7 November 2025 - cheat your ego

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

He summoned him and said,
‘What is this I hear about you?
Prepare a full account of your stewardship,
because you can no longer be my steward.’

What will we hear when we stand before the judgment seat of God? We have been entrusted with much, with natural gifts and spiritual treasures. Jesus said that we will even be judged for careless speech, for every idle word (see Matthew 12:36). We don't have the strength our skill to gain or maintain the gift of life that only God can give. We aren't strong enough to dig. Hopefully we are not too proud to beg, since we know that God is often moved with compassion at our pleas for mercy. We know that our God is merciful. But we also know that he requires a response to his mercy. Even our begging will only go so far if it is only perfunctory and does not represent a real change of heart, a genuine desire for conversion. 

I know what I shall do so that,
when I am removed from the stewardship,
they may welcome me into their homes.

The dishonest steward realized that there was no sense trying to maintain a temporal advantage in the face of potentially permanent consequences. This led him to make choices we can't entirely endorse. But part of his plan can be useful to us. We can use the temporary things of this world in the light of our hope for eternity. We can use the wealth of this world, which is always in some measure "dishonest", for the sake of finding habitation in the world to come. Whenever we use our time, talent, or resources, for the sake of others, we are winning potential friends who can help pray us through our final purification and into heaven. Even if it is not always they themselves who do so, we are also reaching out to Jesus who is present in them. He will ensure that what we do for the poor and disadvantaged will not be unrewarded. 

He called in his master’s debtors one by one.
To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’
He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note.
Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’

We often have a hard time relinquishing those things that were entrusted to us, even when by doing so we can help to give freedom to others. We seem ready to hold on to them even when they aren't doing anything for us at the moment, and even though we know that we can't keep them forever. But in the light of the knowledge of the certain of judgment, and the shortness of life in this world compared to eternity, perhaps we can loosen our grip.

And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.

As Christians we act prudently when our actions in this world are ordered toward God and the world to come. Again, it does not mean that we are free to engage in immoral acts like cheating in order to attain our goals. But it does mean that we see the relative value and impermanence of things like wealth and put them to use accordingly. Or we may put it thus: let us cheat our egos for the sake of others. Any strategies we can use to slip past the protective shell that keeps us trapped inside ourselves is probably worth a try. Any way we can fool ourselves into letting go and letting God have his way in us is likely better than trying to hold what we know we cannot keep.

For I will not dare to speak of anything
except what Christ has accomplished through me 

 

Ubi Caritas Et Amor

 

6 November 2025 - to seek and save the lost

 

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

Jesus was a visible manifestation of the heart of the Father. He came because God so loved the world that he, the only Son, was sent to save it. The Pharisees were content to restrict God's mercy and to set limits on his love. They thought they were already walking in it themselves and had no significant motivation to share it. To them, most of the world seemed like a lost cause. But the Pharisees were not necessarily correct about their own relationship to God being entirely healthy. Their unwillingness to share it to others was compounded by the fact that they were typically unable to do much to help to bring others to God. Sinners and tax collectors were more likely to have a negative effect on them, rather than receiving anything beneficial from them. They weren't well equipped to make a difference, and even if they had been, their hearts weren't in it.

What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them
would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert
and go after the lost one until he finds it?

Jesus had an entirely different attitude toward the lost sheep of Israel. He didn't see them as a liability. He pursued them as only someone not concerned with normal human limitations would do. He could seek the lost sheep without risk to himself or risk to the ninety-nine that remained behind. The Pharisees had to be concerned with themselves and with those who already gave the appearance of a spiritual life. They only had so much attention they could apply to all of the things that clamored for their attention. Thus, they found competing claims threatening, and focused mainly on keeping themselves safe. They weren't about to go on expedition to dinners with sinners, because, after all, what benefit was that to them? But Jesus was different. He was free from the prison of selfishness that ensnared most of the world and was thus able to be entirely available to search for every sheep that went astray. 

