27 August 2026 - firm to the end

Today's Readings

(Audio)

  

Stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

It is one thing to be good when you know others are watching. It is another to do so when they do not appear to be. The faithful and prudent servant is the one who does what he ought to do even when there is no immediate reward or punishment for doing so. The wicked servant is the one who gets away with whatever he can because there are, at least for a while, no apparent consequences. On the one hand, we know that we can't get anything past God who sees all and knows all. On the other hand, we still don't always manage to remember that or to live as though it were true. We begin to think and act as though God were not watching, even while knowing better or some level. It is in the sense that we need to stay awake.

So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

We may forget God for a time, but not forever. There will be moments even during our mortal lives when his presence and power are made know to us. Will he find us faithful or faithless at such times? We might keep thieves away with sufficient security precautions but we won't manage to prevent his entry. He will probably come to us many times in his spiritual presence in order to remind us of the role he is meant to have in our lives. We want to be able to demonstrate that we have been living as though he had been watching even if we were not capable of remembering at every moment that he was indeed doing so. 

 

We may not always have the actual experience of his presence with us. But we must still practice living as though he might appear at any moment. This means we must develop motivations that are deeper than immediate reward or punishment. Not because there will never be reward or punishment. But rather, because there is a period of testing before rewards and punishments are given. We don't receive immediate results so we can learn to do things for their own sake and for the sake of our fidelity to Jesus. Rewards for such meritorious behaviors are fitting. But they are not meant to be our only motivation. Punishments for failing to behave well are also fitting. They are in part meant to serve as deterrents. But they aren't meant to do so in such an overwhelming and immediate way that they override our free will.

Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant,
whom the master has put in charge of his household
to distribute to them their food at the proper time?

We may not be those who are in charge of the Lord's household on earth, the Church. But we are all in some measure servants, stewards entrusted with responsibilities for how we use the gifts we have been given to serve the others whom the Lord has placed in our lives. Sometimes there is some level of immediate rewards or consequences for our behavior; the pleasant sensation of a good deed done well, or the sting of conscience for something we ought to have done but failed to do. But we can't be so tethered to such signals that we fail to act rightly in their absence. We are meant to remember that, even if Jesus seems absent at times, he is not really so, and can show up again without a moment's notice. We want to be ready if he does.

How can we actually succeed at right behavior that never flags even when our emotions aren't there to sustain it? We must continue to "call upon the name of our Lord Jesus", the one who has called us to be holy and who has begun the process of sanctification in us. We must use the spiritual gifts he has given to us as we wait, since, as Paul assures us, we "are not lacking in any" of them. If we simply continue to make a faithful response to the grace that we have already been given and the good work already begun in us "He will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ". This is the same confidence that made Paul assure the Philippians, "I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (see Philippians 1:6). Let us lean in to the call, and into our gifting, so that we are ready to welcome Jesus when he returns.

 

Ike Ndolo - Awake, O Sleeper

 

26 August 2026 - insider threat

 

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside,
but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.

We might think that if their are going to be tombs anyway they might as well look decent. But in the Pharisees' case, making themselves appear external presentable made the inner hazard harder to spot. There was the risk of contagion for anyone who frequented such tombs. But the fresh coat of paint obscured the danger. This was the risk that the Pharisees posed to others. People would see their apparently highly religious surface layer and fail to see the hypocrisy and evildoing that was in their hearts. Not recognizing it, they would then fail to limit their exposure, at the risk of becoming infected by such practices and attitudes themselves. It is one thing to preach to a higher level than we ourselves have attained. This is necessary since none of us has completely attained perfection or mercy as God himself is perfect and merciful. Yet we cannot tone down the Gospel on account of our own weakness. But we are meant to be transparent about the fact that we ourselves inevitably fall short of our own standards. Even Paul was clear on this point, writing, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (see First Timothy 1:15).

