My brothers and sisters in Christ, we hear today the words of Jesus that open the Sermon on the Mount—the Beatitudes. These are not just beautiful poetry; they are the core, the very Constitution, of the Kingdom of Heaven.

We look for happiness in the world. The world tells us: “Blessed are the rich, the powerful, the famous, the comfortable.” Jesus, however, sits on that mountain and turns the world’s wisdom completely upside down. He shows us the true path to beatus, to blessedness, to the only happiness that lasts.

As a Dominican Parish Priest, I see the Beatitudes not as a list of virtues to struggle with, but as a portrait of Jesus Christ Himself and a blueprint for our communal life in the Church.

The World’s Illusion vs. God’s Grace: The Beatitudes challenge the fundamental modern delusion that we can be self-sufficient. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he is calling us to humility—to recognize that everything we are, everything we have, is a gift from God. In an age of immense material wealth and self-pride, our poverty of spirit is our total and complete reliance on God’s grace. It is the beginning of all other virtues, because without it, we are trying to build the Kingdom of Heaven with our own, weak hands.

A Passion for Righteousness: In the modern clamor of voices and causes, Jesus calls us to a single, focused desire: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” This is a burning desire for God’s truth and justice to reign in our lives and in the world. This is not passive longing; this is the Dominican zeal for truth, a drive that compels us to study, pray, and preach the Gospel, actively working to right the wrongs of this world, both social and spiritual.

The Path of Mercy and Peace: Our call is to be peacemakers and merciful. In an online world built on quick judgment and anonymous cruelty, the pure in heart and the merciful are the counter-cultural witnesses. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” This is the Divine Economy: the measure with which you forgive and show compassion to others is the measure God will use for you. Our response to injustice is not condemnation, but active efforts toward reconciliation, always remembering the grace shown to us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

What is Jesus truly looking for in our response? He is looking for congruence—that our hearts match our actions. He is calling us to three specific responses:

Acknowledge our Need: Jesus wants us to truly live the first beatitude. He wants us to say, “I cannot do this alone.” He is calling us to drop the mask of capability and confess our absolute need for His salvation, especially through the Eucharist and the Sacraments.

Live the Paradox: Jesus is looking for us to embrace the paradoxical life. When you are wronged, be meek (strong and gentle). When you see sin and injustice, mourn and let that sorrow move you to action. When you are ridiculed for your faith—perhaps for standing up for the Church’s teachings—He says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” Jesus wants us to choose the cross, knowing it leads to the crown.

Be a Witness: Above all, Jesus wants us to embody these beatitudes in our everyday roles—in our families, our workplaces, and our service to the community. Whether you are a retired officer, a disabled veteran, or an owner of a travel business—every vocation is an opportunity to be a visible sign of this blessed life. Your life is meant to be a practical sermon.

The Beatitudes are the path to becoming a true saint—not just for the formally canonized, but for all of us. They are a daily invitation to join Jesus on the mountain, to see the world from His perspective, and to receive the graces needed to live this glorious, paradoxical life.

Let us commit today to choose humility over pride, mercy over judgment, and peacemaking over conflict. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts, so that by living these Beatitudes, we may truly be the blessed children of God, and one day, see God face-to-face.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today, the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we gather to hear the Word of the Lord, and it is a powerful word—one that challenges our habits and refocuses our hope. We turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18, the Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge.

But before we dive into this reading, let us pause for just a moment. This past Saturday, October 18th, was the Feast Day of the great Evangelist, St. Luke himself—the very man whose meticulous pen gifted us this powerful parable and the entire Gospel we are meditating upon throughout this year.

Recalling the Evangelist: St. Luke

St. Luke, the “beloved physician” and a companion of St. Paul, was more than just a careful historian; he was the Evangelist of Mercy. He is the one who took pains to gather the stories that reveal the deep compassion of Jesus: the story of the Good Samaritan, the overflowing joy of the father welcoming the Prodigal Son, and, significantly, the many places where Jesus lifts the forgotten and the marginalized, especially women. It is from Luke that we receive the Magnificat—Mary’s great song of justice that proclaims how God “has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” St. Luke’s life of loyalty to St. Paul and his passion for recording the truth of God’s mercy is, in itself, a perfect model of the perseverance Jesus calls for today.

