September 21, 2025
The parable that we hear in the Gospel today is probably one of the most difficult to understand in all of Scripture. It sounds like Jesus is commending the steward in the story for stealing from his master. Of course, we know that can’t be correct. The Ten Commandments very clearly forbid stealing, and an important principle when trying to understand the Bible or anything else in the Church is that what is more clear should interpret that which is less clear, not the other way around. It is very clear that stealing is wrong. It’s not immediately clear exactly what Jesus is commending here, because all He says is that “the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.”
In order to better understand what Jesus is trying to teach us here, let us look as what He says when He finishes the parable: “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” A clearer way to translate the latter sentence would be: “Make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness.” First of all, He’s not saying become friends with the wealth, He’s saying use it to make friends; this is the action that the master in the parable praises, not the stealing. He is praising the unfaithful steward’s prudence for making friends, despite his wickedness in stealing the money. Second, Jesus is not instructing that we should strive to obtain wealth dishonestly, He’s just applying the term ‘dishonest’ or ‘unrighteous’ to earthly wealth in general. Thus, Jesus is exhorting us to use the earthly wealth that we have—unrighteous though it is—to make friends for ourselves, so that when the unrighteous wealth fails, we will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
Now that we hopefully understand what Jesus is saying to us in this passage, I don’t think it should come as any surprise to us. After all, the thing that determines whether we will go to heaven or not is the love that’s in our hearts. Our wealth and our material possessions are ultimately nothing; and when we die they will turn to dust and ashes. The love that is in our hearts, though, that will last for eternity; and indeed, the amount of love in our hearts is what will determine our capacity to enjoy Heaven for eternity. Because Heaven is nothing more or less than loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The person with more love in their heart when they die will be able to love more in Heaven. That’s why Jesus exhorts us in the Gospel today to make friends by means of unrighteous wealth. The wealth has an expiration date; true friendship and true love do not.
Jesus goes on to say, “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.” I think this is a lesson that we often fail to take to heart. In fact, we tend to believe almost the opposite. We tend to think that we can cut corners with small things as long as we do what’s right when it ‘really counts,’ so to speak. In reality, though, every choice we make is when it really counts, because every choice we make disposes our heart either to love God and neighbor more or to love God and neighbor less. In keeping with the Gospel today, let’s take the example of generosity. Whenever we make use of our material possessions, what we do with them shapes our relationship to them. If we use our possessions generously for our neighbor and temperately for ourselves, our hearts will be more disposed to love God and neighbor. On the other hand, if we use our possessions selfishly, our hearts will just be more disposed to love our stuff. The more attached we are to material things, the less disposed we are to love God and neighbor. As Jesus says in the Gospel, “No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” That’s why it’s important to be generous with what we have; the more we use our wealth for the wellbeing of our neighbor, the more generosity and detachment we foster in our souls. In other words, the more we teach our hearts to love.
On a related note, it strikes me as a happy coincidence that today also happens to be the feast day of St. Matthew the Apostle. As I’m sure most of us know, St. Matthew was a tax-collector before Jesus called Him to be His Apostle, and tax-collectors were notorious in Jesus’ day for demanding more money than was really owed. You see, the tax collectors were just responsible for getting the money that Rome demanded. Anything that they could collect beyond that they were free to keep for themselves. When Jesus calls Matthew to be His Apostle, He invites Matthew to stop depending on what he can extort from others, and instead to start focusing on what he can give to others. When St. Luke recounts the call of Matthew’s, he says that Matthew left everything behind to follow Jesus and even threw a large banquet for Him. We can notice here that when Mattew responds to the call of Jesus, he stops taking and he starts giving, even giving lavishly. This is always the proper response to an invitation from Christ. Christ invites us not to focus on ourselves but to focus on others. As St. John Paul II said, “Man cannot fully find himself, except through a sincere gift of himself.” Being generous with our possessions is the first, small way that we can start to do this.
So, let us always strive to use our possessions in the way that God intended us to. We are meant to love people and use things; not to love things and use people, as so many do today. In order to do this, we need to be detached from our material possessions, which is most easily accomplished by being generous with them. When we are truly detached from stuff, our hearts are more free to live the life that God created us to live. Our hearts are more free to love God and neighbor.

Septiembre 21, 2025
La parábola que escuchamos en el evangelio hoy probablemente es una de las más difíciles de entender de todas las Escrituras. Parece que Jesús elogia al administrador de la parábola por robarle a su amo. Por supuesto, sabemos que esto no es correcto; los Diez Mandamientos prohíben muy claramente robar. Y un principio importante al tratar de entender la Biblia o cualquier otra cosa en la Iglesia: lo que es más claro debe interpretar lo que es menos claro, no al revés. Es muy claro que robar está mal. No está completamente claro qué es lo que Jesús recomienda aquí, al menos a primera vista; pero sabemos que no puede ser robo.
Para entender mejor lo que Jesús nos enseña aquí, miremos lo que dice cuando termina la parábola: “Pues los que pertenecen a este mundo son más hábiles en sus negocios, que los que pertenecen a la luz. Y yo les digo: Con el dinero, tan lleno de injusticias, gánense amigos que, cuando ustedes mueran, los reciban en el cielo”. De esto, podemos ver que el amo en la parábola recomienda al administrador por usar dinero para ganarse amigos, no por robarlo. Elogia la prudencia del administrador infiel por hacer amigos, a pesar de su maldad al robar el dinero. Además, Jesús usa la frase “lleno de injusticias” para describir todo dinero; no nos dice que obtengamos dinero injustamente. Entonces, Jesús nos exhorta a usar las riquezas terrenales que tenemos —aunque sean injustas— para hacernos amigos, para que cuando las riquezas injustas falten, seamos bienvenidos en las moradas eternas.
