14 November 2026 - always on time

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

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.’

It's good to know that God understands that we sometimes see him as someone too self-involved to be bothered with our concerns. Jesus presents this caricature of God precisely because he knew it is what we sometimes secretly or subconsciously believe about him. Even this caricature, Jesus tells us, would respond in the face of unrelenting persistence. How much more, then, will the God who truly loves us respond? 

There is a significant difference, of course, between the parody and the reality. The unjust judge eventually caved when the women refused to leave him alone, and pursued her cause to a degree that felt almost violent ("lest she finally come and strike me"). But the true God is not motivated because of  he is bothered by a lack of peace and quiet. We don't actually have the ability to adversely effect his eternal enjoyment of eternal communion between the persons of the Trinity. Nothing in this world can really benefit or harm him. What he does toward us is all, we must recognize, for us. The unjust judge was moved by persistence for his own sake, so he could have peace and quiet. But God is motivated by persistence for our sakes, because it is good for us to pursue him, and strengthens our weak desires for him to be more and more like his own strong and unwavering desire for us.

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? 

We are often not sure if he really will secure the rights of his chosen ones because we look around us and don't always or often see it happen. We think that, at best, he is slow to answer, if he intends to answer at all. But the point is not that we have to reach some critical threshold to make him start caring. Rather, he has cared all along and his response, though it may not be as soon as we would wish, will certainly not be late. It will be as soon as it can be if it is to convey the full magnitude of the blessings he desires to give us. And, sad to say from our perspective, no sooner. So we need persistence in desire to match his insistence on giving us the best and nothing less. We tend to think, 'I could be happy with fifty percent of that if he just gave it now'. But it is because we really have no idea the difference between most and all of the gift. What he really desires to give is himself, his own heart. That is a gift that is really, in the end, all of nothing. Let's not give up on waiting on God. Let us instead learn to set our hopes fully on him, so that when the Son of Man visits us in our lives, and at the end of time, he will in fact find faith on the earth.

When we learn to patiently and relentlessly pursue God we become effective in the mission he has for us, able to pursue it precisely because we are pursuing him. We can set out for the sake of the Name and remain steadfast, undeterred by pagan distractions. And we can support others who do so as their co-workers in truth. Then, hopefully, we will be people about whose love others may testify before the Church, just as were those to whom John wrote.

Carey Landry - Only A Shadow

 

13 November 2026 - he who hesitates

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

  

As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be in the days of the Son of Man;

There are two stages in what Jesus describes. There is the first stage where only a few people believe the revelation from God in a way that is impactful enough to significantly change their lives. At this point they basically seem like crazy people to everyone else, which is how the saints often seem to the rest of humanity. Most of the world goes on as if nothing is happening, as if there is no urgent need to take action. Then the second stage comes, in which it is revealed that only the apparently crazy people were in fact sane. It is too late for those who were living without a care to start building arks once the rain begins to fall. It is too late to disentangle our lives as cultural citizens of Sodom once the fire begins to fall. 

We might imagine that once the disaster becomes readily apparent we would make tracks to evacuate the doomed city or seek safe passage on board the ark. But Jesus tells us that this requires us to be sufficiently detached from the world such that we can do so, not only without going back, but without looking back. We can't care so much about our attachments, "our belongings" "in the house" that they make us hesitate. Even cherishing them overmuch in our imagination is danger. The turning of our metaphorical gaze back toward them can be as dangerous for us as it was for the wife of Lot to look back to what she had left behind. Hence we have the insistence from Paul and keeping focused on what is ahead.

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (see Philippians 3:13-14).

We must not allow ourselves to become so captivated by so-called normal daily life that we forget the primacy of spiritual realities. Our attachments dull our ability to respond to the call of our Lord. And ultimately, nothing is more important for us than to make that response with all that we have and all that we are. This is why deceivers are so dangerous as to be worthy of the title "antichrist". They lead us away, in precisely the opposite direction, from becoming like Jesus. Instead we need freedom, not the freedom of license, to do whatever we wish, but rather to love.

But now, Lady, I ask you,
not as though I were writing a new commandment
but the one we have had from the beginning:
let us love one another.