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You build the tombs of the prophets

It is easy to give honor to the saints. It is more difficult to emulate their lives and embody the holiness that makes them worth celebrating. A superficial devotion to the saints does not necessarily do much to make us like them even if, to some degree, we give lip service to the things they did and taught. We tacitly recognize that we are of a different lineage, that of those worldly people to whom the saints made their appeal, and not in the lineage of the saints themselves. We tend to honor them for their apparently unobtainable otherness rather than as friends who can guide us in our own Christian walk. Thus we cement ourselves as people to whom true saints must make their appeal and against whom they must preach rather than, as we are meant to be, their spiritual children.

In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that
if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.

Laziness does not work well in the physical world. Neither does it work well in the spiritual realm. We are called to do more than present a pleasant and pious facade to others, while ignoring the real work needed in our souls. Nevertheless, none of have sufficient resources to succeed alone. We do need spiritual assistance. The Pharisees made themselves appear so in control that they failed to recognize this need. They ultimately settled for a thinly concealed complacency. Laziness of that sort is closely tied to lukewarmness and indifference. The opposite of such laziness in the spiritual realm isn't so much industriousness as it is sustained desire. It means persistence in our pursuit of holiness and of God. This kind of refusal to quit even when we ourselves lack the resources necessary to move forward is only possible with the peace and presence of Jesus himself.

May the Lord of peace himself
give you peace at all times and in every way.
The Lord be with all of you.

 

 

Newsboys - Thrive

 

25 August 2026 - gnat for nothing

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin,
and have neglected the weightier things of the law:
judgment and mercy and fidelity.

There is a modern expression that encapsulates the approach of the Pharisees: majoring in the minors. They took a rigorous approach to details. This would not have been wrong in itself but it caused them to ignore and neglect the weightier things of the law: "judgment and mercy and fidelity". Jesus did not say the details were unimportant. He criticized the Pharisees for ignoring more important things because of a disproportionate focus on those details. But why focus in that way? Was it not precisely because such things were easier to control, because it was easier to succeed at precision tithing than at comprehensive mercy? Was it not also because of the way that these lesser things appeared to demonstrate their religious expertise in ways that more vague and amorphous concepts like mercy could not? They thought their tithing was impressive, and used it to build a public image of themselves that implied that they neglected nothing. Yet what good was tithing if it did not represent putting God first in one's life, if it had nothing to do with fidelity? Tithing in such a way as to build one's own ego was exactly the opposite of the point.

You cleanse the outside of cup and dish,
but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.

The Pharisees selected actions that required nuance and demonstrated competence, but that didn't touch the heart in any real way. They multiplied their compliance with external details because it provided a good front to mask their hearts, which were far from God. They wanted to look good in the eyes of others, but the motivations they pursued were fundamentally selfish. 

We can't say that we don't know Catholics who have taken an approach similar to that of the Pharisees, or even that we have never been such Catholics ourselves. Externals are easier. Inner transformation is not within our direct control. We may make occasional efforts at conversion, but when results evade us we tend to revert back to what we can control rather than persisting in bringing our good desires to God through prayer. Such externally excellent Catholics who nevertheless harbor invisible corruption help to explain the state of religious discourse on the internet. Engaging in abstract debates with strangers is very easy and controllable. But it is also mostly irrelevant and useless. Our outrage only serves to distract us from our actual lives in which we stand in need of actual grace in order to become less like Pharisees and more like Jesus himself, who never neglected judgment, mercy, or fidelity.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm
and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,
either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.

We don't have to guess about what is important, or make up our own traditions about what should be our priorities in this life. The living Tradition of the Church contains all we need to know as long as we approach it honestly and sincerely. This Tradition is not burdensome. It is a part of the everlasting encouragement given to us by Jesus Christ and God our Father. This gift really can "encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word".

Craig Musseau  - Good To Me

 

24 August 2026 - branch office

Today's Readings
(Audio)

We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law,
and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.

Moses wrote of another like himself who would come, to whom the people would listen. The prophets predicted the coming of a messianic figure who would bring freedom to his people. They looked to the age when a royal son of David would reign on the throne after God finally cast their sins away and fully espoused himself to them as his people. There were many different threads of messianic prophecy but, according to Philip, Jesus himself was the one who fulfilled them all.

