Twenty-Ninth Week

29th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

by

Our Lord invites us in today’s Gospel to seek the deeper signs of our world, good and bad, and act on them. When he uses the example of rain or hot weather he is chiding us for focusing on things that are often fleeting and superficial–a weather report is almost obsolete as soon as it’s presented–but he is also encouraging us to see that we can perceive greater and more important trends in our lives and in our culture, good trends (like rain for good crops) and bad (like hot weather that withers and dries up crops), and do something about them.

In the First Reading St. Paul describes signs of a battle being waged in each of us: a battle between doing what we know to be right and overcoming that tendency in us to do what is evil, even when we know it to be wrong. Paul invokes Our Lord as the only force able to help break this interior stalemate. We can feel stormy moments and we can feel the heat of our actions, but we know Our Lord will help us to overcome them. At the same time Our Lord in today’s Gospel reminds us that we have to be proactive: we can’t put off reconciling with him or with others unless we want to face justice after squandering many opportunities to come to terms.

Our Lord tells us today that the signs are there if we want to look. Let’s ask him to help us recognize them and act on them for the good.

Readings: Romans 7:18–25a; Psalm 119:66, 68, 76–77, 93–94; Luke 12:54–59.

29th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

by

Taking our faith more seriously and making the commitment to live it often means becoming a sign of contradiction, not just for today’s culture, but even for our family and friends. Accepting Christ’s invitation to repentance and belief is accepting Christ into your life as your best friend and more. For those who knew you before, it may seem like instead of your life being turned around by Christ, it has been turned upside down: they may see Christ as a rival for your affections, and that puts many converts into the difficult situation of having to choose between their loved ones and God. With your change in lifestyle they may see a condemnation of their own and blame the messenger (you), not the message, or simply not understand what has happened.

Our Lord doesn’t promise an easy solution to this dilemma. Everyone has to choose their path in this life, and conversion can imply a radical change in direction that others are unwilling or, at their moment of life, unable to do. All those paths are meant to converge in Christ, and for many people there are no shortcuts, or wrong turns that require time to recover from. This does not mean questioning our commitment to Christ; rather, it means patience and charity toward those we know and love, tactfully helping them where we can and entrusting them to the Lord where we can’t, knowing that the goal is help everyone where they’re at to advance along the path that Christ wishes to show them.

Let’s pray today that everyone may trust in the Lord, knowing, as today’s Psalm reminds us, that it’s the path to a blessed life.

Readings: Romans 6:19–23; Psalm 1:1–4, 6; Luke 12:49–53.

29th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

by

In today’s Gospel Peter asks Our Lord to explain the teaching we heard in yesterday‘s Gospel: was the teaching about vigilance only for the Twelve, or for everyone? Our Lord repeats the need for vigilance, and then explains the fate of servants who do not their master’s will. As believers we are servants of God and servants of others, but that doesn’t take away our freedom: we can be faithful servants or rotten ones. The choice is ours, but with that freedom comes responsibility.

Our Lord presents three bad examples of servants: a servant who acts out of malice and disqualifies himself, a servant who knows what is expected and doesn’t do it, and a servant who doesn’t know what is expected and doesn’t do it. All these servants are punished, but each according to the degree of their mistake. Malicious servants are completely cast out: they’re numbered among the “unfaithful”–these are the slaves of sin that Paul refers to in the First Reading who think they’re are free in their actions, but are only heaping sorrow upon themselves. Servants who know what to do, but don’t are seriously punished–like the servant who buried the talent (see Luke 19:11–27 and Matthew 25:18,24-30) entrusted to him by his master when he was expected to invest it, the master condemns him for his timidity and lack of simple effort. Lastly, servants who didn’t know what to do also receive punishment: ignorance is not bliss. They may have been hindered by their ignorance, but Our Lord is clear that they too should have known what to do and done it.

Our Lord at the end answers Peter’s question: Peter really wants to know what’ll happen to him and the apostles if they’re unfaithful, and Jesus speaks to that point. Every believer has been entrusted with a mission to serve God and spread the Gospel, but not all of them in the same way and to the same degree. What every believer has in common is that, for them, the mission will be demanding. Let’s examine today whether we consider following Christ to be demanding. If we don’t, Our Lord teaches us the ways today to examine our lives and make any necessary corrections: to see if we’re serving self-interest and sin more than him, whether we’re doing what he expects of us, or whether there’s something that he expects of us and we don’t realize it. In prayer the Holy Spirit will help you find out, ask the Spirit to shed light on your life.

Readings: Romans 6:12–18; Psalm 124:1b–8; Luke 12:39–48.

29th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

by

In today’s Gospel Our Lord starts to shift to encouraging his disciples regarding his return at the end of time: the “wedding” of the Lamb is fulfilled in Heaven after his Ascension. He exhorts them to vigilance: ready to serve at any time, and under any conditions, day or night (hence the lamp), at home or travelling (hence girded for a trip). He tells them his return could be quick or be long, but that they should be ready, whether late at night or early in the morning.

He also describes how pleased he’d be to find them ready: can you imagine someone after a long trip making his servants sit down and waiting on them instead of the other way around? That shows even he considers himself the servant-in-chief. He wants his servants to share in the joy of a job well done.

Our Lord will return at the end of time, but for each of us, at the end of our life, we can expect an encounter with him as well. Ask yourself today how you’d react if Our Lord showed up right now on your doorstep. Is there anything to which you should have attended, but haven’t? Are you excited at the thought of his return? Persevere in hope and trust.

Readings: Romans 5:12, 15b, 17–19, 20b–21; Psalm 40:7–10, 17; Luke 12:35–38.

29th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

by

In today’s Gospel Our Lord is teaching and someone from the crowd suddenly asks him to be a mediator in a dispute between him and his brother. When inheritances divide families it is never a good thing. Our Lord, rightly, points out that he’s teaching, not holding court, and warns the man not to make possessions the purpose of his life. As he reminds us in the parable today, and we all know, you can’t take it with you. Amassing a fortune for yourself, and just yourself, is an exercise in futility. The rich man in today’s parable doesn’t think of family, or friends, or community: he just wants a big barn of grain to provide for himself. Whether he was thinking of a long retirement, early or otherwise, God had other plans and expectations.

Today’s First Reading reminds us that as believers in Christ we have become heirs to the only fortune that really matters. We receive a pledge of it in this life, and, after our death, we come into our full inheritance, an inheritance that lasts forever: the justification and righteousness Paul describes is a communion of life and love with God. We begin it in this life through faith and baptism. We amass its wealth through leading a holy life and seeking to help others to inherit it as well, and we enjoy its fruits together with those we love in eternity. It reminds us that we are sons and daughters of the greatest Father imaginable, with the greatest big brother to boot, a brother who is not shy about sharing his inheritance with us, even when we don’t deserve it.

Let’s focus today on the true inheritance for which we’ve already received a deposit: life in communion with God and with others. Let’s ask Our Lord to show us how we can share this inheritance with others as well.

Readings: Romans 4:20–25; Luke 1:69–75; Luke 12:13–21.