 

 

for King & Country - Fix My Eyes

 

12 November 2026 - the Kingdom in person

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’
For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

There wasn't going to be some absolute empirically verifiable sign or unmistakable announcement that the Kingdom had arrived, because, in Jesus, it already had. Because Jesus was the king the Kingdom was present wherever he was present. But this did not override the freedom of observers to decide for themselves about him. Many were looking for something more obvious. They wanted a fact about which they could not be mistaken. They didn't want to depend on another, on a gift, even from God to receive understanding. They wanted it to come from themselves. They wanted to be the ones in charge of their own understanding. But what they wanted to understand was something beyond the capacity of human reason. It wasn't that they had to make a random guess about him. His words and deeds revealed that he was trustworthy. But to take the next step and accept him as the Messiah and Son of God, as Peter did, required revelation from the Father. It was not merely the logical deduction from the empirical facts. But the answer revelation did provide put those facts in a context that made more sense of them than any other hypothesis.

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

- CS Lewis 

The days will come when you will long to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.

In that moment the Son of Man was still with them. Later on they would appreciate the inestimable value of what they then experienced. But it would be still better and was possible for them to appreciate it while he was still there. Rather than looking elsewhere and away for signs or announcements, it was better to fully inhabit the experience of his presence in the moment, to treasure it and draw from it all the many blessings it contained. This was particularly important since he was not always going to be with them in the same way he was then. They needed to really come to know him so that when they experienced this privation of his presence they would not fall for false alternatives or be deceived by people offering salvation and claiming to be messiahs.

There will be those who will say to you,
‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’
Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.

If they insisted on looking for more than Jesus offered when he was present, they would likely be readily deceived by those who promised such certainty after he departed. We too have been given the great gift of the abiding presence of Jesus in his Church. But we are often unsatisfied with what we have, making us potential targets of deception ourselves. We're too ready to believe those who make sweeping promises, as long as they're promising the right things. We should instead lean into the gift of faith we receive in baptism and, through that gift, appreciate the presence of Jesus in his Mystical Body. When we spend time in relationship with him we are inoculated against all the lies and false promises of the world, promises of certainty and salvation which it can never deliver. If we do we will surely experience the promise reflected in the Gospel antiphon:

I am the vine, you are the branches, says the Lord:
whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.

 

Newsboys - Secret Kingdom

11 November 2026 - your faith has saved you

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying,
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.

It must have been hard for them to start in the direction of the priests before there was any change in their condition. When they called Jesus master and asked for mercy those words must have been more than mere flattery. They saw something in Jesus that we don't even always see now, recognizing that he could heal them, and believing that he would do what he said. We tend to believe in healing as an abstract possibility. We don't rule out the fact that it could even happen to us but we don't pursue it with the same gusto as these lepers. Certainly we've seen enough people not be healed so as to become jaded. But these lepers implicitly recognized that their attitude toward Jesus could make a difference for them that was not possible for others due to their lack of faith. They brought more than a wish, more than a thought that it would be nice if it happened. They brought faith in Jesus and responded to that faith with obedience. As is often the case in the economy of the Kingdom, they had to believe it before they saw it. We may be too afraid to be hurt to approach Jesus with faith of this intensity. We may be frightened that he doesn't really want to heal us. Will he heal others? Sure. But somehow we imagine ourselves to be the exception. It is true that we know that Jesus doesn't always heal every physical ailment about which we come to him, no matter how sincerely we ask. But perhaps we receive a lot less than we might because we only ask as an experiment and not as an act of faith. Even if he is not going to heal us now, or even not during this life, his still desires to bring about a greater good through what he allows. But if we don't even fully come to terms with what he permits by avoiding going all in on a robust expression of our faith it is likely that we will be stuck in a halfway lukewarm posture at least about that specific issue.

And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.