But Nathanael said to him,
"Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

It was only natural for Nathanael (also know as Bartholomew) to push back against the apparently excessive exuberance of Philip. It felt to Nathanael as though Philip had gotten caught up in the hype of someone who, if not a charlatan, could not be everything that had been claimed about him. He pushed back by questioning his humble origins. Superficially it made a lot of sense to wonder how someone with such a lofty destiny could come from such apparently humble origins. But such a view was based on prejudice, assumptions that Jesus would be a certain way because he seemed to come from a certain place and group of people. Yet even identifying Jesus as coming from any locale in Israel or on the planet earth could not do full justice to his identity. It wasn't enough to explain that there were many good and wise people living in Nazareth. It didn't help to mention that he had actually been born in Bethlehem. There was more to him than the accidents of his origins could explain. Thus, rather than debating Nathanael about his specific criticism he instead invited him to come and see for himself.

Philip said to him, "Come and see."

Many people in our own day think that they know something about Jesus because they place him in a category and use that category to define him. They think of him as a mythical figure, or a spiritual leader like Buddha or Muhammad. Or they seem him as the mascot of a authoritarian structure that uses superstition to control its members. It is probably helpful to explain why none of these is remotely accurately as a description of Jesus. But even more helpful, when possible, is inviting people to see for themselves. When people believe falsehoods about Jesus it is typically because they have accepted what they have been told by others. The best antidote to this is to ask them to give Jesus a chance to reveal himself to them. In the best cases people with integrity to desire the truth will find it.

"Here is a true child of Israel.
There is no duplicity in him."

People who take the invitation to come and see will discover a Jesus who knows them, who understands their deepest hopes and dreams. Nathanael likely hoped to have a place in the messianic age in which people would invite one another under their fig tree (see Zechariah 3:10). Jesus not only identified this aspiration but helped Nathanael to realize that it had basically happened to him. Suddenly Nazareth sounded not so much like a backwater town of no account but now more like the promised messianic branch of which prophets had spoken. Nathanael's entire life had been re-contextualized in one meeting.

"Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel."

The way that Nathanael experienced being known by Jesus allowed him to come to belief that Jesus was indeed the long awaited Messiah. But there was still more yet to be revealed, more than Nathanael guessed or could have imagined.

You will see greater things than this."
And he said to him, "Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

Jesus was the bridge between heaven and earth, and God's dwelling place among men. Nathanael took the invitation to come and see Jesus and found the fulfillment of his longings. But because he would also choose to remain with Jesus as a disciple he would "see greater things than this". So too for us. We must not stop or be content with an initial revelation about Jesus, even a very transformative one. We can always know him more deeply than we do. His transcendence guarantees that however much we have received there is always more to find in him.

 

Chris Tomlin - Jesus Messiah

 

23 August 2026 - passing keys

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

The popular consensus about Jesus is never going to tell us the whole story, even when it contains aspects that are true. When we ask the least informed people they may suggest that Jesus was merely fictional, mythological, like characters in so many other poetic stories. Of people who answer in this way, some may assert that the stories about him were at least noble ideals. Others may hold a grudge for the ways, some of which are indeed admittedly negative, that the story of Jesus has changed the history of the world. But the position that there was no historical reality to Jesus is not historically tenable. 

One who is asked about the identity of Jesus must provide some concrete rationale for how a poor and insignificant rabbi became so important. Closer to the truth than those who say that Jesus didn't exist at all are those who suggest that he was merely a good moral teacher whose identity was later exaggerated by his followers. Or others may suggest that he was a political revolutionary whose identity took on the shape of a legend in the years after his life. 

None of these common theories can provide a compelling account of the data we have from history about Jesus. One might say that Jesus was like the earlier prophets, that he so provocatively called Israel to account for her failure to put love of God and as her first priority that people desired to put him to death in order to silence him. But this doesn't explain the categorical difference between his impact and that of earlier prophets. It doesn't explain the split between early Christians and Jews in the practice of such traditions as the celebration of the Sabbath and keeping kosher food laws. It doesn't explain the meaning of the immediate and constant emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus as the central historical fact on which the faith of Christians was built. 

