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RELIGION LITURGY AND LIFE

Archive for the month “October, 2025”

25 Oct 2025

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of October with the schools having the midterm break for Halloween next week. It is also hard to believe that next Saturday we celebrate the feast of All Saints closely followed by all souls the next day. The readings in our Liturgy for this weekend are all about the HUMBLE person of faith. The readings for this Sunday also remind us that God sees the heart. He listens to those who are humble and cries out for justice. He does not turn away from the poor or the weak. Instead, He cares for those who trust Him. In the First Reading  God, who is no respecter of personages who is just and impartial, listens to the cries of the oppressed the poor and the humble, ensuring their prayers are answered and justice is swiftly delivered.

In the second reading Paul speaks about his struggles. He has stayed faithful to his mission even when others abandoned him. He knows that God is with him and will bring him safely into His kingdom. Paul’s words show that faith does not mean life will be easy. He faced many hardships, yet he never gave up. He trusted that God would give him strength. Even when people turned away from him, he knew he was not alone. The Gospel reading teaches that humility is necessary to be with God. Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee stands confidently, thanking God that he is better than others. He lists his good deeds, believing they make him righteous of course they don’t. The tax collector, however, stands at a distance, unwilling to lift his eyes. He simply prays for mercy. Jesus says it is the tax collector who goes home justified. What does the Gospel Reading about the tax collector and the Pharisee say to us today ? Also and more importantly what about the words of the Tax Collector who said in a simple humble way  God be merciful to me a sinner what do these humble words  say to us? I think that the Tax Collector despised by the people because of the job he does  is saying to us that we need to have the humility to be humble before God who knows that we are sinners even before we say it and we also have to be humble with other people dealing with them with real humility.

 Real humility is about facing  the truth  about the truth about ourselves we are and often times we don’t like to hear the truth about ourselves or any situations we might be in.  The person who is truly humble will always see pride in him or herself as a bad thing.  The person who is humble believes him/herself to have nothing, when in fact he has God, who is all and everything for him!   The person who knows  how to be dependent on God humbles himself so much,  putting himself in his proper place before his Creator, and  the Lord lifts him up to his own Glory in order to make him his adopted child.  In a word, he who humbles himself, God justifies! The more someone makes himself small in the eyes of god, the more the Lord is pleased to come and live in him and to make him shine with his divine light before other people.  In our modern world, Pride which was very strong in the words the Pharisee spoke dominates the world, and it is this pride which often leads many people the world over down a long lonely path.  The old saying rings true that pride comes before a fall and we see this  in so many places and situations we might find ourselves or perhaps we have seen other people in. Today, We shall approach the altar of the Lord with humble hearts and minds. This approach testifies at once to our humility and to our grandeur.  It testifies to our humility, for we humble in believing that what we see as bread is not bread but rather the Body of Christ. 

It testifies to our grandeur, for, in communion, we truly become the Body of Christ, adoptive sons and daughters in the only Son of God!  May this approach be our justification, for the salvation of the world! I finish with these words from Micah which really sum up the gospel reading for this Sunday and what does the Lord require of us? He requires us To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. So let us go into the world with true humility in our hearts and minds so we are able to serve those who need us most where we are.

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18 Oct 2025

29th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME MISSION SUNDAY

This Weekend  we celebrate the international missionary effort of the Church throughout the world. Here in Ireland for many centuries there have been so many great Irishmen and women  who have gone to foreign lands to bring the faith of our fathers to those who might not have got the faith otherwise. Today as we celebrate Mission we ask ourselves what is our mission where we are today what are we doing to promote the kingdom of god?  Mission Sunday gives us the opportunity to thank god for the faith that we have as well as acknowledging and thanking god for all those faithful missionary men and women who left everything in order to bring the faith and the light of Christ to the far corners of the world.