Another vital aspect of the Christian life is to actually realize what has been done for us by Jesus. As Paul told Titus, "he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit". But it is too easy to take this new normal for granted and resume our lives as usual, without taking a pause to say thank you. It is too easy to forget the difference between before and after, how, without Jesus, "we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful ourselves and hating one another". It is too easy to become complacent even about the highest gift of his love for us, his own Body and Blood, given to us in the Eucharist. What we need instead is a practice of gratitude, which can become a virtuous cycle. It reminds us of how much we depend on Jesus, causing us to rely on him even more, giving us more reasons to praise him. This can change our attitudes for lepers who have merely reentered the normal world of life and worship to those whom Paul calls "heirs in hope of eternal life". Being thankful, then, helps us to see beyond the horizon of this world and keeps us on course toward our true and everlasting home.

 

Darrell Evans - Trading My Sorrows

 

10 November 2026 - not entitled

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“Who among you would say to your servant

who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field,
‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?

Jesus wanted those entrusted with authority to be on guard against attitudes of entitlement. The situation that he wanted to avoid was one where the Apostles spread the Good News of the Kingdom, but then saw those to whom they made the proclamation as in their debt, to then be used and exploited. They were to serve Jesus both in the field and at the table. They were never meant to graduate from servants to masters. This actually seems reasonable when we consider how Jesus never ceased to be a servant to them. The whole purpose of his coming was not to be served but to serve. His disciples would need to share this attitude. What they had to give was not their own. The talents and graces that they used to do it were not from themselves. Even their willing hearts were gifts that were not of their own making. If they began to believe that they had in fact earned something, that they were entitled to some return, the risk was that they would cease to recognize the needs of others and to see them, at least sometimes, as resources to be consumed.

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ (see First Corinthians 9:12).

Paul knew about the attitude Jesus taught his Apostles. He understood that it was permissible to earn a living as an evangelist. But he refused to do even that lest it become an obstacle to the reception of his message. He didn't want people to even think he did it for the money. But we can imagine that with the difficulties faced by those who work in the service of the Gospel that some people might easily have in fact tried to do it for the money, or at least, whatever they could get, whether titles or places of honor, all also things against which Jesus warned.

We're so eager to protect what we imagine to be our rights that we often have a hard time reading Paul's advice to Titus about relationships without chaffing a little. Our flesh screams, 'What about me?'. For Paul, however, it was no longer all about him. He had tried that life. It hadn't worked as planned. Jesus had shown him a still more excellent way. He did not think of relationships primarily in terms of rights. Of course the vulnerable and abused did need to be protected. But when things were mostly functioning as they should the focus should be on noncompetitive service, and mutual subjugation, rather than entitlement and demands.

And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (see Galatians 2:2).

he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised (see Second Corinthians 5:15).

Jesus will one day surprise us by waiting on us at table, not because we ourselves have earned it through our labors, but because of who he is. If we insist on what is strictly ours, on what we have earned, we will not be open to receive the gift. But if we pursue the path of service to which we are called we will discover the much greater free gift of grace given to us by Jesus Christ. Just as we think we are in the midst of serving him we will find that it has been him serving us all along, and it is that which has made our own efforts possible.

Jars Of Clay -  They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

9 November 2026 - not a free market

Today's Readings

(Audio)

  

He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area

Was it really worth getting so upset about the sellers and money-changers in the temple? It was clearly an abuse. But was it that much worse than having a bake sale in a Church on Sunday? We might have thought that simply giving a prophetic verbal critique would have been sufficient. We know Jesus was able to make his criticism sufficiently barbed to make people take notice. But it seems there was more at stake here, and that solving the problem could not be allowed to wait on the guilty parties to reconsider their ways. 

 

The temple was prevented from being all that it was meant to be because it was filled with business and noise and greed. And it was meant to be something very great indeed. It was meant to be the place of communion between God and humanity. It was this very communion that was being impaired. It was only when God's presence was truly honored that living water would flow out from the temple for the world. Thus, even though the physical temple was only a foreshadowing of the true temple, it was the closest people in the era were able to approach to God. Thus, the fact that people who desired that communion hit an immediate roadblock was a big problem. It was especially problematic that it was the court of the Gentiles were this practice took place. Jesus did not want to see anyone excluded that God, in giving the Jewish people the blueprint for the temple, had obviously intended to include.

"Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."