Con esta comprensión de lo que Jesús dice en este pasaje, no creo que esta enseñanza debería sorprendernos. Después de todo, lo que determina si iremos al cielo o no es el amor que hay en nuestros corazones. Nuestras posesiones materiales, nuestro dinero, en última instancia no son nada; y cuando morimos, serán polvo y cenizas. Sin embargo, el amor que hay en nuestros corazones durará por la eternidad; y, de hecho, la cantidad de amor en nuestros corazones es lo que determinará nuestra capacidad de disfrutar del Cielo por la eternidad. Porque la vida en el Cielo no es nada más ni menos que amar a Dios con todo tu corazón, mente, alma y fuerzas. La persona con más amor en su corazón al morir podrá amar más en el Cielo. Por eso Jesús nos exhorta en el Evangelio a ganar amigos por medio de las riquezas injustas. La riqueza tiene caducidad; la verdadera amistad y el verdadero amor no.
Jesús sigue diciendo: “El que es fiel en las cosas pequeñas, también es fiel en las grandes; y el que es infiel en las cosas pequeñas, también es infiel en las grandes”. Creo que esta enseñanza, a menudo, no la tomamos en serio. De hecho, tendemos a creer lo contrario. Tendemos a creer que las cosas pequeñas no son muy importantes, siempre y cuando hagamos lo correcto cuando ‘realmente importa’, por así decirlo. Pero en realidad, cada escogimiento que hacemos realmente importa; porque cada escogimiento que hacemos dispone nuestro corazón a amar más a Dios y al prójimo o a amar menos a Dios y al prójimo. Siguiendo el Evangelio de hoy, tomemos el ejemplo de la generosidad. Siempre que usamos nuestras posesiones materiales, lo que hacemos con ellas moldea nuestra relación con ellas. Si usamos nuestras posesiones generosamente para nuestro prójimo y templadamente para nosotros mismos, nuestros corazones estarán más dispuestos a amar a Dios y al prójimo. Por otro lado, si usamos nuestras posesiones egoístamente, nuestros corazones simplemente estarán más dispuestos a amar nuestras cosas. Cuanto más apegados estamos a las cosas materiales, menos dispuestos estaremos a amar a Dios y al prójimo. Como Jesús dicen en el evangelio: “No hay criado que pueda servir a dos amos, pues odiará a uno y amará al otro, o se apegará al primero y despreciará al segundo. En resumen, no pueden ustedes servir a Dios y al dinero”. Por eso es importante ser generosos con lo que tenemos; cuanto más usemos nuestra riqueza para el bienestar del prójimo, más generosidad y desapego fomentaremos en nuestra alma. En otras palabras, más enseñaremos a nuestros corazones a amar.
Una nota relacionada: me parece una feliz coincidencia que hoy también sea el día de la festividad de San Mateo Apóstol. Estoy seguro de que muchos aquí sabemos que San Mateo era un recaudador de impuestos antes de que Jesús lo llamara para ser su apóstol, y los recaudadores eran conocidos en aquellos días por exigir más dinero del que realmente se debía. Los recaudadores solo eran responsables de conseguir el dinero que Roma exigía. Todo lo que pudieran recolectar más allá de eso, eran libres de conservarlo para sí mismos. Cuando Jesús llama a Mateo para ser su apóstol, lo invita a dejar de depender de lo que puede extorsionar y, en cambio, a comenzar a centrarse en lo que puede dar a otros. San Lucas nos dice que cuando Mateo responde al llamado de Jesús, deja todo para seguir a él, e incluso le organizó un gran banquete. Notemos que cuando Mateo responde al llamado de Jesús, deja de tomar y comienza a dar, incluso dando generosamente. Esta es siempre la respuesta adecuada a una invitación de Cristo. Cristo nos invita a no centrarnos en nosotros mismos, sino a centrarnos en los demás. Como San Juan Pablo II dijo, “el hombre no puede encontrar su propia plenitud si no es en la entrega sincera de sí mismo a los demás”. Ser generosos con nuestras posesiones es una pequeña manera en que podemos comenzar a hacer esto.
Entonces, siempre usemos nuestras posesiones en la manera que Dios quiere. Estamos destinados a amar a las personas y usar las cosas; no a amar las cosas y usar a las personas, como muchos lo hacen hoy en día. Para lograr esto, necesitamos desapegarnos de nuestras posesiones materiales, lo cual se logra más fácilmente siendo generosos con ellas. Cuando estamos verdaderamente desapegados de las cosas, nuestros corazones son más libres para vivir la vida que Dios nos creó para vivir. Nuestros corazones son más libres para amar a Dios y al prójimo.

September 14, 2025
Today we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. It’s one of the few feasts on the calendar that is important enough to outrank the normal Sunday liturgy if it happens to fall on a Sunday. Today’s feast originates from the early 300s. As you may know, in the 320s St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, while she was in the Holy Land found the True Cross on which Jesus hung. It was then erected on Mount Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, so that Christians could come and venerate it; and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also built at the site. The date for today’s feast was chosen in relation to the dedication of the church.
Another event related to this feast day occurred a few centuries later. Emperor Khosrow II of the Second Persian Empire stole the True Cross in the year 614 when he invaded and captured Jerusalem during his war with the Byzantine Empire. When the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius sent ambassadors to Emperor Khosrow to negotiate for peace—basically saying “you win, we’ll give you whatever you want”—Emperor Khosrow was so thirsty for war that he rejected the terms and arrested the ambassadors. Well, it took Heraclius several years, but after turning to the Lord in prayer and fasting he was able to rally, and his army defeated three of Khosrow’s armies. In the wake of these great defeats, Khosrow was killed by one of his sons, who then became Emperor Kavad II. Kavad very quickly sent a contingent to Heraclius to negotiate for peace, the terms of which included returning the True Cross. This return of the True Cross caused today’s feast day to become even more widely celebrated.
