22 October 2026 - to set the earth on fire

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

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

It seems safe to say that Jesus has desires that, at least on the surface, we don't share. When we think about a world that is rooted and grounded in love we place the importance of family near the top. Obviously, the unity among members of families would seem to be a key indicator as to whether or not families were thriving. A world of divided families would seem to be a world heading in precisely the wrong direction. But what we should recognize from all of this is not that Jesus is not loving, but that his love is different than ours, more like a fire, containing elements of transformation and purification. That love requires transformation we also garner from the much more amenable text we have today from Paul.

that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory
to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith

He did already dwell in the hearts of the Ephesians, but they needed to grow more if they wanted to become all they were meant to be as Christians, to have the strength to fully comprehend the all surpassing love of Christ. Why did it take strength? Well, for one thing, it was likely to sometimes go against their base instincts or assumptions about things, just as Jesus does for us in today's Gospel. But getting on the same page was Jesus was a vital prerequisite to living in a way that could lead to union with him, to being "filled with all the fullness of God".

It is not that Jesus desires disunity among families for its own sake. What he desires is that our unity be reestablished with him as the cornerstone. People and families contain both light and darkness. In ourselves we must recognize our divided nature so as to choose the light. In families too we need to understand where people stand, with Jesus and the light, or against him, not to reject those among us who choose to stand against him, but rather to know the specific loving response that is appropriate in their case. We stand apart, yes, but in order to help, in order to minister the love of Christ to them. What we must not do is treat family as such an absolute good that we wouldn't dare upset it even for the sake of the eternal souls of some of its members. Ultimately, all of us together being filled with the fullness of Christ is of infinitely more value than some momentary hurt feelings, if those happen to be a byproduct of honesty and faithfulness to the Lord.

There is a baptism with which I must be baptized

We all need more of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in our lives, so that we can have the dynamic motivating power of God guiding us, helping us to become more like him. For his own part Jesus looked forward, somehow, to the baptism of the cross which would allow this fire to be unleashed on the world. There is a close connection here since the Holy Spirit connects us to the paschal mystery of Jesus and makes the purifying power of his death present in our lives. It doesn't always feel like crucifixion when he helps us to conform ourselves to Christ. But neither does it always feel only and entirely pleasant. But just as Jesus desired the baptism of the cross for himself so too must we desire his cleansing fire to fill our own hearts. There may be difficult moments along the way. But it is leading to "more than all we ask or imagine".

 

Paul Wilbur - Let Your Fire Fall

 

21 October 2026 - dear prudence

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

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

If we believe in Jesus we will live differently. If we only say we believe in him, or if that belief is shallow, and not integrated into our way of living, we will tend to forget about our faith. Whenever there are not immediate consequences for our lack of response to the Gospel it is possible for us to slip into complacency with sin. This is important because, in most cases during this life, there are not profound immediate consequences for such disobedience. This is not to say that there are no consequences at all. When we persist in sin we definitely fail to fully manifest the fruits of the Spirit. But the results of our vicious behavior don't always automatically remind us of our responsibility to Jesus. It is fairly easy to misinterpret the signals we receive from the results of our behavior, attributing them to chance, or otherwise ignoring them. The missing element that we need to remember is the closeness of Jesus, the fact that he could return at any moment. This truth is meant to help us connect every instant of our lives to a higher truth, and motivate us to live for a higher purpose.

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?

We may not have leadership positions in the Church. But for all of us, the Lord has some goods that he has entrusted, for the purpose of communicating them to others, a food allowance to share at the proper time. In order to retain awareness of this duty, and, in particular, to have any sense of what the proper time is in our specific case, we must be prudent. Prudence helps us connect the individual events of our lives to our higher purpose, acting wisely in the moment because of what we know about eternity. This is why we need to remember, to the degree of being preoccupied with, the nearness of Jesus, and the fact that at any moment his presence might break through into our lives. When this breakthrough happens it manifests as judgment and consequences, blessings for obedience, and punishment for disobedience. Prudence helps us to steer our ship toward our eternal destinies moment to moment. And these destinies can be defined in one of two categories: life with with Jesus in God forever, or life forever apart from that. No matter how cleverly we live our lives and plan our futures if we forget this truth we cannot be called prudent. We will be held accountable for all that we know and have been taught, excused only if the fault for our ignorance was not our own. What we have been given is not trivial, and we must respond.