Jesus did speak prophetically and incited much opposition in doing so. But much of this opposition was precisely because of the central place his own person played in his message, to the degree that, if it were not true it would certainly be blasphemous. None of the other prophets spoke of themselves as exciting before Abraham or as greater than Solomon, much less as one with the Father, the sole person capable of revealing him to the world. But Jesus did say and was hated for saying these and similar things. Yet, unlike the other prophets, his message was uniquely vindicated through the resurrection, the Father signing the testimony of the Son with his own divine power. Even the life of an authentic prophet could not account for the historical truth about the person of Jesus. Much less so the life of a merely political revolutionary, who would quickly have been forgotten along with so many other violent messianic figures of the time.

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 

Even if we ask other Christians about Jesus they can only answer by telling us about Jesus. Even if we can repeat with exactitude what they have told us, correctly stating that he is fully human and fully divine, it does not mean that we have internalized those truths, or that we know him in the way he wants to be known. It is one thing to say truly that Jesus is Lord. But it is something else to experience the truth of who he is through a revelation that transforms our lives. What others can't convey through mere words the Father desires to reveal to us through his Spirit. It is important to help Christians to know true doctrine about Jesus. But it is even more important to point them to a personal encounter with him.

"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." 

- Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI

The role Peter was given in the Church as a guarantee against the forces of the netherworld is unique to him and his successors, the popes. But the guarantee is built on his faith in the revelation of the Father precisely to signal that the Church will always be a rock were the truth can be found. The voice of Peter calls through the centuries, not only teaching us truths about Jesus, but calling each of us to have our own encounter with him. She does this perhaps most perfectly in the mass, where she not only presents to us Jesus as an object of faith, but invites us to come and receive the Eucharistic Lord.

DC Talk - Mind's Eye

 

22 August 2026 - works of chairity

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

 

The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.

It is a perennial problem that those in positions of authentic religious authority are sometimes scandalous in their example. They may be the source of legitimate teaching of doctrine and the application thereof without first applying it to their own lives. This does not necessarily invalidate their authority or make them any less necessary sources of religious knowledge. In short, we can't necessarily ignore or avoid them just because they are bad people. Ideally we will find teachers whose lives and whose message coincide, teachings whom we can know by their fruit. But if we can't find such teachers we still need access to authentic doctrine. We still need to stand under the authority of the chair of Peter in the Church. If we should not entirely oppose even hypocritical leaders how much less should we choose to disregard such valid teaching as they do provide merely because of from whom it comes? If a teacher instructs us of the importance of charity but himself fails to be charitable it doesn't mean that the teaching itself was invalid. We can too easily use bad examples of religious leaders to confirm our bias against teachings with don't appeal to us, which we don't like, and which we would prefer to be false. Just because a liberal priest was caught up in a scandal doesn't necessarily invalidate everything he ever said. The same goes for a conservative priest. But we cherry pick such examples to feed our own confirmation bias. This too we must avoid.

For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people’s shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.

We do not want to follow the example of teachers who are happy to expound endless fine points of doctrine without concern for those who receive it. They are those who are fascinated with their own image as religious people, and not actually interested in the spiritual well-being of those to whom they preach. If anything, they tend to enjoy the sense of superiority they get from saying so many true things about areas in which they believe others are failing. They tend to feel that merely by talking about it they are succeeding in those areas themselves. But often they aren't. Moreover those to whom they preach may often be in better spiritual positions, living a more simplistic, authentic, and integral approach, without being lost in the doctrinal nuance of religious showmanship. 