According to legend, as Emperor Heraclius tried to bring the True Cross back to Calvary, he was unable to enter the gate. Some invisible seemed to be holding him back. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, named Zacharias, said that it was because he was dressed like an emperor and a conqueror, and didn’t imitate closely enough the poverty and humility of Jesus. Heraclius is then said to have taken off his kingly garments and his shoes, and wearing just his simple clothes underneath he was able to climb Calvary and replace the Cross without a problem.
Perhaps that last story is true, perhaps not, but it serves as an important reminder that Jesus Christ did not live among us as a conquering king. He lived and died as a suffering servant. He allowed Himself to experience one of the most excruciating and humiliating forms of death known to history. Today, though, we remember that far from being a source of shame, the Cross for us Christians is a source of rejoicing. And that doesn’t only mean we should rejoice because Jesus died on the Cross for us, although it certainly includes that. It also means that we Christians should rejoice when we carry our own Cross. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can rejoice any time we experience suffering in this world, because through the grace of our Baptism we can unite our sufferings to Jesus’ sufferings on the Cross. Because of Christ, our suffering is not meaningless; quite the contrary, our suffering is meritorious.
In Catholic households, it can be something of a joke that when someone stubs their toe, or something, someone will tell them to offer it up for their sins. In a certain sense, though, it’s no joke. Really, offer it up for your sins! That suffering is too valuable to let it go to waste. Our temporal pain can merit for us an eternal reward. But wait, there’s more! We don’t have to wait for trials to find us, we can deliberately choose to take on suffering to merit grace for ourselves or someone else—we usually call that doing a penance, or mortifying our desires.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we should do something that’s dangerous to our health; in fact, quite often if we’re going to choose a penance to offer up, it’s best if it’s something small and unnoticeable. Large penances can easily become a source of pride; “oh, look how holy I am, I do all this hard penance.” That’s not as likely to happen with small penances, though. In fact, I heard it said once that you should choose penances that aren’t penances for other people. For example, if you like to put salt on your food for dinner, maybe go without the salt once in awhile. It’s something small and not likely to be noticed by someone else, and not everyone would find going without salt all that penitential. If you like your salt, though, you might be surprised just how penitential going without it can be. Little things that are almost unnoticeable to anyone else can be veritable treasure house of grace if you just give it a try.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, probably one of the holiest people in recent history, had a practice in her family where each of them would have a little chaplet they would keep in their pockets that they would use to count different mortifications that they would practice throughout the day. Little Thérèse would quietly rejoice every time she found a way to mortify her desires so she could offer it to the Lord. She often tried to get through as many of those chaplets as she could. She loved the Lord so much that she wanted to offer Him as much as she possibly could, so she sought out ways to mortify herself in order to multiply her offerings to the Lord. And I think with all of this it’s important to remember that that should be the emphasis: love for the Lord. If you don’t have that, then you might as well not bother. The point isn’t to make life harder for ourselves, the point is to draw closer to Jesus who suffered so much for us. Jesus is the key to all of this.
Many people today think that suffering is meaningless, but if that’s true then Jesus died on the Cross for nothing. I hope no one here thinks He died for nothing; “for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” We are saved through Jesus precisely because of His suffering; if His suffering is redemptive, then ours can be too as long as we are united to Him.
So, my brothers and sisters, let us truly rejoice and exalt in the Cross. Let us rejoice that Jesus died on the Cross to save us from our sins, and let us rejoice when He offers us the opportunity to share in the Cross with Him. Perhaps most of all, let us rejoice that because of Jesus our suffering is not meaningless but invaluable. Through the Cross, our suffering accepted out of love can merit grace for ourselves and for others, and it can draw us closer and closer to Jesus who gladly suffered for us. To finish with a quote from St. Catherine of Siena, “He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely.”

September 7, 2025
Jesus’ words in the Gospel today probably seem a little startling to us. How can Jesus command us to hate our father and mother? After all, doesn’t the Fourth Commandment say, “Honor your father and your mother?” Jesus seems to contradict that commandment here. Well, I think we can gain some understanding by taking a closer look at the original Greek word. The most literal translation is hate, and it is used with that meaning many times throughout the New Testament; but the word could also take on some extended meanings that are probably more applicable here. In Ancient Greek, the word was sometimes used to mean “to love less,” or even “to renounce” one choice in favor of another. One of those meanings is probably what Jesus intends here. “If anyone comes to me without loving his father and mother less than me,” or “If anyone comes to me without renouncing his father and mother for me, he cannot be my disciple.”
Let us bear in mind that at the beginning of the passage, we’re told that Jesus was addressing the great crowds who were following Him. He wasn’t just speaking to the Apostles or His other disciples who had already uprooted their lives to follow Him. He was speaking to those who had probably heard Him speak in their nearby hometowns and were starting to follow Him around because they liked what they heard. He is warning them that if they want to truly be His disciple, He needs to come first in their lives; no other earthly relationship should get in the way. And that’s why He addresses the parables of the man building the tower and the king going to battle. Just as a man wouldn’t start building a tower if he knew that he couldn’t afford the whole cost, and a king shouldn’t go to war if he knows that he has no prospect for success, so we too are called to assess what being a disciple of Christ truly requires of us.