This was according to the eternal purpose
that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
in whom we have boldness of speech
and confidence of access through faith in him.

 

Chris Tomlin - Even So Come

20 October 2026 - true girt

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.

Jesus alluded to the Passover meal, since the people were instructed to eat that meal with their loins girt. Since they needed to be prepared for a nighttime journey it would have also been appropriate to have lamps ready. The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture informs us that this "consistent with Jewish expectation that the messiah would come during the meal on Passover night"¹. The emphasis on the Exodus is stressed in a particular way in this same Gospel of Luke, when, during the Transfiguration, we read that what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah discussed was specifically about "his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem" (see Luke 9:30). Notice the close connection between the Passover meal and the crucifixion. As in the mass, both elements, sacred banquet and sacrifice, are in play. The fact is that Jesus does return during the Paschal banquet of the New Covenant, and blessed are those servants who are watchful and alert to his coming.

Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.

Can we see that, in the mass, it is Jesus himself, in the person of the priest who instructs us to recline at the table of the altar, and the proceeds to wait on us? Can we also see how easy it is to miss this hidden reality entirely? It is too easy to see the priest as just an ordinary person, and the bread and wine as common food, missing their supernatural significance entirely. We must take an active role if we are to be prepared. It is not enough to merely bring the intention of full, active, and conscious participation when we come to mass. We must already be living lives of charity (with our loins girt) and seeking heavenly wisdom (with our lamps lit) if we want to be open to everything that is available in the mass. The mass in turn provides the grace we need to live lives of charity and unites us with the one who is himself divine wisdom. This is meant to be a virtuous cycle propelling us onward and upward.

And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants.

Jesus is aware that as something continues over time it becomes routine. It takes a more concerted effort to remain attentive over the course of a lifetime than it does at first. This is why he is particularly pleased with those who remain faithful over the long haul. It is not only his presence in the mass for which they prepare themselves, it is his coming for them at the end of their lives, and for all of us, at the end of the age, when he returns in glory. Therefore we must not be casual about it, as though we can be content with good enough when it comes to our relationship with the mass. It is still training for something more and greater yet to be revealed. And we want to be among the those about whom, when it happens, Jesus says "blessed are those servants".

1) Gadenz, Pablo T.. The Gospel of Luke (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture): (A Catholic Bible Commentary on the New Testament by Trusted Catholic Biblical Scholars - CCSS) (p. 244). (Function). Kindle Edition. "

 

Patricia A Faussett - God And Man At Table Are Sat Down

  

19 October 2026 - the rich fool

Today's Readings

(Audio)

 

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

Because the man in this parable thought his life consisted in possessions he had no higher frame of reference for putting them to use. The only one he could ask about what he ought to do with his excess was himself. His focus on possessions had made him fundamentally incapable of relationship, of asking anyone else, let alone God, what he could do with them, rather than simply letting them go to waste. He didn't want to know what others might say because his possessions were his top priority. He didn't want to risk that they might say something persuasive. And yet the reason he had to ask himself was because there was nothing obvious to be done with them. Nor, indeed, did he foresee any actual concrete need.

And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.

His lack of a higher frame of reference actually rendered him a servant of his wealth rather than, as it should be, the other way around. Rather than his resources helping him to enjoy his life he was actually putting in extra unnecessary work to maintain more than his surplus. Greed is a particular form of sin and, as we have said, sin makes us stupid. 

Greed is also a form of idolatry. He thought that if he sacrificed enough to the idol of greed he could obtain happiness. His plan was so good, he thought, that such happiness would sustain him as far into the future as he was capable of thinking. Unfortunately this was not far enough. All sin has the tendency to narrow our horizons to the short-term benefits it promises. But even that narrow horizon has no guarantees. Without a proper hierarchy in our lives there is no way for us to be prepared when our life is demanded of us. There is no amount of effort or activity that can prepare for such an eventuality. Rather than trying to push back the terror of mortality through effort and distraction, remaining trapped in the "desires of our flesh" and "following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses", and therefore remaining "children of wrath", we must rely on the mercy God never ceases to bestow. New life is always available in Christ. And once we receive it we must let it, and not anything else, define us.

But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

In a way that is the very opposite of sin, the grace of God opens our horizons to eternity and fills us with hope. Not only that, but even here and now we able begin to experience the blessings that we hope to receive in fullness one day. Even now, already, we are in some way seated "in the heavens". But far from rendering us useless or inert this makes us dynamic agents of divine love.

