Blog
32nd Week of Ordinary Time - Week Day Readings
Monday, November 10, 2025
Memorial of Saint Leo The Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111025.cfm
209. REAL HUMILITY (LK 17:1-10)
“Wherever we find ourselves we not only may, but should, seek perfection.”
Luke 17:1-10
- St Francis de Sales
He said to his disciples, ‘Obstacles are sure to come, but alas for the one who provides them! It would be better for him to be thrown into the Sea with a millstone put round his neck than that he should lead astray a single one of these little ones. Watch yourselves! And if he wrongs you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you and says, I am sorry, you must forgive him.’ The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’ The Lord replied, ‘Were your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, Come and have your meal immediately? Would he not be more likely to say, Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself afterwards? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, We are merely servants: we have done no more than ourduty.’
CHRIST THE LORD The easiest thing for us to do is forget that we are not God. When we achieve something great, when we receive applause, we let it go to our heads. One of the very first prayers we all learn is: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” All
- St Fulgentius of Ruspe
good things come from God, so ultimately all praise should go to him as well. Even our talents and our opportunities are gifts of God, so if we bear fruit because of them very little of the credit should go to us. When we start to take more credit than is our due, we are forgetting who really is Lord. That was Satan’s mistake; let’s not repeat it.
This kind of humility can sound harsh to us. Isn’t Jesus being a bit hard on that servant of the parable? The servant works hard, obeys, submits, and Jesus says he should look for no recompense; he’s just doing his duty. It seems rather cold. But in fact, it’s just the opposite. Imagine how unstable our lives would be if the intensity of God’s love for us depended on the efficiency of our service in his Kingdom. If we could increase or decrease God’s love for us just by our performance rating, what would be the difference between God’s Kingdom and this world? We would be just as anxious, ambitious, and self-centered working for Christ as we tend to be working for money and promotions.
In the Lord’s Kingdom, the opposite is true. God’s love for each of us is already so total, so personal, so unconditional, and so untiring that nothing we do can increase or decrease it. And so the servant in God’s Kingdom does his work energetically, joyfully, and peacefully as a response to that gratuitous love of God. God’s love doesn’t depend on our achievements; our achievements flow from knowing how much God loves us and from wanting to thank him. This is true humility; this is what the Lord wants us to learn.
CHRIST THE TEACHER The two lessons of the passage are unrelated, except that St Luke reports them together in a section of his Gospel where he summarizes several of Jesus’ lessons. The first lesson stresses the power and importance of faith. Faith unleashes God’s power in our lives. When we let ourselves be won over by God, he can do wonders with us; when we doubt him, trusting ourselves and our ideas more than his infinite wisdom and love (e.g., filtering out Church teaching that we find uncomfortable), we cut ourselves off from his grace. He won’t force his way in; he respects us too much for that. But if we invite him in, and give him full control over our lives, amazing things begin to happen.
The second lesson is the hardest one to learn: the lesson of humility. Simply put, all we have comes from God; it is all a gift. So strictly speaking, we deserve nothing (except recompense for our sins). And yet we think we deserve everything. Even our basic human rights stem from our existence, which is a gift of God and not a personal achievement. Our duty is not to rule the universe, but to serve God, to get to know him, and discover his plan for us. If we do that, we will experience the peace and meaning we long for – just as flowers achieve their beauty only when they grow as God designed them to.
CHRIST THE FRIEND The apostles did the right thing. When they detected a flaw in their spiritual life (a lack of faith), they humbly approached the Lord and asked him to take care of it. They trusted him. They knew that he was sincerely interested in making them men of his Kingdom, so they did not hesitate to come to him with their needs. The answer he gives is indirect, and somewhat unsatisfying, which probably means that they weren’t ready for the full answer yet, but we can be sure that it only drew them closer to him. Whenever we come to Christ in sincerity and humility, he draws us closer to him – which is why we should come to him more often.
The warning against scandal – putting obstacles in the way of others’ faith and trust in God – couldn’t be more frightening. This too shows how intensely Jesus is interested in each one of us. In the first place, he gives us a chance to help build his Kingdom, to bring others to Christ. In the second place, he vehemently warns us against abusing that privilege. This shows that our friendship is real – Jesus takes a risk with us. All real friendship involves risk, the risk of having one’s trust betrayed. And it also gives us a glimpse of heaven, where our friendship with Christ will have automatically made us into friends with everyone else he has befriended.