Of course, the most basic cost is giving up our sinful habits. I think that kind of goes without saying, but it’s also much easier said than done. After all, most of the time we only commit sin in the first place because we derive some pleasure from it or at least get something out of it. I wonder, though, how many of us have actually taken a moment to consider our sinful habits and say to ourselves: being a disciple of Christ means that this should have no more place in my life. This applies to any vice that we might struggle with: hatred of others, laziness, unchastity; following Christ means that we need to eliminate these things from our lives. And that’s not because Jesus wants to be a tyrant over our lives or He wants per se to take things away from us that we enjoy, but it’s because He knows that we were created to know and love Him. He is the one thing that will truly satisfy us. After all, anyone who sins isn’t really seeking to do something bad, they’re seeking something good in a bad way. In fact, a writer once said, “The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.” Of course, he’s doing so in the wrong place, and so what the young man finds there or what we find on the back end of any sin always leaves us dissatisfied and empty, perhaps even ashamed, because we didn’t find Jesus where we sought Him.
Sadly, although sin doesn’t ultimately satisfy us, often it does bring some initial pleasure with it. And when we feel that emptiness afterward, rather than realizing that the sin didn’t really have what we were looking for, it’s common for us to turn back to it to seek out the pleasure again. As long as we keep up this cycle, we prevent ourselves from finding what we’re truly seeking: Jesus. That’s why it is important to root out our sinful habits, so that we stop turning to the things that are preventing us from living the purpose that we were created for.
Of course, that’s not always easy, and our progress might be slow. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and bad habits don’t turn into good habits overnight; but bad habits don’t turn into good habits at all if you don’t put in the effort. In order to foster good habits, we need to start making good choices. As disciples of Christ, this is a cost that we are called to pay: to give up all of our vices, and to work toward turning them into virtues. That might sound difficult or unpleasant, but fear not: as has hopefully become clear by now, the things that Jesus asks us to give up are the things that ultimately aren’t really worth having.
All that being said, it’s not enough just to give up sin. That’s just the beginning. You see, in addition to eliminating those things from our lives that drive Jesus out or prevent us from seeking Him, we also need to order everything else in our life such that it’s centered around Jesus. He needs to have first place before everything else. That includes parents, friends, careers, and any other good thing you can think of. And unlike sin these are good things that I’m talking about, and they should have their own place in our lives; but again, we shouldn’t try to give them the place in our lives that is proper to Jesus—the first place. All of these others things need to be rooted in Him and ordered toward Him either implicitly or explicitly. Because while it’s possible to incorrectly seek fulfillment though sinful habits, it’s also possible incorrectly seek fulfillment through things that still aren’t Jesus. These too, though, don’t have the ability to completely satisfy us, because they start isn’t the one thing that we were created for. We were created to Jesus, love Himself dwelling in our souls; nothing else, no matter good it is, will be able to fill that infinite hole in our hearts. As St. Augustine famously said to the Lord, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”
So, my brothers and sisters, let us never forget that Jesus must occupy the first place in each of our lives; we must fit everything else in around Him. That means eliminating entirely those things that are sinful and keeping everything else in its proper place. When we’re able to this, then we will truly be living as disciples of Jesus are called to live.

August 31, 2025
“What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not.” How hard it is to follow this exhortation from the first reading today. Like the Pharisees in the Gospel today, we often seek out the highest places of honor. We want others to know how great we are, or even to think that we are greater than we really are. My brothers and sisters, this is a great danger. Pride is one of the most serious vices of all; in some sense it is at the root of all other sins. Pride is what caused the devil to fall, and it can cause our downfall as well. How important it is, therefore, to practice the virtue of humility. The humble person is not someone who thinks of himself as less than he really is. In some ways, making yourself out to be less than you are can secretly be another form of pride. Have you ever met someone who makes themselves out to be the greatest of all sinners, or such a bad person that they could never be forgiven, or something like that? Well, this person has given into a kind of pride; rather than thinking that they’re great with virtue or worldly honors, they think that they are great with sin. No, the humble person does not think of themselves as less than they really are, the humble person simply thinks of themselves less.

And boy is that hard. I suspect I don’t need to convince anyone of that, but if for some reason you don’t believe me, try to go a whole day without talking about yourself or intentionally drawing attention to yourself. It usually doesn’t take long for someone to forget to say “thank you,” or to pass us by in some way, or to attribute ill motives to one of our actions before we feel the need to assert or defend ourselves. So often we feel the need to correct someone because they have hurt our pride. Now, I’m not saying that being humble means you need to be a doormat, but there’s a big difference between correcting someone because you’re trying to help them grow and correcting someone just because you feel slighted. Sometimes the line between the two can be blurry; but a good litmus test can be to ask yourself: “Do I feel the need to say something because I love the other person, or just because I love myself?”

In the Gospel today, Jesus shows us how foolish it is to seek out the esteem of others. The man who seeks out the place of honor at the banquet in Jesus’ Parable is quickly humbled despite himself, because a more distinguished guest than him was invited. He has to get up and take, not just the next place down the list, but the lowest place. Doesn’t something like this often happen to us? As soon as we start bragging about our skills or our gifts, someone comes along who’s better at whatever it is than we are. And that doesn’t mean that we’re the least skilled person in the room, but it’s certainly a much bigger blow to our pride than if we hadn’t said anything in the first place.

There is a known and studied psychological phenomenon regarding people’s self-perceived expertise regarding any subject. Those who know nothing or close to nothing about a subject will usually readily admit that. However, those who know a little something about a subject—for example, those who have done a little reading about it online—will often vastly overestimate their level of expertise. Whereas those who are truly expert in a subject—those who have spent years studying it—they will often vastly underestimate their expertise. The simplest explanation for this is that the true expert is much more profoundly aware of how much more there is to know about the subject than what he knows himself. The guy who searched it online often doesn’t have that understanding. And yet, when the true expert tries to downplay his expertise, if he has a friend in the room, the friend will often build him up. They’ll often affirm that the expert is actually quite skilled at the subject in question. “Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Now, it’s worth mentioning that the humble person doesn’t refrain from acting just to go out of his way to be humble. This would be especially important in an emergency. The one who would fail to act when action is required is probably practicing a form of that false humility that I mentioned earlier. Rather than thinking about others’ needs, the person is only thinking of themselves. Again, the humble person thinks of himself less. He doesn’t worry about whether he is self-deprecating enough, or something like that. If he sees someone in need, and knows that he’s capable of helping, then he goes and helps. He doesn’t worry about what other people will think or whether his efforts will be sufficiently recognized, he simply goes out of his way to love the other person.

