Year I

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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In today’s Gospel the crowds are starting to become suspicious about what really powers the miracles of Jesus. He’s just cast out a demon and the rumors spread that he himself is doing it because he’s in league with Beelzebub. He’s performed a sign, but they doubt whether it’s a sign from Heaven. Our Lord responds with common sense: why would Beelzebub help reduce the influence of his fellow demons by casting them out? That would be done from a position of weakness, not strength, because it would show a kingdom divided. He also questions why they are suspicious of his ability to drive out demons when they have others with this gift as well.

Defense of our souls, our “home” requires ongoing strength, not just a one-time assist from Our Lord. The enemy of our souls will always try to retake lost ground and make us worse than before. Any solider will tell you it’s not just a matter of taking the hill, but of holding onto it. Our Lord reminds us that he wants to help keep those enemies out of our soul, but it requires an ongoing “treaty” with him. On our own we’ll easily be overwhelmed and lose whatever he has helped us to gain.

Let’s ask Our Lord today not only to help us achieve the conquest of a holy life, but to hold onto the gains we’ve made and advance in holiness.

Readings: Joel 1:13–15, 2:1–2; Psalm 9:2–3, 6, 8–9, 16; Luke 11:15–26.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord explains the willingness and commitment of Our Heavenly Father toward us using the examples of friendship, persistence, and paternal love. A good friend knows that if he is in a fix he can count on his friends to help him out. The friend asking for bread today is passing along the opportunity to be a good friend: he welcomed a guest into his home in the middle of the night, and he needs help to provide for that guest. Yet even if his friend refused at first, his persistence would pay off: that shows the friend, even if inconvenienced, is a friend who’ll come through. It is the friendship that gives the confidence to ask, repeatedly if necessary.

God is our friend; we can ask him for whatever we need, and he’ll respond as a friend should. However, Our Lord reminds us today that our relationship with God goes even farther: he is Our Father, and no father would give his child misfortune instead of a blessing. In today’s First Reading the Israelites are lamenting among themselves that apparently that the wicked are prospering while and they are not being rewarded for being faithful to the covenant–they’re not praying to the Lord, but the Lord is listening. Through Malachi the Lord encourages them to persevere, just as a son working for something difficult who continues to press forward, trusting in his father. To persevere in their fidelity they must continue to have faith that the Lord cares for them as a Father.

Ask today and you will receive; maybe not on your timetable, maybe not as you’d have expected, but the Lord as friend and Father will provide for you what you truly need.

Readings: Malachi 3:13–20b; Psalm 1:1–4, 6; Luke 11:5–13.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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Today’s First Reading is the conclusion of the book of Jonah, who is a rare breed of prophet: a disgruntled one who carries out his mission grudgingly. As we’ve seen over the last few days’ readings, Jonah did not want to bear God’s message to the people of Nineveh, because there was bad blood between them and the Jews: it was the main city of Assyria, which eventually conquered and absorbed the Northern part of Israel into its empire. Jonah would prefer that such a menace be destroyed, but the Lord wants to give them a chance, and they take it when it is offered to them through Jonah’s warning.

Jonah bears a grudge against the Ninevites, and so he does his mission grudgingly. Ultimately in his prayer after seeing Nineveh’s repentance he tells the Lord that he resents the Lord’s compassion. At least he is maintaining communication with the Lord, who tries to show him the error of his judgment, but Jonah stalks off and sets up near the city to see if the Lord is going to destroy them or not: he still sets his hopes in something, but that something is not God’s will. He knows it’s not God’s will, but he doesn’t want to admit it. In the end Our Lord has to reach into Jonah’s narrow-minded and closed world to try and help him see the bigger picture: if the destruction of a little source of shade is so detestable to Jonah, shouldn’t the destruction of 120,000 people be even more detestable? The book of Jonah concludes with that thought, and we don’t know how Jonah reacted.

The Lord asks something of each one of us. If we’re listening, how are we trying to respond? Grudgingly? Our Lord is not shy about reaching into our narrow-minded and close world to draw us out into the bigger one. Let’s respond to Our Lord, and his plans, with generosity, casting aside all pettiness.

Readings: Jonah 4:1–11; Psalm 86:3–6, 9–10; Luke 11:1–4.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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The story of Martha and Mary in today’s Gospel helps us take stock of our prayer life. Martha through serving the Lord is making her life a prayer; she’s busy, but she is doing it for him. The first step in any prayer life is the desire to know and to serve the Lord. Even when we’re busy we can remind ourselves that everything we do should be with Our Lord in mind. At the same time, Martha’s prayer life is a little tainted with activism: focusing on doing so much that she loses sight of why she is doing it. This is proved when she comes to Our Lord to complain and judge her sister: a lack of charity is a symptom of a lack of prayer life.

Our Lord is well aware of this, which is why he presents Martha her sister as an example of contemplative prayer: Mary just sits at the Lord’s feet, apparently “doing” nothing, but she is loving the Lord. Everyone needs this kind of prayer too: prayer no much of reciting words or doing things as simply “sitting” in the Lord’s presence and listening to whatever he has to say, or simply just being there and loving him while he loves us. This prayer can be difficult, so sometimes we need material for our conversation with him, such as a passage from Sacred Scripture, but that is the food for our conversation with him.

Try taking ten minutes today from your schedule to just sit down in a quiet place (at home, in a church, etc.) and simply recollect yourself and speak with Our Lord heart to heart. He will speak if you listen. It will help you more like Martha and like Mary in a good way.

Readings: Jonah 3:1–10; Psalm 130:1b–4b, 7–8; Luke 10:38–42.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord teaches us, through the story of the Good Samaritan, that compassion should be the driving force behind all our actions, a compassion that cuts through enmities, cultural differences , and feuds. Samaritans and Jews were at odds with each other: the Jews considered them culturally and cultually corrupted. The Samaritans defended their Old Testament roots and believed that Jerusalem was an upstart of the southern part of Palestine trying to claim an importance it didn’t merit. How many cultures at odds with each other can we think of throughout history and even today?

When Our Lord tells the scribe in today’s Gospel that a Samaritan was a neighbor for showing more compassion to a man robbed and left for dead than two socially important Jews, he was using a shocking example for his listeners, who considered themselves superior to the Samaritans. The priest and the Levite made ritual propriety a priority: if the beaten man was dead they would have been ritually contaminated and unable to participate in Temple worship if they’d drawn near him. It didn’t make them question their ritual propriety–were they really loving God if they weren’t loving man? The Samaritan didn’t have to do any legal or mental gymnastics: he was overwhelmed with pity for what he saw, and didn’t just drop the poor man off at a hospital, but cared for him and provided for him, resolving to follow up until he was sure that he was okay. That’s the commitment and concern of a neighbor. Our Lord teaches us today that neighbors are not only our “buddies,” but anyone who is in need, whether there is good or bad blood between us.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to foster in us the compassion that moves us to be good neighbors to everyone.

Readings: Jonah 1:1–2:2, 2:11; Jonah 2:3–5, 8; Luke 10:25–37.