CHRIST IN MY LIFE The default position of my self-conception is still mecentered, Lord. I don’t like considering myself a mere servant. But it’s true. You didn’t have to create me, you didn’t have to redeem me, you didn’t have to give me the talents and gifts you gave me – in short, everything I am and everything I have depends on you. Jesus, teach me the joy and freedom of humility...
Increase my faith, Lord. I want to do great things for your Kingdom. You have put in my heart a burning desire to make a difference in the world, to bring others into your friendship. But I am so clumsy, so blind. Increase my faith, Lord. Teach me to do your will...
Because you have made me a free person, I am equally capable of both good and evil. I know that my impatience and self-centeredness offends you and pushes others away from you. But I also know that the power of your grace is infinite. You are working in my soul, recreating me in your own image. Make me more attentive to your words, Lord...
QUESTIONS FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What struck you most in this passage? What did you notice that you hadn’t noticed before?
2. How should a Christian react to praise? How can we learn to do that?
3. What hinders us from having a stronger faith?
4. How would our lives be different if we really, truly believed that we were just “mere servants,” that God doesn’t really need us in the way we need him, but that he passionately desires us to come into his Kingdom?
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 142-184 on faith; 2083-2141 on the proper relationship between God and the human person
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111125.cfm
209. REAL HUMILITY (LK 17:1-10)
“Wherever we find ourselves we not only may, but should, seek perfection.”
Luke 17:1-10
- St Francis de Sales
He said to his disciples, ‘Obstacles are sure to come, but alas for the one who provides them! It would be better for him to be thrown into the Sea with a millstone put round his neck than that he should lead astray a single one of these little ones. Watch yourselves! And if he wrongs you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you and says, I am sorry, you must forgive him.’ The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith.’ The Lord replied, ‘Were your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, Come and have your meal immediately? Would he not be more likely to say, Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself afterwards? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, We are merely servants: we have done no more than ourduty.’
CHRIST THE LORD The easiest thing for us to do is forget that we are not God. When we achieve something great, when we receive applause, we let it go to our heads. One of the very first prayers we all learn is: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” All
- St Fulgentius of Ruspe
good things come from God, so ultimately all praise should go to him as well. Even our talents and our opportunities are gifts of God, so if we bear fruit because of them very little of the credit should go to us. When we start to take more credit than is our due, we are forgetting who really is Lord. That was Satan’s mistake; let’s not repeat it.
This kind of humility can sound harsh to us. Isn’t Jesus being a bit hard on that servant of the parable? The servant works hard, obeys, submits, and Jesus says he should look for no recompense; he’s just doing his duty. It seems rather cold. But in fact, it’s just the opposite. Imagine how unstable our lives would be if the intensity of God’s love for us depended on the efficiency of our service in his Kingdom. If we could increase or decrease God’s love for us just by our performance rating, what would be the difference between God’s Kingdom and this world? We would be just as anxious, ambitious, and self-centered working for Christ as we tend to be working for money and promotions.
In the Lord’s Kingdom, the opposite is true. God’s love for each of us is already so total, so personal, so unconditional, and so untiring that nothing we do can increase or decrease it. And so the servant in God’s Kingdom does his work energetically, joyfully, and peacefully as a response to that gratuitous love of God. God’s love doesn’t depend on our achievements; our achievements flow from knowing how much God loves us and from wanting to thank him. This is true humility; this is what the Lord wants us to learn.
CHRIST THE TEACHER The two lessons of the passage are unrelated, except that St Luke reports them together in a section of his Gospel where he summarizes several of Jesus’ lessons. The first lesson stresses the power and importance of faith. Faith unleashes God’s power in our lives. When we let ourselves be won over by God, he can do wonders with us; when we doubt him, trusting ourselves and our ideas more than his infinite wisdom and love (e.g., filtering out Church teaching that we find uncomfortable), we cut ourselves off from his grace. He won’t force his way in; he respects us too much for that. But if we invite him in, and give him full control over our lives, amazing things begin to happen.