Rather than the scribes and the Pharisees we want to be like Jesus himself, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light, light precisely because he helps his followers to carry it. We need not allow the condemnation of those who don't share this approach to unsettle our emotional well-being. If others (or even our inner voices) are hypercritical of our practice it need not lead us to desperation or despair. It should help us to rely more on Jesus and less on ourselves or others for the strength we need to live our call as Christians. When and only when we rely on Jesus for what we need we become able to help others in turn with what we ourselves have first received.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God (see Second Corinthians 1:3-4).

The image we present to others is not a reliable motivation for our Christian life. Only our desire to share the mercy we have first received is sufficient to the task. If we focus on self-image we will quickly be content with a superficial approach to religious like that of the scribes and the Pharisees. We will feel the need to increasingly visible in our good works and noticed for our religious practices. This will in turn make us hard for us to love in the many small and often invisible ways that really matter. We will think that the only scale of action that matters is one that could be noticed by others. But such an attitude ultimately directs our piety, not toward God, but to the idol of popular opinion.

Let us listen to the call of our one Father in heaven, and follow the example of our one master, the Christ. Let us become humble servants rather than tyrannical leaders, just as Christ himself "came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (see Matthew 20:28).

Brotherhood Of Hope - To Love You And To Make You Loved

 

21 August 2026 - connections

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law, tested him by asking,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

This question was more of an actual test than a trap like the previous questions from the Sadducees. All of those attempts to trip him up had failed. That must have made this scholar of the law  sufficiently curious to finally give Jesus an opportunity to explain his own perspective. Asking which commandment was greatest was implicitly also asked how all of the commandments were interrelated. What was the proper hierarchy of importance in all of the many rules and regulations of the law? We know that this was an important question because we see elsewhere that there were many who set commandments in opposition to each other, using some as an excuse to ignore others. For instance, people would use their obligation toward God as an excuse to shirk their duty toward their parents. Or they would use minute points of emphasis in order to discredit their opponents. And there were many other such similar abuses, all of which resulted from making human will, and not the intention of God the final arbiter of values.

He said to him,
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.

The first part of the answer of Jesus was not shocking in itself. It was quite obvious that the Shema prayer, the first of the commandments, the one which people literally wore on their bodies in their phylacteries, was the most important. But knowing this was not sufficient for the Pharisees who often used the importance of that commandment in order to avoid obligations toward the neighbors, and even to justify their own vicious attitudes of hostility and envy toward them. 

Neither was it shocking for Jesus to list love of neighbor as the second highest on the list of divine priorities. Between these two commandments he covered the two tablets of the law given to Moses by God. The aspect of the answer of Jesus that was the most unique and important was said so casually that it might have been easy to miss. He introduced love of neighbor by stating that the "second is like it". If one truly processed in understood the way in which the second was like the first it would no longer be possible for those two commandments to be set against one another. If one took the idea seriously human reasoning could no longer use the law to justify selfish behavior. 

Love of God required love of one's neighbor whom God himself had created in his own image. Love of God, who was invisible, could not be fully demonstrated without loving the neighbors whom one could see (see First John 4:20). The tight connection of these two realities came to a head in Jesus himself. When people failed to love Jesus they demonstrated both a failure to love their neighbor, which was more obvious, but also a failure to love the God who had become incarnate in his person. 

Unlike using God as an excuse, which is relatively easy, it is more difficult to love neighbor in a way that causes us to fail in our obligations toward God. But it is possible. Most often this happens when what that to which we direct our love is not really neighbor, but self. We tell ourselves we love our neighbor when we are choosing something that is really for our own convenience or comfort rather than doing the hard work of loving them as God would have us love them. An example would be not sharing the Gospel for fear of upsetting them, or not intervening in destructive behavior such as addiction in order to help keep them superficially happy. But if our love of neighbor is truly like our love of God we can't be content to love only by half measures. Our own love for neighbor must become like his love for us. It must be the sort of love that seeks and saves and chases down the very last of the lost sheep, bringing others not finally to ourselves, but to the Lord. After all, he himself is the only true hope we have to offer, the only lasting love we have to give.

Then you shall know that I am the LORD,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them,
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live,
and I will settle you upon your land;
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.

Bob Fitts - Hear O Israel