Even though the physical temple in Israel would give way to the spiritual temple of the Body of Christ, Jesus took its purity and purpose with utmost severity. He did not see it as merely a building, nor the prayers that took place within as mere rituals. He saw them in connection to the intention of his Father. The building was meant to be the place on earth where people approached nearest to him, and there prayers were genuinely meant to be heard. It was in a sense true that Jesus did not see a complete separation between this temple and the thing it foreshadowed. His cleansing of it was a prophetic act of purification that extended beyond that time and place. It was directly connected with the cross, which was the ultimate purification of the true temple. It was destroyed when his body was crucified, and then raised up in three days so that, at last, its true purpose could be fulfilled. The merchants, it is true, were the first ones who tasted to whip of cords. But Jesus himself bore our stripes from a whip in order to cleanse our own hearts that we could truly love, serve, and abide with God. 

This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah,
and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.

Without the water flowing from the temple, when it is stopped up by greed or other idolatry, the world is dead and lifeless. Without the water, the fruit of the Spirit does not abound, and the healing power of the Sacraments is stifled, and does not achieve its maximal effect. Clearly Jesus has already done his part to cleanse the temple, both historically, and as is now present in his Church. However, we are a part of that temple. And to the degree that we fill our hearts with other things that are less than God we are the ones who are still in need of being cleansed. We see from what Jesus did in today's Gospel how seriously he takes the matter. We hear it again, this time with the context shifted, from a building to our own hearts, from Paul:

If anyone destroys God's temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

God takes our hearts so seriously because they too are meant to be his dwelling place, where we abide with him in communion. When we do we bring living water, abundant fruit, and healing medicine to the world. When we fail, it remains a salty waste. Let's invite Jesus to do his work in us so that we can be all he intends for us to be.

 

 

Hillsong - To Be Like You

 

8 November 2026 - preppers

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Therefore, stay awake,
for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Is it a problem to conclude a parable where everyone fell asleep by summarizing the lesson with a command to stay awake? Not really, since what mattered to Jesus was not that the virgins kept their eyes open until the bridegroom came, but rather that they remained spiritually aware, alert, and awake. Because five of them did this they were ready to meet the bridegroom when he came. The five of them who failed to manifest this spiritual attention where not prepared. The wisdom that aided the five who were prepared was a vision of the bigger picture. They didn't get lost in the moment but saw their whole lives in the context of being ready for the coming of the bridegroom. This wisdom led them to ask what if questions that helped them to take practical steps in the face of possible challenges. It occurred that they might need a surplus of oil just in case. 

The five foolish virgins naively assumed they could make do without any extra. It is as though they hoped that their condition was good enough, while the wise five recognized that the coming of the Lord might require more from them if they were to give him a fitting reception. The wisdom of the five wise virgins allowed them to be prepared even in spite of natural human weakness, whereas natural human weakness become the final straw that prevented the necessary preparation for those who were foolish. The problem wasn't their human weakness in itself. It was their lack of awareness and failure to take it into account that was their undoing. It was as if the foolish virgins didn't realize they were the sort of people who could fall asleep, but believed they could be ready for anything at a moments notice. But the wise virgins knew the limits of their own abilities and so took appropriate precautions to be ready even if weakness overtook them.

The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
brought no oil with them,
but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. 

It has been said that our lamps are our faith and the oil makes that faith visible through good works. Jesus wants to find us faithful at his coming. But perhaps there is a way in which keeping our lamps alight goes even further in making us recognizable to him when he does. If the light is the result of faith working in love then it illumines both our own face and that of our neighbor, revealing the presence of Jesus in us both. Therefore, when we serve the lowest and the least of his brethren, in whom Jesus himself his present, he comes more and more to recognize our face. He takes our gestures as done not only for our neighbors but for him. And so we become unforgettable to him, by virtue of our response to the grace of his call.

When we have wisdom like the wise virgins we can have peace even amidst the hardest times in our lives. We may grieve, but not "like the rest, who have no hope". Instead, we see the big picture recognizing that "God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep".

We are reminded that it isn't really so much that we are chasing this wisdom so much as that it, or she, is chasing us.

because she makes her own rounds, seeking those worthy of her,
and graciously appears to them in the ways,
and meets them with all solicitude.

Ike Ndolo - Awake, O Sleeper