The second lesson is the hardest one to learn: the lesson of humility. Simply put, all we have comes from God; it is all a gift. So strictly speaking, we deserve nothing (except recompense for our sins). And yet we think we deserve everything. Even our basic human rights stem from our existence, which is a gift of God and not a personal achievement. Our duty is not to rule the universe, but to serve God, to get to know him, and discover his plan for us. If we do that, we will experience the peace and meaning we long for – just as flowers achieve their beauty only when they grow as God designed them to.
CHRIST THE FRIEND The apostles did the right thing. When they detected a flaw in their spiritual life (a lack of faith), they humbly approached the Lord and asked him to take care of it. They trusted him. They knew that he was sincerely interested in making them men of his Kingdom, so they did not hesitate to come to him with their needs. The answer he gives is indirect, and somewhat unsatisfying, which probably means that they weren’t ready for the full answer yet, but we can be sure that it only drew them closer to him. Whenever we come to Christ in sincerity and humility, he draws us closer to him – which is why we should come to him more often.
The warning against scandal – putting obstacles in the way of others’ faith and trust in God – couldn’t be more frightening. This too shows how intensely Jesus is interested in each one of us. In the first place, he gives us a chance to help build his Kingdom, to bring others to Christ. In the second place, he vehemently warns us against abusing that privilege. This shows that our friendship is real – Jesus takes a risk with us. All real friendship involves risk, the risk of having one’s trust betrayed. And it also gives us a glimpse of heaven, where our friendship with Christ will have automatically made us into friends with everyone else he has befriended.
CHRIST IN MY LIFE The default position of my self-conception is still mecentered, Lord. I don’t like considering myself a mere servant. But it’s true. You didn’t have to create me, you didn’t have to redeem me, you didn’t have to give me the talents and gifts you gave me – in short, everything I am and everything I have depends on you. Jesus, teach me the joy and freedom of humility...
Increase my faith, Lord. I want to do great things for your Kingdom. You have put in my heart a burning desire to make a difference in the world, to bring others into your friendship. But I am so clumsy, so blind. Increase my faith, Lord. Teach me to do your will...
Because you have made me a free person, I am equally capable of both good and evil. I know that my impatience and self-centeredness offends you and pushes others away from you. But I also know that the power of your grace is infinite. You are working in my soul, recreating me in your own image. Make me more attentive to your words, Lord...
QUESTIONS FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What struck you most in this passage? What did you notice that you hadn’t noticed before?
2. How should a Christian react to praise? How can we learn to do that?
3. What hinders us from having a stronger faith?
4. How would our lives be different if we really, truly believed that we were just “mere servants,” that God doesn’t really need us in the way we need him, but that he passionately desires us to come into his Kingdom?
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 142-184 on faith; 2083-2141 on the proper relationship between God and the human person
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Memorial of Saint Josephat, Bishop and Martyr
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111225.cfm
210. A RARE FLOWER (LK 17:11-19)
“Compelled by his great love, or rather, as the apostle says, by the excess of his love for us, he sent his beloved Son that he might make satisfaction for us, and recall us to the life which sin had taken away.”
- St Alphonsus Liguori
Luke 17:11-19
Now on the way to Jerusalem he travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten lepers came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, ‘Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.’ When he saw them he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Findinghimself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This made Jesus say, ‘Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.’ And he said to the man, ‘Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.’
CHRIST THE LORD To this day, leprosy is an incurable disease. It can be controlled preventively, through proper hygiene, but it can’t be cured. (Leprosy is a bacterial infection that causes loss of sensation and eventual paralysis, along with the grotesque disintegration of a person’s extremities – fingers, facial features, etc.) Yet Christ cures these ten lepers with a mere command. Showing oneself to the priest was a requirement of Old Testament law for anyone who claimed to have been cured from leprosy. This law had been instituted in order to insure a full cure. They took this precaution because leprosy was thought to be highly contagious, and a miscalculation in an individual case could cause a severe outbreak among a whole village or city. Christ’s Lordship rarely appears so clearly and nobly as when he commands the powers of nature for the benefit (never for the harm) of the people he came to save – Jews and foreigners alike.