It is only in Christ that we ourselves may become free from the prison of self and available for others. This is what Paul described in his letter to the church at Rome:

None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

When we belong to him we begin to share his joy when the lost sheep is located and the lost coin is found. In fact, the degree to which we do share this joy is a good indicator of the degree to which God's priorities have become our own. This joy is the beginning of that which will be fully realized in the heavenly banquet. It will be filled, not only with our own joy that we managed to make it home, but with the joy of God himself in the fact that he brought us safely into his presence.

We Belong To God 

5 November 2025 - prepared for the cost

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.

We are called to begin our path of discipleship by understanding that it is necessary to resolve to put nothing ahead of Jesus, not possessions, not family, not even our own lives. If we don't realize at the beginning that it will be necessary to make sacrifices in order to choose Jesus we may find ourselves unwilling to do so when the need arises. We may never need to choose between family and following the Lord. But we need to commit virtually to choosing Jesus over anything else, however good. Without such a commitment we risk being like those who began a work but failed to finish because they didn't properly assess what would be required when they began.

Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?

We ought to understand from the beginning that we are being called to a path that is, humanly speaking, impossible. If Jesus hadn't paid our debt there could be no tower allowing us access to the heavens. Our human resources are far to small to oppose another king with twenty thousand troops, unless, as with Gideon, God himself chooses to give victory to our smaller force. 

Jesus is not asking us to prepare simply so that we will be ready to grit our teeth and apply all of our own strength to what is asked of us. Rather, he is suggesting that from the beginning we ought to prepare to encounter circumstances which seem humanly impossible, but immediately rely on him to get us through. Without this resolution it will be all too easy to choose our possessions, whose value to us is something we have proven through experience, over the untried and apparently unlikely possibility of success in doing what he commands.

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another;
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

We aren't being called to anything as abstract as a construction project or as violent as a battle between earthly powers. We need to remember that the project is actually all about love. But in remembering this we should also keep in mind that we do not yet love as we ought to love, and that the kind of love being asked of us is not sentimental, but superhuman. If we treat love lightly we will fail when everything is on the line. But if we remember the advice of Jesus and turn to him in our need we will experience his own victory in our lives.

Relient K - For The Moments I Feel Faint

 

4 November 2025 - better things to do?

 

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

When the time for the dinner came,
he dispatched his servant to say to those invited,
'Come, everything is now ready.'
But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.

If, while sitting at the banquet, they had been asked whether they wanted to go and deal with the field or the oxen they recently acquired, they probably would have replied that those things didn't seem urgent. They could wait. Even the one who had recently married might have thought to enjoy the feast together with his wife before heading home where the practical necessities of building a new life together waited. The situation at the banquet would have been so overwhelmingly enjoyable that the things they once found to be urgently important no longer seemed so. They would have been caught up in the experience of a new freedom and depth of relationship such as they had never known. If they had to eventually return to their mundane quotidian existence, they would not have been in any hurry. But in fact, this group never made it to the banquet. When they evaluated their options they chose less rewarding things. On the surface, that seems confusing to us. But no doubt they did so because of a sense of perceived necessity balanced against a failure of imagination. They gave greater urgency to their worldly concerns than was appropriate. And they were unable to imagine just how good and worthwhile the banquet would be. And in this, they are just like us. We treat our worldly concerns as if our immortal souls depend on them. Our ability to imagine the heaven is so limited that it doesn't provide much motivating force. It feels as distant to us as a king's banquet did to the invited guests. Nice for some undetermined future date, to be sure. But hardly important to us at any given moment of a normal day. Saint Teresa of Avila compared life to a night in a bad motel. But we spend our days trying to do a better job furnishing the room.

Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant,
'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town
and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.'

