10 October 2026 - blessed rather

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“Blessed is the womb that carried you
and the breasts at which you nursed.”

Family was a immensely important in ancient cultures, and Israel was no exception. In fact Israel understood better than any other nation the importance of family since they could see from the story of creation how it was God himself who invented it and went on to enshrine it in the commandments he gave to Moses. It was indeed through the particular family of Israel that God promised to bless the world, through a particular descendant of Abraham. God never revised or abolished any aspect of his law, and his high regard for family was no exception. Yet when Jesus came he brought with him a new reality that did make family less important by comparison. Family was still of great importance, but what he introduced was simply that much better. 

He replied, “Rather, blessed are those
who hear the word of God and observe it.”

Mary was not blessed primarily because she gave birth to Jesus physically. Rather, as Elizabeth said, "Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled" (see Luke 1:45). She was in fact, more than all other humans of all times, one who heard the word of God and observed it. Without this faith she never would have had her physical connection to Jesus, for that required her to consent to obey the command of the angel, which in turn required her to believe him, and through him God himself. Only faith could convey the blessings God manifested in Jesus Christ to the world, whether that world was Jewish or Gentile. Jews had the law. But that law only acted as a custodian which pointed them toward Christ and offered correction when they transgressed. But it did not convey the blessings themselves, participation in the Sonship of Jesus, and the gift of his Spirit. Without these blessings everything was "confined" "under the power of sin". The law pointed in the direction of hope and made it clear why we had need to hope for more. Finally in Jesus the solution to the problem of human sinfulness had arrived. But the way to share in that promise was not through the law, not through any merely physical process like circumcision, but through being united to Jesus by faith in baptism.

Because faith in Jesus was necessary to receive the promise the importance of family was in some way relativized. Many good things came and would continue to come through families and they were still important. But one's ancestry was not sufficient to guarantee salvation. This remains true in the Kingdom. Even good Christian parents recognize that their best efforts are insufficient to ensure that their children go to heaven. The only thing that can ensure that is if the children themselves growing into individuals who choose to believe and obey God. In doing so they come to share, together with their earthly parents and all Christians, the Sonship of Christ. 

We recognize that treating goods like family as absolutes can actually set them in conflict with better things that are higher in the divine hierarchy. We see this when family potentially prevents someone from heeding the call to follow Jesus. Sometimes this is probably just an excuse, as when a man refrained from following Jesus in order to bury his father. But it is possible, for instance, for parents to misuse their authority to command their children not to follow Christ. In such cases disobedience is not only permissible but required. It was in this sense that Jesus predicted, "They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law" (see Luke 12:52), and why he insisted, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (see Matthew 10:37). 

Loving anything, even the best things, more than Jesus is foolish since he is the source of all other blessings. Ultimately there is nothing else besides him, and those blessings we have in him, through him, and for him, that we can hold forever. It is in the sense that we may hope that even our natural bonds of family become bonds of faith that make us spiritual family. That which is not raised to the level of the spirit is destined to pass away. But if we are united in Christ then there is nothing, not even death itself that can separate us.

John Michael Talbot - Holy Is His Name

 

9 October 2026 - wrong division

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste
and house will fall against house.

Jesus was never divided against himself. He was always only about the will of his heavenly Father. The crowds were, however, divided within and among themselves about the identity of Jesus. They had seen good things since they acknowledged that he drove out demons. But they refused to trust him completely. We can be like them when confronted with any new truth that is potentially uncomfortable. If it veracity would wound our pride, make us revise our worldview, or change our way of living, we might make the suggestion that something about its origin or intent was corrupt in order that we don't have to take the thing itself seriously.  

The statement of Jesus about a kingdom divided can help us to look more deeply into the matters we are considering. It is an invitation to assess whether what we witness could really be in service of evil, or, rather, whether it is so good that there is no way that is possible since it would in fact undermine any hypothetical evil that attempted it. Evil can indeed put on the appearance of good, and the enemy can disguise himself as an angel of light. But it can't actually undermine itself. It can't actually set people free from its power in order to prove itself. Such things are the absolute opposite of its goals of domination. And so there is a clear distinction between "finger of God" at work and the lies and pretense of Satan's kingdom. If we are divided about Jesus and his teaching, we must not remain divided. Divided hearts lack the integrity to withstand the spiritual battle in which we find ourselves. Only if we are built entirely on the rock of Christ, on obedience to his word, can we hope to survive the storms that will surely come.