This encounter stands in sharp contrast, however, to the ongoing verbal fencing between Jesus and the stubborn Pharisees. They refused to call Jesus “Master”; they refused to accept his grace – simply put, they refused him. Why? Because the Pharisees were successful, strong, healthy, and talented, so it was easy for them to consider themselves self-sufficient. The lepers, on the other hand, had no alternative but to acknowledge their utter helplessness. Those who think they can make something truly worthy of their lives depending only on their own resources shut out the authentically transforming grace of God. What’s more, the Pharisees didn’t even see their error; they thought they were in communion with God. That kind of tragic self-deception should make each one us take a closer look at our own relationship with the Lord.
CHRIST THE TEACHER At the end of his Gospel, St John tells us that if everything Christ did during his brief earthly life were written down, the entire world would not contain the books. We can infer, therefore, that many of Christ’s miracles were not recorded in the New Testament. Why did St Luke include this one? Clearly because of the lesson that Christ teaches us by it: the ugliness of ingratitude and the beauty of gratitude.
The ten lepers had no hope but Christ. Even their closest relatives dared not come near them. They were required to live in isolated colonies, and if they had to travel, the law obliged them to ring a bell wherever they went, shouting out, “Unclean! Unclean!” to warn people of their approach (which is why they addressed Christ from a distance). On top of that, they had to live with the repulsion of their own decaying bodies – the pain and the
stench of leprosy are almost unbearable. Leprosy was a long, humiliating, and dismal agony, the most horrible of ancient diseases. Jesus frees these ten lepers entirely from their hopelessness and dread, and only one comes back to thank him for it – and that one happens to be a Samaritan (the Samaritans were archenemies of the Jews, racially and religiously).
We are all moral lepers. The human race was infected with mortal selfishness by original sin. Christ saved us, not with a mere command, but by his Incarnation, life, suffering, and painful death on a cross. How many of us render him sincere, heartfelt thanks for all he has done for us? Not to live with an attitude of gratitude towards God is more than being impolite – ingratitude is ugly because it’s positively unjust. Gratitude, on the other hand, is one of the most beautiful flowers in the whole garden of virtue. It directly contradicts self- centeredness, self-indulgence, and self-absorption. It builds bridges, unites communities, and softens hearts. It encourages and inspires. It cuts through discouragement and counteracts depression. It opens the soul to the truth and releases anxiety. It brings smiles and gladness wherever it blooms. What a pity that it is as rare as it is lovely!
CHRIST THE FRIEND Jesus cannot resist a cry for pity. For him, a soul in need is an obligation to help. He needed no convincing, no cajolery – these lepers cried out to him from the depths of their hearts and automatically his heart was moved. We see it over and over again in the Gospels – his heart being moved to miraculous action by the needs of those around him. Of course, that same sensitivity was the motive for his coming to earth in the first place – love simply can’t hold back when it sees others in need. This truth about Jesus can be the source of our confidence in him, but it should also be the source of our own activity in the world. We who feast on Christ’s very own body and blood in the Eucharist need to share also the beatings of his heart, his desire to do as much good as possible; otherwise, our hearts will beat in vain.
CHRIST IN MY LIFE It’s easy for me to forget about my sins, my sinfulness, and my need for you. The slightest success puts me into a preening mode. Lord, never let me forget that all that I have and all that I am is a gift of your goodness. Teach me to live with the attitude of humble wonder and gratitude that you praised in the Samaritan. For all those people who never thank you, I thank you now...
It is a mystery to me that I am still nervous about exposing my “leprosy” to you in the sacrament of confession – you wouldn’t have instituted the sacrament if we didn’t need it. I can’t help feeling ashamed at my egoism, but I ask you to always use that shame to drive me closer to you, my hope and my salvation...
It doesn’t take much to detect the moral leprosy affecting our world; it only exacerbates the poverty and sickness that afflict so many people. It moves your heart so much – why does it move mine so little? What more would you have me do, Lord, to relieve my neighbors’ suffering? Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart more like yours...
QUESTIONS FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What struck you most in this passage? What did you notice that you hadn’t noticed before?
2. Gratitude has been called “the rarest flower in the garden of the virtues.” Why do you think that is? What can we do to increase this beautiful virtue in our lives?