The readings for this Sunday speak about prayer, faith, and trusting God’s help. They show that God listens to His people and gives them strength. Even when life is hard, God does not leave us alone to bear the burden. In the First Reading – Amalek attacked Israel. While Joshua fought, Moses stood on a hill with God’s staff. As long as Moses’ hands were raised, Israel prevailed. Aaron and Hur supported Moses’ hands, and Joshua defeated Amalek. In the Second Reading  we are told to Stay faithful to the Scriptures, which provide wisdom for salvation. All Scripture is inspired by God. We are called to proclaim the word persistently, with patience and encouragement. In our Gospel for this Sunday Jesus tells us about our need to pray and not to lose heart when we don’t get what we pray for straight away. Over a long period of time many people have prayed for various things for example family concerns for healing of body mind or spirit or whatever. Some people ask me why god is not answering their prayers straight away in the here and now of the present moment and I tell them that their prayers will be answered when God sees that they really need whatever they have been praying for. My own experience is that we often pray for things and don’t get them straight away but we get the things we prayed for when we really need them.

Remember that No great work can ever be achieved without long and patient effort and this is the same for us in our prayer lives. The work of patient persistent prayer will yield results as God helps us to get through all our problems big and small. Remember the saying that nothing is impossible for those who have faith and even if our faith is the size of mustard seed it can move mountains.  The prayer in today’s gospel is the prayer of petition. If our prayers are always prayers of petition, we run the risk of being selfish and self-centered; except, of course, when the prayers of petition are for others. Like one of the ten lepers in last weeks gospel, we ask, and then when our prayers are answered, we return to give thanks to God. When we meet the judge and the widow in this Sundays Gospel passage we meet them at a crisis point. We have no case history for the widow but we do for the judge. He is a hard man who isn’t influenced by religious principle or by public opinion. Both justice and compassion are absent from his dealings with the widow. She has no influential friends to bring pressure on the judge and she has no money to bribe him: all she has is the justice of her cause and her own persistence. Jesus encourages us to be persistent in our prayer and never lose heart.

We live In an age where we have become accustomed to instant results all the time and we are impatient with what appear to be endless delays in god’s response to us. The danger is that we give up too quickly, that we rest our case too easily and then move on to something else. We have to be persistent; we have to invest time in our faith and prayer will help us to do this. Through this parable, Jesus teaches us the need for perseverance in prayer. This perseverance develops our trust and confidence in God. It helps us to  to realize how weak we are when left to ourselves. It keeps us close to God, as we learn how dependent we are on His generous love. If we would realize that God is perhaps closer to us than we realise when we think He is forgetting us for he never forgets us! As we continue the Holy Year of Hope let us continue to be people of faith grounded in patient persistent prayer.

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11 Oct 2025

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday we are reminded to remember God’s blessings as we give thanks for the great things he has done for us. The readings tell us about healing, mercy, and the gift of faith. They help us see that faith grows stronger when we trust God . In the First Reading from the second book of kings Naaman was healed of leprosy after obeying Elisha’s instruction to wash in the Jordan. He acknowledged the God of Israel and vowed to worship only Him and he said as the lord lives I will serve him. In the Second Reading – from St Pauls letter to Timothy we are told to remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead. Paul tells us that I suffer for the gospel, but God’s word is free. Endure for salvation in Christ. If we are unfaithful, he always remains faithful.

in our Gospel Reading we hear the story of the ten Lepers and their lack of gratitude for their healing. This is one of many such examples of ingratitude that occurred during Christ’s public ministry, most of those he cured forget to thank him. In today’s incident there was one who had the decency to return and thank his benefactor, and he was the one least expected to do so. This pleased our Lord and led Him to remark on the ingratitude of the others.  This Gospel story is not only about the Lepers it’s also about our lack of gratitude for the many good  things that we have in our lives given to us by God. When we were youngsters growing up we were taught to say, “Thank you” by our parents when they gave us a sweet or whatever, when we didn’t we would be dutifully reminded, “What do you say?” and of course we said the magic words ‘Thank You.’ All the lepers showed great faith and confidence in Jesus’ power to heal but only one of them said thanks. They had not heard Him preach nor had they seen any of His miracles. They lived in isolation camps because of the leprosy, yet they believed the reports they had heard.  The nine lepers were appreciative of what Jesus had done; we don’t know, why they didn’t bother to show their gratitude to Jesus. We can only look to ourselves to ask why we are often reluctant to say thank you for all the good things we have.