For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works
that God has prepared in advance,
that we should live in them.

 

Newsboys - Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)

 

18 October 2026 - a tax question

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion,
for you do not regard a person's status.

Of course in saying that they knew Jesus was a truthful man they were themselves being untruthful. In praising him for not having regard for the opinions of others, and then asking for his opinion, they revealed that such freedom was not really a priority for them. They actually believed Jesus to be a liar and his thought his disregard for opinion was a fault. Yet here they sought to use these false pretenses to encourage Jesus to speak freely. They thought they could actually sway him by ingratiating themselves to him in his opinion about them just enough to make him speak freely and say something he ought not say. They posed a dilemma that, they thought, would prove that he cared either for the opinion of the Roman rulers, or else of the occupied Jewish people. But, as Jesus would prove, he cared not for the opinions of anyone, not those groups, not the crowds, and especially not people trying to entrap him in his speech. He did care for the people themselves, but not about their opinions of him, or their judgments on his words and deeds.

"Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? 
Show me the coin that pays the census tax." 

They were only pretending to have a genuine and sincere question. The fact that they possessed the coins, and had them ready at hand, all but proved that they were on the side of concession and cooperation with the Roman authorities. Even the possession of such coins, which hailed Caesar as divine, revealed their own compromised position. Shortly after the handing the coin to Jesus they probably began to realize the blow they had just suffered to their own public image. They were not free from the world of the flesh in which the opinions of others outweighed their concern for the truth. How could they be so blind as to make the claim that Jesus was guilty of the crime that they were themselves in that very moment committing? We will file this in the category of sin making us stupid. This is precisely the sort of spiritual blindness from which Jesus came to save us.

He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?" 
They replied, "Caesar's."
At that he said to them,
"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God."
 
This section is commonly misunderstood to mean that there are separate and unrelated sections of reality known as the spiritual on the one hand and the secular on the other. In such an interpretation the secular realm ought to be entirely free from any spiritual influence since it would be, in theory, the proper domain of Caesar. The spiritual in turn ought to be free from any influence of the secular, ought not in fact even think about secular things. But since the secular world defines so much of our lives as embodied creatures this relegates the realm of the spiritual to mere subjective feelings and sentiments. But this is not what Jesus actually intended to imply. He did not simply fall for the trap of his interlocutors and explain why paying taxes was acceptable. He did indeed acknowledge that there was a legitimate sphere of political governance, in which rulers could tax their citizens. But this sphere was not to be regarded as independent of the spiritual. Rather it was hierarchically below and inferior to the spiritual. Far from independent, it ought to be ordered toward the spiritual. The coin of Caesar might have been contained his name and inscription. But Caesar himself, along with all of us, was made in God's image and likeness. Failing to recognize this fact leads us to fail to honor the true ruler of all things, and leads us to fail to direct all things to him as their true and proper goal. Revolt in this sphere is much worse than any mere political upheaval.

Our call today is to avoid the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the Herodians. We can do this when our inner reality, our words, and our actions all coincide. On our own we tend to fail. But, as  Paul reminded the Thessalonians, we are not alone.

For our gospel did not come to you in word alone,
but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.

Matt Maher - You Are The Lord

 

17 October 2026 - no hard feelings

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

I tell you,
everyone who acknowledges me before others
the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.
But whoever denies me before others
will be denied before the angels of God.

We have recently seen the danger of hypocrisy, posed by a lack of consistency and integrity between our inner and outer worlds. Today we see again that it is not just our subjective inner feelings but our actions that matter. If we keep the fact that we belong to Christ a secret, if we can in fact keep it a secret, how true can it really be that we belong to him at all? It is our mission, even our privilege, to give testimony to Jesus. The world needs this testimony in order to be saved. Jesus himself did not waver in his testimony even in the face of persecution and death. Neither, then, must we. To know the name of Jesus but to keep it locked within our hearts is like receiving mercy but then refusing to let that mercy flow out of us. We may not realize it, but showing mercy may sometimes come with a genuine cost. The titular unforgiving servant in the parable would have had to pay a cost in order to show mercy to his fellow servant. But it was an incalculable lower cost than his own already forgiven debt. Indeed, even if we must give up our very lives for Jesus this is still negligible compared to the eternity he has won for us. This is why Paul is so insistent that we recognize the hope of our call.

that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call,
what are the riches of glory
in his inheritance among the holy ones,
and what is the surpassing greatness of his power
for us who believe  

When we are told that we must not deny Jesus he does not say it because he can't stand having his feelings hurt. He says it because it has real consequences for ourselves and for the world whether or not we will stand up for Jesus and acknowledge him. By doing so we make ourselves more and more into the kind of people who can be acknowledged before the angels and less and less into those unrecognizable fakes that must be dismissed into the darkness.

Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,
but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will not be forgiven.

Again, the problem is not that God can't stand to have his feelings hurt. Rather, by definition sinning against the Holy Spirit makes forgiveness difficult, difficult to the degree that to persist obstinately in such sin puts us beyond the scope of God's forgiving power. It is not that there is really any sin that is unforgivable per se. Rather, what is described is how we can render ourselves unable to come to God and receive his mercy. When we call evil good and good evil, when we insist that the Spirit of Jesus himself is unclean, how can we then turn to him for help, he who is the one and only person who can help us?

do not worry about how or what your defense will be
or about what you are to say. 
For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.

Rather than blaspheming the Spirit we must rely on. He himself is the factor that makes the difference for whether we will be able to remain faithful enough to acknowledge Jesus before others. If we do not remain open to the Spirit we fall back unto the flesh, our own resources. These may be enough to get us by day to day. But they fail us during our own moments of testing "before synagogues and before rules". There is a virtuous cycle in which we can rely on the Holy Spirit to help us to acknowledge Jesus before others. But there is also a vicious cycle in which we refuse to rely on the Spirit and fail to acknowledge Jesus. One prepares us for a heavenly destiny. The other makes such a destiny increasingly improbable.

As long as we live it is never too late to repent and be forgiven. Even our own complicity in the death of Jesus did not prevent the Father from raising him up again for our salvation. But it is precisely on this reality above all else that we must rely, in which we must put our trust. We must be ready and willing to tell the whole world about a treasure so great.

 

 

Sonicflood - Open The Eyes Of My Heart

 

16 October 2026 - whom to fear

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 

Christians are meant to have the ease that comes from consistency between our inner lives and our exterior words and actions. There are several extremes that we are meant to avoid, the first being hypocrisy. Christianity is not merely a facade to conceal our sinful priorities from other people. Rather, our hearts are supposed to be in the state of constant renewal by the Holy Spirit, helping us to want what God wants. This means we can actually have some consistency between what is inside us and how we act before eyes. We recognize that we are not perfect, but no longer need to conceal this as a dark secret, since it is not a part of ourselves that we are trying to cultivate or protect. We can be open and transparent about our liabilities while trying to live more like Christ day to day.

There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.

Our hidden lives will eventually be made manifest. So we should work on removing those things that embarrass us now rather than later. At the same time, we must not keep the genuine good of the Gospel hidden in our hearts. We must be willing to speak it in the light and proclaim it on the housetops. We may mask our sinful behavior because we fear to look bad. But we may hide the treasure of the Gospel from others because we fear the consequences. However, when allow that kind of fear to immobilize us it means we have things precisely backwards, fearing the wrong things too much, and not fearing the right things enough. Therefore Jesus gives us a helpful corrective.

I tell you, my friends,
do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but after that can do no more.

God's priorities matter more than any worldly consequences we might experience. It isn't that he wants to cast anyone into Gehenna. He cares about us far more than many sparrows, and has numbered all the hairs of our heads. This is why he wants us to share his priority of ensuring that no one has to experience that place of eternal fire. We fear God in the sense that we know that he isn't messing around, that he will allow people to make such a choice if they insist on it. And so our reverence for him extends to the choice he has set before humanity. He is too good, too worthy, too generous to offend, to oppose, and to reject. But such rejection is a terrible possibility. Our fear actually helps us to remember and rely on his overwhelming goodness lest we squander it through our own bad decisions.

Our holy fear helps us to remember our dependence on God. When we do remember it we basically cannot fail and need fear nothing else on earth or in the evens. In him we were chosen and sealed. We have already tasted the first installment of what will one day by our eternal inheritance. Rather than living to indulge ourselves as hypocrites, or hiding from our mission as Christians, we are meant to exist, as Paul wrote, "for the praise of his glory". May it be so.

 

 

Matt Maher - Sophia