3. Why do you think the other nine lepers didn’t come back to thank Jesus?
4. People who have grown up Catholic often take the beauty and greatness of the Church for granted, or don’t even recognize it, whereas converts to the Church are some of its most avid fans. Why is this? Is there any relationship between this phenomenon and the fact that the one leper who thanked Jesus was not a Jew?
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1359-1361 the Eucharist and gratitude; 2097, 2099, 2637-2638 on gratitude owed to God; 396-412 on original sin and God’s response to it
Thursday, November 13, 2025
Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111325.cfm
211. THY KINGDOM COME! (LK 17:20-37)
“He is the man of sorrows and of hope. It is he who will come and who one day will be our judge and – we hope – the everlasting fullness of our existence, our happiness.”
- Pope Paul VI
Luke 17:20-37
Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come, he gave them this answer, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God does not admit of observation and there will be no one to say, Look here! Look there! For, you must know, the kingdom of God is among you.’ He said to the disciples, ‘A time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man and will not see it. They will say to you, Look there! or, Look here! Make no move; do not set off in pursuit; for as the lightning flashing from one part of heaven lights up the other, so will be the Son of Man when his day comes. But first he must suffer grievously and be rejected by this generation.
As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all. It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed. When that day comes, anyone on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back either. Remember Lot’s wife. Anyone who tries topreserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe. I tell you, on that night two will be in one bed: one will be taken, the other left; two women will be grinding corn together: one will be taken, the other left.’ The disciples interrupted. ‘Where, Lord?’ they asked. He said, ‘Where the body is, there too will the vultures gather.’
CHRIST THE LORD “The Kingdom of God is among you,” Jesus tells the inquiring Pharisees. Obviously, he didn’t mean that they had already entered the Kingdom, because they hadn’t believed in him or accepted his rule. So what does Jesus mean? He means that in the epoch of the Son of Man – the New Covenant – God’s grace is at work in the midst of our everyday life. Just as through the Incarnation, Jesus – the King – came to dwell among the people of Palestine, among the Pharisees, so throughout the whole of the Church’s era, God will be inviting and inspiring and knocking on the doors of people’s hearts from within. This is the Lord’s methodology throughout his Palestinian ministry, and through the Church, it will continue to be his methodology. When will the Kingdom come? Whenever we care to listen. Praying for the coming of the Kingdom, then, means praying for hearts to be docile to the Lord.
CHRIST THE TEACHER The Pharisees ask a question we all long to ask: when will the Kingdom come? And Jesus answers: it already has come. Where Jesus is accepted, believed in, and obeyed, there he reigns; there the Kingdom can be found. But then he goes on to explain to his disciples that although it is primarily a Kingdom of the heart, it will have a visible manifestation as well.
Many Jews at the time of Jesus were expecting a Messiah to come and restore a highly visible Kingdom, a political and social arrangement in which the Jews would once again have independence and international influence, as they did in the time of David. From their perspective, these were key ingredients for the beginning of the Messianic era, what Jesus calls the “days of the Son of man.” But Jesus corrects their mistaken conception. He describes in this passage the symbolic end the Old Covenant, the fall of Jerusalem, which took place in 70 AD after a horrific siege of the city left more than a million Jews dead. Jesus warns his disciples to leave the city as soon as the enemy appears to avoid suffering in this siege. And that’s exactly what the Christian community in Jerusalem did when the Roman legions appeared on the horizon; they fled to a town across the Jordan, and they survived. The Roman legions were the vultures bent on tearing apart the city of Jerusalem, which by its official rejection of Jesus had become a spiritual corpse. The Church then took up the baton, and continued to embody and spread Christ’s reign.
But this discourse has a lesson for us as well. The end of the Old Covenant and the destruction of Jerusalem foreshadowed the end of history, just as the end of Sodom and Noah’s flood foreshadowed the end of Jerusalem. Then, all of creation will “wear out like a garment” (Heb 1:11). It will be destroyed just as Jerusalem was, and in its place Jesus will establish the new heaven and the new earth, in which the interior Kingdom of his reign will be perfectly manifested on the outside as well. That ending will come as swiftly and surprisingly and definitively as the ending of the Old Covenant, so we too should be ready, and we should let nothing distract us from following the Lord in the meantime.
