and insist that we alone are sovereign over our lives. Particularly in a fallen world where we have seen so much abuse of power it is difficult for us to even imagine that there might also be a valid use. We gradually come to believe that the only basis we have to obey others is a mutual, contractual consensus. In proof of this, it probably sounds fairly sane and standard. It isn't immediately obvious to us that we are not all that different from anarchists, doing our best to enforce our own boundaries, and preserve our own power. There are actually higher principles for governance than mutual consent. Truth and goodness matter more. Even if all the world consents to evil it cannot thereby make a valid law. Even if all the world agrees to believe a lie it doesn't thereby become true. Of course men and women are in no position to be absolute enforcers of what is true and beautiful. But if we fail to remember that there is such a hierarchy we are setting ourselves up to fail. When we come to believe that there is no master who will one day return, and that we are the final authorities ruling our individual lives, we tend to slide toward selfishness. We do those things with which we can, apparently, get away unpunished, simply because we desire them. After all, we have failed to set up any absolute principle to compete with our desires. Among the things we miss without such a principle is any justifiable reason to be concerned about our neighbors beyond how they might wield their own power against us. But our fear of consequences can only go so far.

Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.

When we do remember that we are servants who await our masters return we live differently. We live with hope. And the consequences of this hope are a more meaningful life for us, free from the ever encroaching darkness of despair. Our hope also bears fruit for those around us as we work to make this world more truly human, treating others with dignity because we recognize that they are (or are potentially) fellow servants of our one Lord. The same principles of goodness and truth call us to love both God and neighbor, and doing either automatically reinforces the other.

Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.

It is true that we don't earn anything from Jesus by our faithfulness to him. And yet he longs to give us so much, all as grace. The important thing is to remember that he is Lord, and thus understand that we have no right to demand anything from him or our fellow servants. When we understand that everything is grace we become more and more open to receive it. He can't give us what will only reinforce our own ego, since that would not be good, even for us. But he will happily give us all things (see Romans 8:32), as long as the thanksgiving overflows to God (see Second Corinthians 4:15).

Chris Tomlin - Everlasting God

 

 

21 October 2025 - arbitrary arbitration

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

"Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me."
He replied to him,
"Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?"

He seemed to be asking Jesus to be his judge and arbitrator, but was in fact asking Jesus to confirm a judgment on which he had already decided. His question wasn't open to any actual judgment on the part of Jesus. Much as the Hebrew rejected the judgment of Moses, saying, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us?" (see Exodus 2:14), so too would anyone preoccupied with greed be unwilling to welcome the authority of Jesus. This man was willing to use Jesus to advance his own case. But the fact that what mattered to him most was to share the inheritance meant that he wasn't open to any version of Jesus that would not help him achieve that end.

Then he said to the crowd,
"Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one's life does not consist of possessions."

We may not immediately imagine that it was such a greedy thing to ask his brother to share the inheritance with him. But Jesus saw more deeply into his heart and realized that, even if it was a valid thing to ask, the man wanted it too much. Here he was standing before someone who had much more to offer than merely enforcing rulings about inheritance, whether based on fairness or generosity. He was standing before one who could offer eternal life to his immortal soul, but he couldn't be bothered, because that mattered less to him than his dispute with his brother. He was before the judge of the living and the dead, but asking him to arbitrate family dispute, not even for the sake of family unity, but for rather for the wealth he hoped to receive.

He asked himself, 'What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?'

Our greed has the potential to deform our souls. Then, instead of praying to God to discern what we ought to do, we get lost in our own inner monologue. Instead of bringing him our thanks for the good things we have received we congratulate ourselves and pat ourselves on the back. We increasingly lose the sense that everything that we have we have only on loan from God. We forget that we are meant to be stewards of the gifts we have received, and decide to use without reference to giver, without regard for the fact that, at best, they can provide a partial and temporary kind of happiness, destined to pass into nothing.

But God said to him,
'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?'
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God."

On the one hand, we may not think of greed as our defining characteristic. But on the other, it is hard for mortal beings to remember how temporary are even the necessities of this life. We know that material wealth can solve short-term problems. This can cause us to quickly grow addicted, hoping and expecting for it to do more. We do tend to see financial issues as potentially catastrophic to a greater degree than moral issues. In the moral sphere we have been so spoiled by mercy as to take it for granted and treat it cheaply. But no one has been so kind in the arena of wealth. We therefore see financial ruin as greater sort of absolute evil than moral collapse. This at least tempts us to place wealth above God in the hierarchy of things that matter to us. We should instead be concerned with becoming rich in what matters to God. And we have been told what this is: "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (see Micah 6:8).

Matt Maher - Canticle Of Zechariah

 

19 October 2025 - whether it is convenient or inconvenient

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.

Jesus knew what was in human hearts. He knew that people who prayed without apparently receiving an immediate response would in fact become weary. Although they knew better, they would be tempted to come to see God is a judge who was indifferent to the concerns of others. When he didn't seem to respond immediately even to widows, who were at the top of the hierarchy of those he claimed to prioritize, it was as though his own words weren't serious, as though he didn't fear the results for the people or his own internal inconsistency. People would be tempted to see God this way no much how much they consciously understood it was not actually the case. But Jesus wanted to motivate them to keep praying even when such feelings arose. Even in a case where the judge was purely human it was not impossible that the persistence of the widow would eventually prevail. If one ought not give up even when the judge was reprehensible, self-interested, and dishonest, how much more ought one to continue to petition God, since he was in fact none of these things?

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.'"

God is able to take our subconscious criticisms lightly, even playfully. By doing so he hopes to release pressure and defuse and potential explosions where we actually come to identify with such beliefs about him. It is a kind way of pointing out that we know better, as in fact we do. This knowledge leads us to look back on the apparent delays our prayers typically encounter and reevaluate what those delays mean.

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?

From a human point of view God's timing will always retain an element of mystery. Even when we sometimes see prayers answered, and realize that the timing of these answers could not be improved, these tend to be the exceptions in our experience. But our horizons are quite different from God's. And our goals are never so perfectly aligned with his own that we always even understand that for which we ought to ask. Yet we still seem to see omissions where his action might have made all the difference. But when we experience these we are called to remember that he is worthy of trust, and desires better things for us than we do for ourselves. How he responds might not be the way that we requested or could have predicted. When he responds will probably always be with timing other than that which we would prefer, which, for us, is almost always 'Now, if not sooner'. But we need to remember that he sees a bigger picture than we do, that he can balance out short-term suffering with the long-term bliss of eternity. And we can remember that a part of the reason why we are asked to pray always is so that we ourselves can grow. Our commitment as time-bound creatures is always limited, fragile, and on the verge of collapse. By insisting that we grow in our own ability to persist in prayer God is helping us to become more like him, whose love for us is unwavering.

But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

If our criteria for faith is that Jesus responds to our desires when and how we ask, it is unlikely that such faith will last until next spiritual coming in our daily lives, let alone the last day. If our criteria is rather that he continues to transform our desires, making us more like him, we will be better situated for the long haul. Then we will be able to hear and learn from the advice of Paul to Timothy:

proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.

Matt Maher - Unwavering