When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,
his possessions are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,
he takes away the armor on which he relied
and distributes the spoils.

Jesus is stronger than the the evil one who holds souls captive in his power. He alone is uniquely able to despoil the enemy and set captives free. Others who do so are in fact doing by in some way appropriating power that is in fact properly his. Anything other than this is ultimately nothing but ineffective scattering, as with the crowds sought to stir up and exacerbate division about Jesus himself. In pretense, this pushed people back to their carefully controlled (and probably usually ineffective) methods of exorcism. But in actuality it kept people from the one person who had the absolute ability to succeed. 

The power of Jesus means that he can deliver us even from the places where our hearts are divided, where we have one foot in his Kingdom, but another still in the enemy's palace. He has the power to set us free and give us all the gifts that spiritual freedom entails. And we need these gifts.

But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order.

It is not sufficient to merely clean ourselves up after we receive this freedom. We need to be filled with something new in order to prevent the return of that which afflicted us. No matter how meticulously we organize our lives, no matter how highly effective our habits, we will always be at risk without the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Where he is present and active the enemy does not dare approach. He is the chief blessing of freedom that Jesus delights to bestow on those who welcome his rescue mission. May we be among those whom he sets free, free from the places where our own hearts remain divided, and may he fill us to overflowing with his Spirit. When our homes are thus transformed into his temples there is nothing further to fear.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (see Second Corinthians 3:17).

 

Darryl Evens - Freedom

 

8 October 2026 - and keep asking!

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.

Is the premise of this Gospel really that we can annoy God into doing what he would not have done based merely on our friendship? Obviously not. We aren't going to convince or manipulate God into doing something other than his will for us. If we know who God is we shouldn't even want to. So why this need to persist, if not to change his mind? It can only be to change ourselves, and our own hearts and minds. When we continue to bring our requests to God as we grow spiritually they are purged of the excesses of self-love that often contaminate them in the beginning. When we don't give up on them our own hearts take on something of the commitment that God himself has toward us. It is comforting to know that God recognizes that this process can be difficult, as he demonstrates by how response the individual receives in the parable. It often does feel to us as though it's midnight, the door is locked, and like hearing an immediate refusal from the far side of a door, without much in the way of consideration or compassion. We may well feel like the Syrophoenician woman during the initial response to her request for Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter. It might feel like we're up against a wall of impossibility. But we should remember that what seemed initially impossible for her was in the end granted by Jesus. It cost him nothing to give scraps from the master's table. But she gained a great depth of faith by her persistence.

Whenever this passage comes up we can't help but reiterate that Jesus does not simply say to seek, knock, and ask once and then forget about it. The grammar really indicates that we must ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking until the door is opened for us. Again we cite the Amplified translation of this passage:

So I say to you, ask and keep on asking, and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking, and you will find; knock and keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you (see Luke 11:9, AMP).

We are too quick to give up when things seem difficult or impossible. This is problematic because it implies both a lack of true concern for either ourselves or our neighbors, whomever are prayers are meant to benefit, and also because our surrender implies we have accepted some lesser vision of God than all loving and all powerful. It is a problem of faith and of good will. But when we don't succumb we find healing at all of the levels of our being and miracles can finally happen.

If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him?

We might not get exactly what we asked when we started asking. But we may eventually be led to openness to something better, something that does fulfill the initial good impulse that led us to pray, but in a way that goes beyond what we asked, expected, or could even imagine. Many of us who started out asking for an egg or a fish would initially find the Holy Spirit to be a paltry consolation prize. Let's keep praying until we realize that this is precisely backward. There is nothing better that God can give us than more of himself. The way to receive that gift is to be constant in prayer.

Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer (see Romans 12:11-12).

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (see First Thessalonians 5:16-18).

praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication (see Ephesians 6:18).

Prayer is the way to begin in the Spirit and also end, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. When we do it, we experience what Zachariah described, freedom to worship without fear. Since we have a lot of fear in our world and probably our own lives let us take prayer is the antidote. We have a divine guarantee as to its efficacy.

Matt Maher - Canticle Of Zechariah

 

7 October 2026 - teach us to pray

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
"Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."