CHRIST THE FRIEND Jesus knows what we need to know, and he knows what we don’t need to know. He answers these thorny questions, therefore, without giving all the details. Dates and times won’t help the disciples to be more faithful, so he doesn’t reveal them.
Jesus: Sometimes you wonder why I don’t show you my master plan for your life. I do have one. I have a dream for you. I know what will satisfy you and how you can achieve it. If it would help to tell you everything at once, do you think I would hesitate for the slightest instant to do so? You need to live out my plan for your life one day and one decision at a time. In my wisdom and love, I can tell you that what matters most is that you learn to trust me more and more. Your acts of trust, your obedience to my will, your docility – that is your contribution in making my plan a reality. I know that sometimes you feel frustrated because you can’t figure out what I am up to. That’s when you need to remember that good friends know how to administer the right medicine one dose at a time, and I am the very best of friends.
CHRIST IN MY LIFE How many times I pray this prayer, “Thy Kingdom Come!” O Lord, I want to pray it from my heart. I want everyone, starting with me, to be docile to your will, to respond generously and trustingly to the nudges and invitations you constantly give. Teach me to make this the real motto of my life: Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done...
So often I want to be able to put everything into a nice little package, to be able to understand everything and live placidly with all the answers. You don’t want that. You want me to exercise virtue, trust, and faith. Somehow, you prefer to work that way. Life is an adventure, a journey. Keep me on the right path, going at the right pace...
I trust in you, Lord. When a cathedral is being built, it looks like a mess, but a master plan is guiding that mess and turning it into something beautiful, something magnificent. I know you are the master architect of my life and my efforts to build your Kingdom. Teach me to trust in you at all times and never doubt your wisdom...
QUESTIONS FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What struck you most in this passage? What did you notice that you hadn’t noticed before?
2. If a non-believing friend were to ask you the same question the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom come?” – how would you answer them?
3. Why do you think Jesus described all these horrible things that would happen at the fall of Jerusalem? When these events actually occurred and some of the Pharisees who had heard Jesus’ explanation saw them, what might they have thought?
4. What has been hard for you to trust Jesus about? What has helped you most to trust in difficult moments?
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 667-677 on Christ already reigning in the Church; 2816-2821 on what the petition “Thy Kingdom come!” really means
Friday, November 14, 2025
Friday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111425.cfm
211. THY KINGDOM COME! (LK 17:20-37)
“He is the man of sorrows and of hope. It is he who will come and who one day will be our judge and – we hope – the everlasting fullness of our existence, our happiness.”
- Pope Paul VI
Luke 17:20-37
Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come, he gave them this answer, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God does not admit of observation and there will be no one to say, Look here! Look there! For, you must know, the kingdom of God is among you.’ He said to the disciples, ‘A time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man and will not see it. They will say to you, Look there! or, Look here! Make no move; do not set off in pursuit; for as the lightning flashing from one part of heaven lights up the other, so will be the Son of Man when his day comes. But first he must suffer grievously and be rejected by this generation.
As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all. It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed. When that day comes, anyone on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back either. Remember Lot’s wife. Anyone who tries topreserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe. I tell you, on that night two will be in one bed: one will be taken, the other left; two women will be grinding corn together: one will be taken, the other left.’ The disciples interrupted. ‘Where, Lord?’ they asked. He said, ‘Where the body is, there too will the vultures gather.’
CHRIST THE LORD “The Kingdom of God is among you,” Jesus tells the inquiring Pharisees. Obviously, he didn’t mean that they had already entered the Kingdom, because they hadn’t believed in him or accepted his rule. So what does Jesus mean? He means that in the epoch of the Son of Man – the New Covenant – God’s grace is at work in the midst of our everyday life. Just as through the Incarnation, Jesus – the King – came to dwell among the people of Palestine, among the Pharisees, so throughout the whole of the Church’s era, God will be inviting and inspiring and knocking on the doors of people’s hearts from within. This is the Lord’s methodology throughout his Palestinian ministry, and through the Church, it will continue to be his methodology. When will the Kingdom come? Whenever we care to listen. Praying for the coming of the Kingdom, then, means praying for hearts to be docile to the Lord.