Now, I think genuine humility has a certain natural attractiveness to it. When you see someone doing it right, you recognize that their humility is a quality that we ought to try and imitate. However, if you remain unconvinced, let us never forget that Jesus is the most humble of all; and we always ought to strive to imitate Jesus. He is God almighty, and yet He allowed Himself to be slain for our sins. He is God all-knowing, and yet He allowed Himself to remain unknown in obscurity for 30 years before He started His public ministry. He is God omnipresent, and yet He allows Himself to remain hidden in a special way here in this church and every Catholic church around the world under the appearance of bread. He allows Himself to be dropped on the floor, received by the ill-disposed, even sometimes stolen and profaned, just so He can remain with us in our churches. No one is more humble than our God, than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He waits here for you to come to Him, and He calls us to imitate Him as closely as possible. Let us never forget that He God and we are not. Everything that we are and everything that we have comes to us from Him. As St. Paul tells us, “What do you possess that you have not received? But if you have received it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it?” If Jesus Christ is so capable of humbling Himself, how much more should we humble ourselves as well; for without Him we are nothing.

In conclusion, I’d like to share with you probably the scariest prayer I’ve ever come across. It’s called the Litany of Humility.

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, O Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

August 24, 2025
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?” I find it interesting that the Lord doesn’t answer this question directly; probably because no good can come from knowing the answer. Think about it: suppose, for the sake of argument, that Jesus said most people will be saved. Most people would probably say to themselves, “Alright, I guess I’m all set.” Honestly, even if He said only half of all people would be saved, I kind of suspect that most people would say to themselves, “Yeah, I’m better than half the people I meet, I should be alright.” On the other hand, if He said only a few would be saved, I think most people would say, “Well, I’m going to Hell, might as well do what I want.” Jesus doesn’t directly answer this question, because He knows that the person who asks it is the person who is trying to gauge how lazy they can afford to be in the spiritual life. Of course, as soon as we start being lazy in the spiritual life, that’s when things start to fall apart. Either you’re walking toward Jesus, or you’re walking away from Him; there’s no standing still for very long.
Of course, we must always strive to walk toward Jesus, to attain to the salvation that He offers us; we must always strive to “enter through the narrow gate,” as Jesus says in the Gospel today. And make no mistake, the narrow gate is not simply ‘being a nice person’ or something like that. The narrow gate is Jesus Himself; Jesus is the one and only way to salvation. As He tells us in John’s Gospel, “Whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. … I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved.” And later on in John’s Gospel He also says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus excludes the possibility of Christianity being merely one valid religion among many. He demands total and exclusive allegiance. That’s not to say that there’s no hope for those who, for example, never had the opportunity to hear about Christ, but anyone who ultimately gets saved will only be saved by Jesus Christ. The Lord desires that all be saved; but each person needs to accept that salvation for him- or herself, and the way we live in this life affects our capacity to accept Jesus’ invitation of salvation when we die. Only a person with love in their heart will be able to say “yes” to God Who is love Himself when they meet Him face-to-face.
And love only enters a person’s heart in the first place as a grace from God. Now, the Lord can certainly offer grace to anyone He wants at any time He wants, but He has given us the sacraments as the ordinary means by which He imparts sanctifying grace to us—that is to say, the grace that saves us. The sacraments are how He most wants to save us. The ordinary means by which we first receive the love of God, and indeed, by which we receive Jesus Christ dwelling within us, is baptism. Jesus gave us this sacrament so that we be assured of sanctifying grace, of His presence in our souls. It would be difficult to overstate how great a gift this is. We don’t have to worry about whether the Lord will answer our prayer to receive His grace, He has guaranteed that His sacraments do impart grace.
This is why, as Christian believers, it is incumbent on us to evangelize. Jesus tells us, “Go… and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” We have been given this great gift, and it would be selfish of us not to share it with everyone we can. It is possible for the Lord to save someone outside of the sacraments, but the sacraments are the gifts He has given us as the surest way to salvation. Someone who has received sanctifying grace through Baptism is more likely to have a soul disposed to love God than someone who hasn’t.
Now, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that all you need to do is get baptized and then you’re home free. It is possible to cast God’s love out of your heart, by committing mortal sin. In effect, one would be saying, “I know this is seriously wrong, but I’m going to do it anyway.” It’s not that God is taking vengeance on you, or something, it is that you have chosen to turn your back on God; but that is why he also gives us the sacrament of Confession, so that we can turn back to Him, and have sanctifying grace restored to our soul.
To deliberately refuse these ordinary means of salvation, given to us so generously by God, would be the sin of presumption. In effect, one would be saying, “Well the sacraments are nice; but I don’t need that, God will save me anyway.” One would be refusing the way that the Lord has chosen to offer His love and grace. It’s one thing if a person has never had the Gospel preached to them, but it would be another thing entirely if you believed the Gospel and you didn’t do what Jesus asks of us.