It is noteworthy that it was the way Jesus himself prayed, and also what they knew about the prayer of John the Baptist, that inspired them to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. It was clear that there was a reality to the spiritual conversation Jesus and John were having with God that did not necessarily characterize prayer as it was commonly practiced. For Jesus, prayer was personal, intimate, and effective. It was not rote or routine. If, for us, the Our Father has become a set formula, it is precisely because it is a crystallization of the wisdom we have from Jesus about prayer. In a way it is unsurpassable, something which our own words can never replace. But of course it is not meant to compete with our dynamic spontaneous prayer. It is meant to be the source, the mountaintop stream that flows down into all other forms of prayer. It can be so for us if we prayer it with attention and understanding. Of course, it is a given that when we pray it so often there will be lapses in our attention. But as long as we manage to pay attention sometimes we can know that it will bring a virtual intentionality to what we do habitually. Our wills won't be as engaged directly or effectively. But it won't be nothing either.

Father, hallowed be your name

Jesus taught us to call God Father. Previously in the history of Israel it was common to think of God as the Father of the nation. But Jesus understood this relationship in a uniquely personal way and invited his disciples, including us, to share in that relationship. Thus the posture with which we begin prayer is one of childlike receptive trust. This is contrasts with the anxious uncertain doubtfulness with which we often actually begin. It is important to have the right starting place because beginning with doubt and desperation is not going to bear fruit.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (see James 1:6-8).

We ask for God's name to be hallowed, in our hearts, as reflected in how we live, and in the wider world. We don't ask to hallow it ourselves, but that God himself will do what is necessary. We can't really affect the holiness of God's name. He is unimpeachable. Even in our own hearts we lack the power realize what we are asking him to reveal. In our lives we need his grace to live based on that revelation. And it is clear the world cannot change without his help. But we desperately need to recognize the holiness of God at all of these levels. Otherwise we will treat him as something other and less than God. If we do that there is really no hope for things going well, since they will be at odds with their origin and purpose. His holiness, his otherness, prevents us from taking him too lightly or assuming that we don't really need him after all. And we really do need him if we hope to see anything like the coming of his Kingdom in our midst.

your Kingdom come.

Jesus taught us to seek first the Kingdom, which is, in one way, anywhere he himself is present and reigning in peoples' hearts. Wherever love and mercy prevail the Kingdom is present and active. If Jesus is the King of the Kingdom than there are nothing better than his own words, the words of the Word himself, to bring it to bear among us. When  we seek first the Kingdom we receive all else besides. This is why we go on to trust in God for our daily bread.

Give us each day our daily bread

We must trust God for our daily bread because otherwise we will be at risk when the devil tempts us to obtain it by other unholy means. When we rely on God we recognize the priority of the hidden bread of God's word and of the daily manna of the Eucharist even above and beyond our physical needs. This allows us to receive the provisions from God in proportion to our needs as embodied spiritual creatures, addressing us at every level of our being. Without remembering the meaning of this petition we tend to get the proportions wrong.

and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,

We forgive debts because the coming of Jesus marks the year of the true Jubilee when all debts must be remitted. This is not merely an obligation, but the necessary prerequisite for the celebration Jesus intends for us. He came so we need no longer be trapped in sin ourselves and insists that we afford the same grace to others.

and do not subject us to the final test.

As we continue our pilgrimage toward the fullness of the Kingdom we recognize our own weakness and dependence. If God permits a test to overwhelm us, well, it will do so. The reason we stand, if we stand, is because we remember and rely on the grace he never ceases to offer. The alternative is to overestimate ourselves and try to pass such tests without help. But that is a recipe for disaster. Let us return to the beginning of the prayer, to our childlike trust in God our Father, and live from that place of peace and protection.

Praise the LORD, all you nations,
glorify him, all you peoples!

 

 

Matt Maher - As It Is In Heaven

 

6 October 2026 - only one thing

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

Jesus entered a village 
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. 

The story of Mary and Martha isn't an excuse for laziness or a reason for us to avoid hospitality. The work Martha did was important. But the way she related to it in her spirit was problematic. The thorns of worldly anxieties crowded the seed of the word of God and fought with it for her attention. Not that the work of hospitality and welcome didn't need to be done. They did. But for her they were so all consuming that had the potential to become disruptive and undermine the good they were meant to enable. Insofar as her actual actions went, did she actually do anything wrong? It is unclear if she could have also sat at the feet of Jesus before beginning her work of serving without in some way failing to meet her obligations. Perhaps she too could have first come to Jesus and only then proceeded with her work. This seems to be the desirable sequence when it is possible. But where things became more obviously problematic for Martha was when she began to compare and complain. She compared her level of effort and engagement with the apparently lazy Mary who seemed to be shirking in her own obligation to be hospitable to guests in their home. Martha disrupted the whole moment of those receiving teaching from Jesus to protest about how this was unfair.