CHRIST THE TEACHER The Pharisees ask a question we all long to ask: when will the Kingdom come? And Jesus answers: it already has come. Where Jesus is accepted, believed in, and obeyed, there he reigns; there the Kingdom can be found. But then he goes on to explain to his disciples that although it is primarily a Kingdom of the heart, it will have a visible manifestation as well.
Many Jews at the time of Jesus were expecting a Messiah to come and restore a highly visible Kingdom, a political and social arrangement in which the Jews would once again have independence and international influence, as they did in the time of David. From their perspective, these were key ingredients for the beginning of the Messianic era, what Jesus calls the “days of the Son of man.” But Jesus corrects their mistaken conception. He describes in this passage the symbolic end the Old Covenant, the fall of Jerusalem, which took place in 70 AD after a horrific siege of the city left more than a million Jews dead. Jesus warns his disciples to leave the city as soon as the enemy appears to avoid suffering in this siege. And that’s exactly what the Christian community in Jerusalem did when the Roman legions appeared on the horizon; they fled to a town across the Jordan, and they survived. The Roman legions were the vultures bent on tearing apart the city of Jerusalem, which by its official rejection of Jesus had become a spiritual corpse. The Church then took up the baton, and continued to embody and spread Christ’s reign.
But this discourse has a lesson for us as well. The end of the Old Covenant and the destruction of Jerusalem foreshadowed the end of history, just as the end of Sodom and Noah’s flood foreshadowed the end of Jerusalem. Then, all of creation will “wear out like a garment” (Heb 1:11). It will be destroyed just as Jerusalem was, and in its place Jesus will establish the new heaven and the new earth, in which the interior Kingdom of his reign will be perfectly manifested on the outside as well. That ending will come as swiftly and surprisingly and definitively as the ending of the Old Covenant, so we too should be ready, and we should let nothing distract us from following the Lord in the meantime.
CHRIST THE FRIEND Jesus knows what we need to know, and he knows what we don’t need to know. He answers these thorny questions, therefore, without giving all the details. Dates and times won’t help the disciples to be more faithful, so he doesn’t reveal them.
Jesus: Sometimes you wonder why I don’t show you my master plan for your life. I do have one. I have a dream for you. I know what will satisfy you and how you can achieve it. If it would help to tell you everything at once, do you think I would hesitate for the slightest instant to do so? You need to live out my plan for your life one day and one decision at a time. In my wisdom and love, I can tell you that what matters most is that you learn to trust me more and more. Your acts of trust, your obedience to my will, your docility – that is your contribution in making my plan a reality. I know that sometimes you feel frustrated because you can’t figure out what I am up to. That’s when you need to remember that good friends know how to administer the right medicine one dose at a time, and I am the very best of friends.
CHRIST IN MY LIFE How many times I pray this prayer, “Thy Kingdom Come!” O Lord, I want to pray it from my heart. I want everyone, starting with me, to be docile to your will, to respond generously and trustingly to the nudges and invitations you constantly give. Teach me to make this the real motto of my life: Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done...
So often I want to be able to put everything into a nice little package, to be able to understand everything and live placidly with all the answers. You don’t want that. You want me to exercise virtue, trust, and faith. Somehow, you prefer to work that way. Life is an adventure, a journey. Keep me on the right path, going at the right pace...
I trust in you, Lord. When a cathedral is being built, it looks like a mess, but a master plan is guiding that mess and turning it into something beautiful, something magnificent. I know you are the master architect of my life and my efforts to build your Kingdom. Teach me to trust in you at all times and never doubt your wisdom...
QUESTIONS FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What struck you most in this passage? What did you notice that you hadn’t noticed before?
2. If a non-believing friend were to ask you the same question the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom come?” – how would you answer them?
3. Why do you think Jesus described all these horrible things that would happen at the fall of Jerusalem? When these events actually occurred and some of the Pharisees who had heard Jesus’ explanation saw them, what might they have thought?
4. What has been hard for you to trust Jesus about? What has helped you most to trust in difficult moments?
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 667-677 on Christ already reigning in the Church; 2816-2821 on what the petition “Thy Kingdom come!” really means
Saturday, November 15, 2025
Saturday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111525.cfm
212. NEVER LOSING HEART (LK 18:1-8)
Luke 18:1-8
Then he told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. ‘There was a judge in a certain town’ he said ‘who had neither fear of God nor respect for man. In the same town there was a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, I want justice from you against my enemy! For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, Maybe I have neither fear of God nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me I must give this widow her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.’ And the Lord said ‘You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?’