The ones who would actually be sufficiently motivated to attend the banquet were those who didn't imagine that they had better things to do. They were people who were so in need that they could easily imagine a banquet that could fulfill their longings. No longer would poverty leave them hungry, or being crippled, blind, or lame, prevent them from enjoying the best that life had to offer. The banquet itself would so fulfill them as to heal them virtually, if not in fact, since none of their limitations were able to keep them from the fullness of joy for which they longed. The imagination of this group wasn't preoccupied with the false promises of the world. They saw those clearly for what they were. Their situations and conditions made them ready to look elsewhere for what they most desired. Can we learn from them, without ourselves being poor or infirm, how important it is to richly imagine how good heaven will be? We get a chance to practice during every mass, which is, as we know, the marriage banquet of the Lamb. We often approach mass as merely more thing on a lengthy to-do list. We tend to prioritize anything and everything else more than it. We think that, if heaven will be like the mass, well, we aren't in any hurry to see it. But this is because we are attending the mass more like people in the first group who would rather be elsewhere. When we instead attend as a people of faith, bringing with us the expectation that the mass contains and allows us to access that which will fulfill us most, we become more able to access the truth of that reality.

When the mass begins to define our reality more than the myriad lesser things, we will find ourselves filled with the strength we need to do what Paul commanded his audience in Rome:

Let love be sincere;
hate what is evil,
hold on to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
anticipate one another in showing honor.
Do not grow slack in zeal,
be fervent in spirit,
serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope,
endure in affliction,
persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the holy ones,
exercise hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you,
bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep.
Have the same regard for one another;
do not be haughty but associate with the lowly.

Matt Maher - The End And The Beginning

 

3 November 2025 - less bank, more banquet

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.

The problem with only focusing only on those people, places, and situations that we find rewarding is that it tends to lead us to narrow our focus and develop blind spots. If we aren't intentional about periodically deviating from our routine reward seeking we may gradually lose our freedom to do so. Jesus is present in our family and friends. But he is also present in the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and others. When we neglect his presence in these people we neglect encounters with Jesus which he might otherwise been able to fill with an abundance of his grace. In short, it is not only those whom we don't invite that miss out. It is also we ourselves.

Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

How will we be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous? It isn't as though we will benefit from cash, precious metals, or a direct deposit to our accounts. Even cryptocurrency can't be transferred to that destination. Instead, doing what Jesus advised will lead to repayment in the form of becoming more like him. After all, Jesus himself, more than anyone else, set a feast beyond imagining and invited only those with no way to repay him. In becoming merciful as he merciful we increase our capacity to enjoy relationship with him, which is the greatest possible reward.

For who has known the mind of the Lord
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given him anything
that he may be repaid?

We will never give God anything in payment that he himself did not first give us to offer. The situation is like a parent who pays so that his child may give him a birthday present. Yet the enjoyment of that parent-child relationship is itself intrinsically valuable. That ritual of exchange creates joy that would otherwise be missed. So too, and more, when we offer back to God the gifts he has first given to us. We will never know enough that we will be able to offer him suggestions about how to do his job. But as we take the opportunities he gives us to share in his job, to be his coworkers, we will come to understand him more and more. We will say with Paul that "we have the mind of Christ" (see First Corinthians 2:16).

Michelle Swift - God And Man At Table Our Sat Down

 

2 November 2025 - may perpetual light shine

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.

We have the promise of Jesus that as long as we belong to him he will do whatever is necessary to get us home to heaven. He won't decide to reject us, the reason being that he came fully committed to the will of the Father, that all should be saved through seeing the Son and believing in him. This does not necessarily preclude our ability to obstinately reject him, since we often prefer our own will to the will of the Father. But as long as we don't persist in refusal, in that great sin against the Holy Spirit, he is more than able to get us home. This must mean he can do it in spite of all of our weaknesses, limitations, and tendencies toward sin. And none of those things will have a place in heaven. That is why it is necessary to undergo a process of sanctification, in which we are purified and made ready for the resurrection.

For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, 
we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.