The Lord said to her in reply,
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. 
There is need of only one thing. 
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”

Martha no doubt wanted to reply that there were some other things that were also important, things that they would miss if she ignored them. But Jesus hadn't actually said that she ought not do anything that she had done. Mary had chosen the good not so much because she was not presently doing housework but because her heart was centered on Jesus. It was impossible for a heart like that to have its reward taken from it by the thorns of worldly anxiety. But Martha's heart was not fixed on the one for whom she ostensibly worked so hard. It was fixed on the things themselves. It seems to us that if she had simply done these with a different perspective and state of mind it would not have experienced service as a burden but as a privilege. She would have realized that at some times people sit at the feet of Jesus and at other times people are active in service. But it wasn't her job to figure out who should do what when. If her own relationship to her service felt less like a burden she would not have even thought to try to take the moment Mary was experiencing away from her.

We tend to fight for Martha because we similarly recognize the necessity of our work. But if we always insist on our own actions as the absolute priority we will never make time to come to Jesus and receive. When he is not the center we have no center. We are pulled from this to that to the other thing with ballistic violence. It is like this with all of our resources, whether time, talent, or treasure. If we use our treasure to do good things like feed the poor we may never support our local church community. Jesus doesn't demand all that we have. He just demands the best and the first of what we have, which in turn sanctifies our other offerings.

It is not for us to judge Mary's decision, especially since Jesus did not judge it. But her moment with Jesus does not give us a free pass to avoid jobs we dislike or would prefer to avoid. She instead reminds us that we will do such things better, with a better spiritual and even emotional disposition, when Jesus is central and first. When we seek first the Kingdom, which in a real way is Jesus himself, we get everything else as well for the bargain.

 

 

Jesus Culture - One Thing Remains

 

5 October 2026 - who is my neighbor?

 

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, 
“And who is my neighbor?”

The man knew what needed to be done, what was required of him by the law. He probably hoped to hear a narrow definition of neighbor, one that would allow him to say that he had been discharging his moral obligation toward those included faithfully. But we imagine that even he himself suspected that more was required. He was, to some degree, aware of what his attempts to justify himself had produced in his life thus far. If he looked at the state of his own heart and inquired about whether it was fit to dwell eternally in the presence of the all holy God he could not help but be aware on some level that something was lacking. The scope of his own ability to love and show mercy to his neighbor was limited to situations that were convenient and those to whom he had a naturally predisposed sympathy. This isn't that unusual or horrific. We too often place limits on the mercy we will show. We try to justify ourselves and insist that we are doing our best on a human level. But we can't shake this nagging awareness that we need greater purification if we are to become capable of living and enjoying eternal life with God. So, with this scholar of the law, we can bring our attempts at self-justification before Jesus so that he himself can unravel them and set us right.

A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

Insofar as we fail to show mercy to others we are the priest and the Levite in this story. But we are also the wounded man, stripped and beaten by sin, spiritually half-dead and unable to rise. People representing the other solutions of religion, philosophy, and ideology, that exist in the world notice our predicament, but go out of their way to avoid us since they have nothing to offer, and risk tarnishing the reputations by even making the attempt. Fortunately Jesus comes to us, like the Samaritan, as an unexpected outsider, and is moved with compassion at the sight. He is not overwhelmed by the intractability of what he sees because his limitless compassion gives him the power to do all he needs to do to heal us. He uses the oil and wine of the sacraments and delivers us to the inn of his Church for ongoing care. His two natures of humanity and divinity are the silver coins that are more than enough to purchase all the grace we need for us to recover and thrive.

Importantly, we are not merely healed to the level of the priest and the Levite and others who believe they have more important things to do than mercy. The mercy Jesus shows us is precisely to rehabilitate and restore our own ability to show mercy. We can begin our encounter trying to justify ourselves like the scholar of the law. But Jesus does not desire to leave us in the rigid confines of a narrow and self-serving definition of mercy. Others, who could not address the diseased nature of the human heart, had no choice but to pass by. Only Jesus is capable of addressing the root of the problem. Only he sees clearly to do it. And does and will do so for all who are willing. Strengthened by the grace we receive we become more free to live in accord with our purpose. This was the secret that allowed Paul to say:

Am I now currying favor with human beings or God?
Or am I seeking to please people?
If I were still trying to please people,
I would not be a slave of Christ.