There seems to be great deal of awkwardness surrounding the attitude of gratitude and saying thank you. Personally I find that to be thanked means more to me than being given a gift for a task just done. Whatever the reason for our own ingratitude, we know that it diminishes us and those who help us.  All of us have reasons to give thanks for so many things yet very few turn to the Lord with words and hearts expressing our thanks for all the wonders he has done for us in our lives.  Do we have the attitude of gratitude which thanks god and those around and us for their goodness to us.When we gather each Sunday we come to join God in the midst of the assembly with gratitude in our hearts. We give praise and thanks to God and we thank him for all those who have given us their help. May all of us have the attitude of gratitude which means that we are thankful for all that we are and all that we have especially in these times when so many have little or nothing at all. Let us pray for hearts that notice blessings, voices that give thanks, and lives that reflect God’s mercy and generosity. May gratitude draw us ever closer to God and to one another especially during this Holy Year of hope.

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04 Oct 2025

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

October is the month when we pray for the missionary efforts of the Church and the missionary men and women who bring the gospel message to those in other countries so that the people there will have faith in Jesus and what he teaches. Also during the month of October we are encouraged to pray the Rosary with the feast of our Lady of the Rosary on the 7th October. The readings for this Sunday reminds us to trust God, even when life feels unfair or unclear. The readings speak of faith that waits with hope and service that does what is needed. Each passage points to a life that relies on God, not on our own strength. In the First Reading  from  the prophet Habakkuk we are told that despite witnessing violence and injustice, the plea for divine intervention is met with God’s instruction to record a future vision that promises fulfilment and vindicates the just who live by faith. In the Second Reading  from St Pauls second letter to Timothy we are called to Reignite the divine gift within us, embracing God’s spirit of power, love, and discipline, and steadfastly proclaim your faith, guided and protected by the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel for this Sunday is made up of two apparently unrelated sayings of Jesus, one dealing with the gift  of faith and the other a very stark and challenging reminder to the apostles of the call to service they have received as people sent by God to share in Jesus’ mission of proclaiming the Good News. We might be tempted to skip over such ‘hard sayings’ but we are asked to listen to them because the Gospel always liberates us from false ideas about ourselves and. Perhaps we think that having faith means believing certain things. Thinking our faith is small can keep us from doing so many things that we are called to do by our faith in Jesus the Son of God.  The disciples must have thought their faith was so small they couldn’t act on it. But Jesus wants his disciples and by association ourselves to trust and act on our god given faith. The alternative to acting out of faith would be saying things like: I can’t take on that responsibility, I don’t have enough faith. The disciples may have felt similar inhibitions after hearing what Jesus just taught about not leading others into sin. But Jesus teaches, “Act on the little faith you have.  You’ll be surprised what you can do.” His example of the deep-rooted mulberry tree underlines his lesson to us about the power of the smallest seed of faith to work marvels. We may find ourselves doing something that surprises us and those who know us. But despite the remarkable things we might do, we must acknowledge the source of all our good deeds the faith planted in us by God. Realizing this we can say with those servants in the parable: “We are unprofitable servants, we have done what we were obliged to do.” We could also add: “We have only done what our faith has enabled us to do.

“God gives us the grace to do great things in his name as Mary puts it in the Magnificat the Lord has done great things for me and holy is his name. As we pray for our faith to be strengthened we thank god for all those people who helped us to have faith in the first place, our parents, families, teachers, friends and our clergy throughout our lives all of them played their part in giving us the faith.   Although Christ was speaking to the Apostles, His words apply to all of us, in our own lives here and now. Following the example of the Apostles, we must all pray for greater trust and faith in God and his love for all of us especially in our time with all the turmoil that is in the world. This Sunday we are called  to keep our faith alive and active. We are  reminded that faith grows when we trust God living each day in hope, love, and quiet faithfulness. . As we journey through October, may our prayers, and our trust in God continue to bear fruit in our lives and the and the lives of the people in world around us.

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