We grow into union with him through a death like his when we allow the grace of baptism to transform our lives. This grace helps us die to our disordered attachments to this world and to live more and more in newness of life through his Spirit. Sin is gradually but increasingly replaced with the fruits of the Spirit. Instead of gazing downward at lesser things we fix our eyes on Christ. Instead of ruminating on negative thoughts with our old mind we experience transformation by having our minds renewed. No longer living as though this mortal life is our final destination we remember that our citizenship is in heaven. Notice that none of this is something we accomplish because we decide to do it and work at it really hard. It is always the outworking of grace within us as we surrender and cooperate. 

If the kind of sanctification we have described is both necessary but also not often finished at the end of however long we may happen to live, what happens? It must still be true that Jesus will not lose any of those whom the Father gave him, including us. It must still be the case that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion, even after our death (see Philippians 1:6). And this is what we call purgatory. It is the good news that the consuming fire of God's love will continue its work of purifying us until we are finally fully prepared to stand before him in his presence, to understand truth, and "abide with him in love" forever.

John Keating - Come Holy Spirit

 

1 November 2025 - blessed how? and when?

 

Today's Readings (Solemnity Of All Saints)
(Audio) 

Most of us have heard the beatitudes many times by now. By turns we may think them overly naive or find the reversals they imply to be delightful. At the very least we probably wish for a world where the poor are blessed, those who mourn are comforted, and those who are meek are not deprived on account of their meekness but in fact go on to inherit the land. We wish that those who hunger for righteousness would actually find it, and that the merciful would not be trampled down because of their mercy. We hope that those who dedicate themselves to purity truly do receive the vision of God as a reward, and that those who sow peace find themselves with an unbreakable bond to the most high. Of course we desire those who receive insults and abuse for the sake of Jesus to be rewarded. But all of those things usually feel more like wishes than any kind of concrete reality here and now. The way we see the poor neglected and exploited is only the beginning of the counterargument reality never ceases to offer.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

What made Jesus teach about these specific attitudes? Was it because times were simpler than and one could decide to simply change his mindset and see poverty or sorrow differently, such that it would be a blessing? Was injustice such that it could actually be solved by those who worked at it, and not, as in our day, intractable? Or was he teaching about attitudes that would lead, perhaps, to misery on earth, but happiness eventually in heaven? No doubt these attitudes would help lead to heaven by working against the tendency to be too attached to the things of this world that can distract one from seeking first the Kingdom. But was he really suggesting that we embrace short-term sorrow for the sake of long-term joy? Such would, after all, be a fair trade, and a smart move for any who did the math. But we believe that there is more here than a mere temporal trade off for the sake of eternity. These attitudes lead to happiness, not only in the great hereafter, but even here and now, even in spite of how much it sounds like they would not and could not conduce to anything even remotely approximating happiness or joy. In proof of this we offer first Jesus himself, who was poor and did mourn, but was by no account miserable. Secondly we offer the "great multitude" of saints who have put the teaching of Jesus to the proof. There was a great variety in how they implemented the beatitudes in their lives. Poverty of spirit meant something different for Saint Louis than it did for Saint Francis. But they all embraced all of the beatitudes. They managed to maintain their joy even while not neglecting the need to pursue justice in the world. That itself ought to be a sufficient miracle to prove the Christian creed. They all gave evidence that to see God and to be his children is a greater reward than anything this world has to offer. 

We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure,
as he is pure.

Jesus taught the beatitudes so that his disciples would learn that the things this world has to offer aren't the most important things. He wanted them to understand that, if they sought first his Kingdom, even those things that the world abhors wouldn't be an obstacle to spiritual joy. He wanted to give them a hope sufficient to motivate them to seek what mattered most, even in the midst of what the world would consider failure. One thing that definitely won't provide true joy is targeting the opposite of the beatitudes as our end goals, whether riches, or any other sort of worldly happiness. Let us instead try to become, like the saints, unique refractions of the light that shines upon us from Jesus himself. Let us join with them in one chorus of praise.

"Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving,
honor, power, and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen."

Randy Rothwell - Salvation Belongs To Our God