It’s not enough just to come to Mass every Sunday, although we should be doing that. In the Gospel today, those cast out from the kingdom said to the Lord, “We ate and drink in your company and you taught in our streets,” and he replies, “I do not know where you are from.” The reason He does not know where they are from despite His frequent time in their presence is because they don’t have the life and love of God dwelling in their souls. We must have and preserve the love of God in our soul. We first receive this in Baptism, we preserve it by living a life of virtue, and if we lose it through mortal sin, we can have it restored through sacramental confession. The Lord can choose to save people through other means, but these are the ordinary means that He has given us. This is the narrow gate by which we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven: Jesus Christ, love Himself, dwelling in our souls.

24 de agosto de 2025
“Señor, ¿es verdad que son pocos los que se salvan?” Me interesa que el Señor no responde esta pregunta directamente; probablemente porque no puede surgir nada bueno de saber la respuesta. Piénsalo: supongamos, por el bien del argumento, que Jesús dijera que la mayoría de la gente será salvada. Muchas personas probablemente les dirían a sí misma: “Está bien, estoy listo”. Honestamente, incluso si Él dijera que sólo la mitad de todas las personas se salvarían, sospecho que la mayoría de la gente se diría a sí mismas: “Soy mejor que la mitad de la gente que conozco; estaré bien”. Por otro lado, si dijera que sólo unas pocas personas se salvarían, creo que muchas personas se dirían: “Bueno, me voy al infierno, mejor hago lo que quiero”. Jesús no responde directamente a esta pregunta, porque la persona que la hace es la persona que intenta evaluar qué tan perezosa debe ser en la vida espiritual. Por supuesto, cuando empezamos a ser perezosos en la vida espiritual, muchas cosas se desmoronan. O caminas hacia Jesús o te alejas de Él; no es posible permanecer inmóvil por mucho tiempo.
Por supuesto, siempre debemos esforzarnos a caminar hacia Jesús, para alcanzar la salvación que nos ofrece; debemos siempre esforzarnos en “entrar por la puerta, que es angosta”, como dice Jesús en el evangelio hoy. Y no te equivoques, la puerta que es angosta no es simplemente ser una buena persona o algo así. La puerta angosta es Jesús; Jesús es el único camino a la salvación. Como Jesús nos dice en el evangelio de San Juan: “El que no entra el redil de las ovejas por la puerta es un ladrón y un bandido. … Yo soy la puerta por donde pasan las ovejas. Todos los que vinieron antes de mí, fueron unos ladrones y unos bandidos; pero las ovejas no les hicieron caso. Yo soy la puerta: el que por mí entre, se salvará.” Más adelante en el evangelio de Juan, Jesús dice también: “Yo soy el camino, la verdad y la vida. Solamente por mí se puede llegar al Padre.”
Jesús excluye la posibilidad de que el cristianismo sea simplemente una religión válida entre muchas. Él exige lealtad total y exclusiva. No digo que no haya esperanza para aquellos que, por ejemplo, no tienen la oportunidad de oír acerca de Cristo, pero cualquiera que finalmente sea salvo, sólo será salvo por Jesucristo. El Señor desea que todos sean salvos; pero cada persona necesita aceptar la salvación, y la manera en que vivimos en esta vida afecta nuestra capacidad de aceptar la invitación de Jesús a la salvación cuando morimos. Sólo una persona con amor en su corazón podrá decir “sí” a Dios, que es amor mismo, cuando lo encuentre cara a cara.
Y el amor sólo entra en el corazón de una persona en primer lugar como una gracia de Dios. Ahora bien, el Señor ciertamente puede ofrecer gracia a quien Él quiera en cualquier momento que Él quiera, pero nos ha dado los sacramentos como el medio ordinario por el cual nos imparte la gracia santificante—es decir, la gracia que nos salva. El medio ordinario por el cual recibimos por primera vez el amor de Dios, y de hecho, por el cual recibimos a Jesucristo que mora en nosotros, es el bautismo. Jesús nos dio este sacramento para que tengamos la seguridad de la gracia santificante, de su presencia en nuestras almas. Sería difícil exagerar lo grandioso que es este regalo. No tenemos que preocuparnos de si el Señor responderá nuestra oración para recibir Su gracia; Él ha garantizado que Sus sacramentos sí imparten gracia.
Por eso, como creyentes cristianos, nos incumbe evangelizar. Jesús nos dice: “Vayan… a las gentes de todas las naciones, y háganlas mis discípulos; bautícenlas en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo”. Dios nos da este gran regalo, y sería egoísta de nuestra parte no compartirlo con todos los que podamos. Es posible que el Señor salve a alguien fuera de los sacramentos, pero los sacramentos son los dones que Él nos da como el camino más seguro hacia la salvación. Alguien que sí recibe la gracia santificante a través del bautismo tiene más probabilidades de tener un alma dispuesta a amar a Dios que alguien que no la recibe.
Ahora bien, no quiero dejarles con la impresión de que todo lo que hay que hacer es recibir el bautismo y ya está todo listo. Es posible expulsar el amor de Dios de tu corazón, cometiendo un pecado mortal. En efecto, uno diría: “Yo sé que esto es muy malo, pero lo voy a hacer de todos modos.” No es que Dios se esté vengando de ti, o algo así, es que has elegido darle la espalda a Dios; pero por eso también nos da el sacramento de la Confesión, para que podamos volver a Él y recibir la gracia santificante restituida en nuestras almas. Rechazar deliberadamente estos medios ordinarios de salvación, que Dios nos da tan generosamente, sería pecado de presunción. En efecto, se diría: “Bueno, los sacramentos son bonitos, pero no los necesito, Dios me salvará de todos modos”. Rechazaría el camino que el Señor elige para nos ofrecer Su amor y Su gracia. Una cosa es que a una persona nunca le hayan predicado el Evangelio, pero otra cosa totalmente distinta sería que creyera en el Evangelio y no hiciera lo que Jesús nos pide.