CHRIST THE LORD The judge in the parable, although an unworthy fellow, has real authority. He can issue a decision that will have actual repercussions both for the widow and for her adversary. Christ also has real authority – “all authority in heaven and earth,” as a matter of fact (Matthew 28:18). He is able to influence our lives and history, and he has chosen to put this influence at our disposal. Just as the judge would not have given the widow a fair decision if she had not pleaded with him to do so, God also has decided to make his graces depend (at least in part) upon our initiative. “Ask, and it will be given to you,” our Lord pointed out earlier (Luke 11:9); “Search and you will find...” It seems that Christ refuses to be a dictator, but delights in being a generous and responsive King.
CHRIST THE TEACHER Jesus is politely telling us that we are weak petitioners. He probably detected impatience behind the Pharisees’ question about when the kingdom would come, an impatience we too are familiar with. We give up too easily; we approach God with less confidence than this determined widow had in approaching a crooked judge. We doubt God. We think that just because he doesn’t answer us in the way we expect him to, he isn’t answering us at all. That shows a lack of faith, a truncated vision of God. No prayer that we utter goes unheard. God is never out of his office; he’s never on vacation. He is longing for us to bombard him with our prayers. He is eagerly searching for hearts that trust him enough to ask him unceasingly for everything they need. He always answers our prayers, even when the answer is “no.”
On judgment day, one of our greatest regrets will be how little we prayed – prayer costs us nothing and can be done anywhere and any time; it’s an investment that simply can’t go wrong, and yet we relegate it to a few minutes here and there. It’s like refusing to turn on the lights because we’re afraid they might not work, or because we have become oddlyattached to the dark.
-St Cyprian of Carthage
CHRIST THE FRIEND In Jesus’ last sentence, we detect a tinge of sadness. It is a rhetorical question: when he comes again, will he find any faith? Will he find anyone who recognizes him and is glad to welcome him? He certainly hopes so. He wants to be able to grant us the intense joy of eternal life, but he knows that not everyone will accept the gift, and it pains him.
Jesus: Love is always a risk. I risked it when I came to find you and invite you to follow me in my Kingdom. I knew that in order to offer myself in friendship, I had to become vulnerable; it had to be possible for you to reject me. Look at me hanging from the cross. Look at my side, pierced to my heart with the soldier’s lance. This is what love risks; this is love’s vulnerability. I am willing to take the risk, because I long for your friendship; I long for you to follow me, day after day. If you accept my invitation, you will have nothing to fear. When it comes to friendship with me, the vulnerability only goes in one direction: you may hurt me by preferring your own will and being unfaithful to me, but I will never be unfaithful to you.
CHRIST IN MY LIFE Thank you for the gift of prayer, Lord. Thank you for giving me a share in your work, for not doing it all yourself. Now my life can have eternal repercussions as you want it to. Dear Lord, teach me to use my freedom well. I don’t want to live at the mercy of passing fancies or stock market fluctuations. I want to live grounded in you, grounded in your love and truth...
Teach me to pray, Lord. My faith is so weak. Teach me to pray at all times, to never tire of conversing with you about everything. Help me to develop the habit of lifting my heart and mind to you in the midst of a meeting, a traffic jam, or a chore. Help me to confide in you with all my heart, as you want me to, so that you can work through me to bring many souls into your Kingdom...
I believe in you, Lord. I have put my hopes in you. I love you, though my love is weak and scrawny. If thousands ignore you, I at least want to stay close to you. Guide me, lead me along the path of your wisdom and your peace, and make me a channel of your grace...
QUESTIONS FOR SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What struck you most in this passage? What did you notice that you hadn’t noticed before?
2. What experience or conversation might have prompted Jesus to tell this parable?
3. Why are we less persistent in our prayers than the widow was with her case?
4. What things tend to hold us back from being perfectly docile to God’s will? Jesus lived his whole life for us, for the Kingdom. How can we better follow his example?
Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2742-2745 on the need for perseverance in prayer; 2725-2737 on difficulties in prayer and the “battle” of prayer