Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
5 October 2025
By our own strength, to live the full demands of Christ’s teaching is impossible. We are too weak. Like the disciples we have to recognise our weakness and helplessness. This is essential to our sanctification. St Thérèse of Lisieux whose feast we celebrated last week knew this, but with St Paul she could say ‘When I am weak then I am strong’ – when I see my weakness more and more I discover I need God more and more. This is a wonderful discovery. Why?
Emptied of ourselves, God then fills us with Himself when we trust in Him, have faith in Him. ‘It is trust and only trust that will lead us to God’ St Thérèse famously said. She trusted so much in God that she asked for all the grace others did not or could not receive – ‘the waves of infinite tenderness’ trapped within Jesus’ Heart to overflow into her soul. That is quite a lot!
Was that too bold a request?
St Thérèse was not too bold – it is we who are not bold enough.
While on earth, the saints were greedy for one thing – grace. The saints are sponges for grace, like dry weary lands without water, being emptied of themselves, they soak up every last drop of the dew that fell from heaven – that ‘dew’ which is the Holy Spirit, they were filled with God’s fullness. But we can only pray for this grace if we have faith ‘We must believe in order to pray’ says St Augustine – he continues ‘we must ask God that the faith enabling us to pray may not fail’
pluscardenabbey.org
* * *
Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
12 October 2025 • Prisoners’ Sunday
On the Road Again: Get up and go! God wants us to persevere in the journey of life. The lepers were cleansed ‘as they were going.’ What if they had never set out? Would they still have been cleansed? Because of their faith in Jesus, they were able to take steps in obedience and for this they were richly rewarded. Even after the one leper returned cleansed to thank Jesus, he was set in motion. Jesus told him, ‘Stand up and go!’ God has a mission for each one of us. He is telling us, ‘Don’t worry, but do get a move on!’
Overcoming Leprosy: Nine of the ten lepers were infected with the ‘leprosy’ of ingratitude. The man who returned to Christ, however, sets us an admirable example for us. We who have been cured of worse than leprosy – our sins – do we give thanks to God and bless his name? Gratitude expands our hearts, and makes them more like his heart. The Greek word ‘Eucharist’ means ‘thanksgiving,’ so every time we go to Mass we are living the feast of Thanksgiving!
Hearts Full of Gratitude: What lessons from today’s Gospel can we bring to this feast of Thanksgiving? Let us care for the sick, welcome foreigners, and have compassion for the suffering. Let us walk with faith, obedient to God’s commands. Let us count on the Lord for healing of our ‘leprosies.’ On this day of Thanksgiving, may we also show gratitude for our family by always remembering to give thanks for all that they do, and especially for all that they simply are – our family.
Deacon Erik Burckel, LC
epriest.com
* * *
Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
19 October 2025 • Mission Sunday
The Silence of God: Why would a God who loves us apparently ignore our prayer to the point of seeming like an indifferent judge whom we must consistently pester to get a hearing? Perhaps our own experience of prayer, heartfelt prayer, has raised such questions in our minds. Why does God so often seem silent? More than likely, our deafness is more often to blame than is God’s silence. We are distracted, worried, and often not recollected, so we can miss his sometimes subtle communications It’s also possible that Our Lord wants to achieve something in us by having us wait for his reply.
Perseverance in Prayer: When we must wait on the Lord, we have an opportunity to grow in a variety of ways. We can grow in patience, learning that God’s timing is not ours. We can grow in humility, realising that God is in charge and that we are not. We can grow in our desire for that for which we ask. Additionally, we can grow in our confidence in God, realizing that whether we receive the requested favor or not, God knows best and only desires our good. Consequently, we are more at peace and willing to face all things, confident in his providential care.
Desiring God above All Things: Perhaps the most important lesson we learn by waiting on God’s response to our prayer is to desire God above all things. Someone fully satisfied and content feels no need for help or change – no need for God. However, when we come face-to-face with a real need and acknowledge our insufficiency, we turn to God.
Fr. John Bullock, LC
epriest.com
* * *
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
26 October 2025
From the outside the Pharisee and tax collector seem very different. They are not, however, as different as we might think, for on the inside they are both dead; lost, broken, and in need of God. The difference is not their place in society. The real difference is that the tax collector knows he is dead and the Pharisee does not. The difference is that the Pharisee keeps score and the tax collector cries out, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner! One who is missing you. One who is in need of you. One who is and has nothing apart from you.’
To know we are dead is the beginning of resurrection. Scorekeeping blinds us to our own death. This parable is the invitation to stop keeping score, to acknowledge and hold before God the dead places of our life: the failures and disappointments; the break ups and break downs; the emptiness, sufferings, addictions; the places of our life where we no longer dream dreams, have visions, or prophesy. That is what the tax collector did.
The tax collector went home justified, not because he was good or better than the Pharisee, he wasn’t, but because he offered God a dead life not a scorecard. God did not withhold anything from the Pharisee. God simply gave him what he asked for, nothing. For the tax collector God’s mercy has opened the door to a new life, a new world, a new self-understanding, a new relationship with God.
The beginning of a new story, a new life, is a choice God sets before each one of us.
Michael K. Marsh
interrupingthesilence.com
* * *