No basta con venir a misa todos los domingos. En el evangelio hoy, los expulsados del reino dijeron al Señor: “Hemos comido y bebido contigo y tú has enseñado en nuestras plazas”; sin embargo, Él responde: “No sé quiénes son ustedes”. La razón por la que no sabe quiénes son es porque no tienen la vida y el amor de Dios morando en sus almas. Debemos tener y conservar el amor de Dios en nuestras almas. Lo recibimos al principio en el Bautismo, lo conservamos viviendo una vida de virtud y, si lo perdemos por el pecado mortal, podemos recuperarlo mediante la confesión sacramental. El Señor puede elegir salvar a alguien a través de otros medios, pero estos son los medios ordinarios que Él nos da. Esto es la puerta angosta por la que podemos entrar en el Reino de los Cielos: Jesucristo, el amor mismo, morando en nuestras almas.

August 17, 2025
Jesus’ words in the Gospel today probably seem rather startling to us. “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” Certainly in the popular imagination, Jesus was all about peace: love your neighbor, be a good person, be nice to each other, and so on. I think it’s fair to say that Jesus’ words today don’t fit very well with that image of Jesus.
The popular imagination aside, though, Jesus’ words today can even sound startling to us Christians. I think most of us would not claim Christianity to be a war-mongering religion; and neither would the Church, for that matter. How, then, are we to understand Jesus’ words? Well, I think we can reasonably say that Jesus is using hyperbole here; that is to say, He is speaking strongly to emphasize His point: namely, that Christ will be a source of division. Not because He desires division, but because there will be some who refuse to accept Him.
And this is nothing new now that Christianity is on the scene. The same thing happened in the Old Testament as well. We hear in the first reading that the princes of Jerusalem were saying to the king, “Jeremiah ought to be put to death; he is demoralizing the soldiers who are left in this city, and all the people, by speaking such things to them; he is not interested in the welfare of our people, but in their ruin.” What had Jeremiah been saying that the princes found so demoralizing? The LORD had revealed to Jeremiah that the Chaldeans, who had recently attacked Jerusalem, would return and destroy the city. Jeremiah was telling the citizens and soldiers of Jerusalem that anyone who remained in Jersualem would perish, but anyone who went out and surrendered to the Chaldeans to be taken into exile would live. Contrary to what the princes were saying, Jeremiah was more interested in the welfare of the people than they were. The princes, though, were not interested in whether Jeremiah’s prophecy was true or not. The prophets employed by the king had recently prophesied for him that Chaldea would not attack Jerusalem. He listened to them, but when their prophecy proved false he did not turn and listen to Jeremiah. Instead, when Jeremiah prophesied that Babylon would come and overthrow King Zedekiah, the king had him thrown in prison.
Are not the people of our day the same? How many people spurn any kind of correction? How many people call someone a hater just because that person says things they disagree with? To quote Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings, “To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.” It is not hateful to tell someone they are sinning, in fact, doing so is an act of love. Now, of course, we should always do so with the greatest charity possible. As Pope St. John Paul once said, “Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive lie.” We are called to correct our neighbor from time to time; but that doesn’t mean that we should be jerks about it. It doesn’t even mean that we need to call someone out every time they do something wrong. Sometimes it’s genuinely not the right moment. However, I suspect that today, people—especially Christians—err much more often on the side of not saying something when they should. Often we’re scared of what others will think of us or how they’ll react; that’s why encouraging someone to step away from sin is such a great act of love. It means you love someone enough to tell them what’s best for them, even when it’s uncomfortable; and it means that you believe they can do better.
As King Solomon tells us in the Book of Proverbs, “A wise son loves correction, but the scoffer heeds no rebuke.” If a person is wise, they are often grateful to be corrected. Sadly, despite all the charity we offer, some will not accept correction. Despite the best witness to a Christian life we can give, some will not accept Christ. And really, that’s the division that Christ speaks of today. Further, for someone who has set their hearts on finite goods, the Christian witness only serves as a reminder of how broken their hearts are. We were created to know and love God, and I think everyone has a sense of that deep down. People long for more than this world can offer them. When someone refuses to accept Jesus, though, often they can’t stand to be around those who do accept Him. Some people find Christianity such a painful a reminder of everything they’re missing out on, that its very existence is intolerable to them. Such people are to be pitied more than anything.
This is one of the most frustrating things about evil. No matter how much we try to analyze it, no matter how many reasons someone might give, when you get right down to it evil is absurd. There’s no rational explanation or logical motives you can use to figure it out; ultimately, it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes people will reject Christ and even reject you because of Christ; and there’s nothing you can do. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try in the first place, though. If we never invite someone to get to know Christ, how can they even be expected to consider it? They might say no, and that’s too bad; but even then, we can always pray for them. As Mother Teresa once said, “We are not called to be successful, but faithful.” And as Jesus says in the Gospel, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” This fire that Jesus came to set, is the fire of love of Him; the fire that should be blazing in all of our hearts. He entrusts us with the task of spreading that fire to the ends of the Earth. Some will resist us, some will choose to keep their hearts as cold as ice, and we can’t change their mind for them; but we can always try, and we can always leave the door open for them if they have a change of heart on their own.

17 de agosto de 2025
Las palabras de Jesús en el evangelio hoy probablemente nos parecen bastante sorprendentes. “¿Piensan acaso que he venido a traer paz a la tierra? De ningún modo. No he venido a traer la paz, sino la división.” Ciertamente, en la imaginación popular, Jesús era todo paz: Ama a tu prójimo, sean amables el uno con el otro, etcétera. Las palabras de Jesús hoy no encajan con esta imagen de Jesús.