People pleasers pass by on the other side of the road. But we who have been healed by Christ and not free to do so. And hopefully, we don't want to. The Lord has never and could never forget us. Let us try to learn to love our own neighbors as he himself has demonstrated.

The Lord will remember his covenant for ever.

 

Maranatha! Music - Here I Am To Worship

 

4 October 2026 - vineyard crimes

 

Today's Readings

(Audio)

  

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,
put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.

The landowner showed marvelous care for his vineyard by how he provided for it. Yet he did entrust it to tenants, people who were meant to share his concern for it that he had, but who did not do so. The fact that the landowner himself was not present during the seasons of growth and preparation led the religious leadership, the tenants to begin to treat the vineyard as that it belonged to them rather than to another. It probably also made those normal people who were meant to be under the care of the tenants to feel abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. One might be tempted to assume that the landowner did not in fact care that much. If he had, could he not have stayed and overseen the vinting himself? Yet we cannot conclude that he did not care, for a landowner that did not care would never have taken the step of sending his only son. He probably wouldn't even have taken the step of sending a second or third round of messengers. But this landowner clearly cared about the tenants themselves and not only the produce. God cared about the people he had put in charge. They were not merely set up to fail. To mix metaphor's, God also valued those shepherds who were failing at their job of being shepherds, and not only the neglected sheep. He desired a world in which religious leadership would be able to be shepherds after his own heart (see Jeremiah 3:15) who truly cared for the sheep. Thus his plan was not to reverse his previous decision and take things over directly in a purely unmediated fashion. His plan was to establish leadership built on the new foundation of Jesus himself, the stone which the builders rejected.

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?
Therefore, I say to you,
the kingdom of God will be taken away from you
and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

The tenants who were selected first were imprisoned by their own egocentric desires. They tacitly acknowledged that the vineyard of Israel belonged to the Lord. But they lived as though this were not the case. They chose to cling to God's benefits while forgetting about tho one who gave them. There was a real way that they could not help but do so, since, "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (see Romans 8:8). Jesus was offered to them as a new and solid foundation on which they could be built as living stones and thereby becoming pleasing to God. Only on that edifice could they arise as a new temple capable of offerings pleasing to the Lord, the harvest meant for him. But many of them preferred their own self-interest to the benevolent plan of God. 

 

Since it was insufficient to merely keep asking the old entrenched and self-interested leadership to change, God deemed that something more seismic was necessary. He would lease the vineyard to the new tenants of in his Church, herself built on Jesus himself as her one foundation. It would not always and absolutely be the case even in that environment that the tenants would always be found faithful. But it was the case that it was the only foundation were true faithful was even possible. Not only that, but the graces that were available in the age of the Church were actually capable of changing hearts. The Spirit himself was the chief agent who would bear fruit in this new reality. 

Why not simply skip the step of the vineyard that God must have known was ultimately doomed to fail? As a partial answer we may say that he wanted us to see that we can't make it work on our own. It wasn't that the structure was wrong. It wasn't even that the execution was wrong. It was that the foundation had to be something more stable than our flesh, our selfishness, and our sinful tendencies. If we did not see this clearly we would always risk trying to take matters back into our own hands. And even still, we sometimes try to take matters back into our own hands. But at least now there are precautions in place to help us remember to avoid such temptations. For instance, we sometimes try to take God's role upon ourselves because of our anxiety, and our resulting need to feel like we are in control. But built into the fabric of the new foundation we have in Christ Jesus are the Scriptures, including the command of Saint Paul to the Philippians.

Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Insofar as we are tenants, let us remember that the fruit belongs to God. Insofar as we are grapes, let us be turned into the wine of joy in the vineyard of his Church. Insofar as we are stones, let us be built upon Jesus as our one foundation. When we are tempted to take things into our own hands let us remember that we are meant to give everything, not just our fruits, but even our worries, to God. He, in turn, will give us all we need.

 

Shane And Shane - Psalm 23 (Surely Goodness, Surely Mercy)