Dejando la imaginación popular de lado, las palabras de Jesús hoy incluso podrían sonar sorprendentes para nosotros cristianos. Creo que la mayoría de nosotros no diríamos que el cristianismo es una religión belicista; y la Iglesia, por cierto, tampoco lo diría. ¿Cómo debemos, entonces, entender las palabras de Jesús? Bueno, Jesús usa hipérbole aquí; es decir, habla con fuerza para enfatizar su punto. Su punto es que Cristo será una fuente de división. No es porque desee división, sino porque algunos se negarán a aceptarlo.
Esto no es nada nuevo, ahora que el cristianismo está aquí. La misma cosa ocurrió en el Antiguo Testamento. La primera lectura nos dice que los jefes de Jerusalén dijeron al rey: “Hay que matar a Jeremías, porque las cosas que dice desmoralizan a los guerreros que quedan en esta ciudad y a todo el pueblo. Es evidente que no busca el bienestar del pueblo, sino su perdición.” ¿Qué decían Jeremías que parecían a los jefes tan desmoralizante? El Señor ha revelado a Jeremías que los caldeos, que recientemente habían atacado Jerusalén, regresarían y la destruirían. Jeremías decía al pueblo y a los guerreros que cualquiera que permaneciera en la ciudad perecería, pero cualquiera que saliera y se entregara a los caldeos para ser llevado al exilio viviría. Al contrario de lo que decían los jefes, Jeremías buscaba el bienestar del pueblo más que ellos. Sin embargo, a los jefes no les interesaba si la profecía de Jeremías era verdadera o no. Los profetas empleados por el rey habían profetizado recientemente que Caldea no atacaría a Jerusalén. Sin embargo, cuando su profecía resultó falsa, no escuchó a Jeremías. En cambio, cuando Jeremías profetizó que Babilonia vendría y derrocaría al rey Sedecías, el rey lo hizo meter en prisión.
Las personas de nuestros días son iguales, ¿no? ¿Cuántas personas rechazan la corrección? ¿Cuántas personas llaman a alguien ‘odiador’ solo porque esa persona dice cosas con las que no están de acuerdo? Pero no es odioso en absoluto decirle a alguien que está pecando; de hecho, hacerlo es un acto de amor. Por supuesto, siempre debemos hacerlo con la mayor caridad posible. Como el papa, san Juan Pablo dijo una vez: “No acepten como verdad nada que carezca de amor. Y no acepten como amor nada que carezca de verdad. El uno sin la otra se convierte en una mentira destructora.” Estamos llamados a corregir a nuestro prójimo de vez en cuando; pero esto no significa que debamos ser idiotas al respecto. Ni siquiera significa que tengamos que llamar la atención a alguien cada vez que hace algo mal. A veces realmente no es el momento adecuado. Sin embargo, sospecho que hoy muchas personas—especialmente los cristianos—con mucha más frecuencia cometen el error de no decir algo cuando deberían. A menudo tenemos miedo de lo que los demás piensen de nosotros; esto es porque animar a alguien a alejarse del pecado es un gran acto de amor. Significa que se ama a alguien suficiente como para decirle lo que es mejor para él, incluso cuando es incómodo; y significa que se cree que él puede hacer mejor.
Como el rey Salomón nos dice en el libro de los Proverbios: “El hijo sabio acepta la corrección del padre; el insolente no hace caso de reprensiones”. Si una persona es sabia, a menudo está agradecida de recibir corrección. Lamentablemente, a pesar de toda la caridad que ofrezcamos, algunos no aceptarán la corrección. A pesar del mejor testimonio de vida cristiana que demos, algunos no aceptarán a Cristo. De verdad, esto es la división de que Cristo habla hoy. Además, para alguien que ha puesto su corazón en los bienes finitos, el testimonio cristiano sólo sirve para recordarle cuán roto está su corazón. Fuimos creados para conocer y amar a Dios, y creo que todos tenemos un sentido de eso en lo más profundo. Todos desean más que este mundo puede ofrecernos. Pero cuando alguien se niega a aceptar a Jesús, a menudo no soporta estar cerca de quienes sí lo aceptan. Para algunas personas, el cristianismo es un recordatorio tan doloroso de todo lo que se están perdiendo, que su mera existencia les resulta intolerable. Esa clase de gente es la que más merece lástima.
Ésta es una de las cosas más frustrantes del mal. Por mucho que intentemos analizarlo, por muchas razones que alguien pueda dar, a fin de cuentas, el mal es absurdo. No hay ninguna explicación racional ni motivos lógicos que puedas utilizar para entenderlo; en última instancia, no tiene sentido. A veces algunas personas rechazarán a Cristo e incluso te rechazarán a ti por causo de Cristo; y no hay nada que puedas hacer. Sin embargo, esto no significa que no debamos intentarlo en primer lugar. Si nunca invitamos a alguien a conocer a Cristo, ¿cómo podemos esperar que siquiera lo considere? Podrían decir que no, y esto es una lástima; pero incluso entonces, siempre podemos rogar por ellos. Como Madre Teresa dijo una vez: “No estamos llamados a ser exitosos, sino fieles.” Como Jesús dice en el evangelio: “He venido a traer fuego a la tierra, ¡y cuánto desearía que ya estuviera ardiendo!” Este fuego que Jesús vine para traer es el fuego del amor de Él, el fuego que debería arder en todos nuestros corazones. Él nos confía la tarea de difundir ese fuego hasta los confines de la Tierra. Algunos se resistirán a nosotros, algunos elegirán mantener sus corazones tan fríos como el hielo, y no podemos hacerles cambiar de opinión; pero siempre podemos intentarlo, y siempre podemos dejarles la puerta abierta si cambian de opinión por sí solos.