The Gospel: Luke 18:1-8 and the Dominican Call

Jesus introduces this parable with an unmistakable intention: He “told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.”

The parable presents us with a harsh contrast. On one side is a judge who “neither feared God nor respected any human being.” On the other is a widower figure in the ancient world who was utterly powerless, vulnerable, and alone. Her only defense, her only strength, was her persistence. She kept coming to the judge, day after day, demanding justice against her adversary.

The unjust judge finally caves, not because his heart changes, but because he says, “Because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.” He acts out of sheer, weary self-interest.

And here is the pivot, the heart of the message: If this corrupt, selfish judge grants justice because of sheer persistence, will not God—who is infinitely good and utterly just—secure the rights of his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night?

For us, the family of Saint Dominic, the Order of Preachers (OPI), this Gospel calls us to embody our four pillars in two immediate, profound ways:

1. Our Response to the Gospel: Persistent Prayer

This parable is an urgent call for us to live the Dominican vow of Prayer. It is a command to be contemplatives in our busy world, to talk to God not just in moments of panic, but in a sustained, daily relationship.

If you have grown tired, discouraged, or feel that your prayers go unanswered, Jesus gives you the widow as your model. God’s answer may be delayed—not because He is weary of us, but because our spiritual growth, and the working of His will in a fallen world, takes time. Our persistence is not meant to change God’s mind; it is meant to change our own heart, transforming our superficial desires into an unshakeable trust in His perfect will and perfect timing.

2. Our Response to the Gospel: Justice in the World

The widow was crying out for justice. Her prayer was not about comfort, but about correcting a profound wrong. This connects our persistent prayer directly to the Dominican mission of Preaching the Truth and establishing justice.

We, who are so blessed by God, are called to be advocates for those in our community who feel forgotten, powerless, and denied their due—the modern-day “widows.” We cannot pray persistently for justice in our personal lives while ignoring the cries of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed in our community and in our world. Our contemplation must bear fruit in a commitment to social action, to being the voice that persistently challenges the “unjust judges” of our time—those systems and prejudices that diminish the dignity of human life.

We must pray, and pray, and pray again—for our family, for our community, and for the conversion of the world, knowing that our God will see that justice is done for His chosen ones speedily.

The Final Challenge

Jesus concludes with a profound, almost frightening question: “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

This is the ultimate challenge of the parable. Will the pressures of the world—the delays, the discouragements, the weariness—cause our faith to evaporate? Or will we be like the persistent widow? Will we, in our constant, tireless cry for God’s justice, demonstrate that the answer to His question is a resounding, confident Yes, Lord, You will find faith on earth!

Let us leave this place today with the conviction to be tireless in our prayer and relentless in our pursuit of justice, embodying the spirit of St. Luke and the heart of the Gospel.

Amen.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we hear today a familiar story—the healing of the ten lepers. A quick reading might tempt us to see this as a simple lesson in good manners: nine men were rude, and one was polite. But this Gospel, proclaimed today as we journey through Ordinary Time, is far more than an etiquette lesson. It is a profound instruction on what it means to be saved.

The Cry for Mercy

The story begins with ten men—Jew and Samaritan, united only by their tragic isolation. They are lepers, standing apart, forced by law and disease to shout their misery. Their shared cry is simple and desperate: “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” They are the living embodiment of our own spiritual condition. Like them, we stand at a distance, afflicted by the contagion of sin, separated from God and one another.

Jesus’s response is immediate, but it requires an act of faith. He tells them, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” The healing is not instantaneous. They are asked to obey, to walk toward the required ritual, while still diseased. It is only as they went that they were cleansed. Their healing was a gift, given not because of their perfect understanding, but because of their active obedience in faith.

The Missing Nine vs. The Returning One

All ten received the miracle; all ten had their lives restored. But only one stopped short of his destination—the priest—and turned back. And who was this one? St. Luke, ever mindful of the outcast, tells us: He was a Samaritan, a social, religious, and political enemy of the other nine.

The nine, understandably, rushed toward the re-entry—to family, to home, to work, to society. They got the gift, and they ran off to enjoy it. They received the physical blessing. But their hurry, their spiritual amnesia, caused them to miss the Giver in favor of the gift.

The Samaritan, the “foreigner,” does something different. He returns, glorifying God in a loud voice, and falls prostrate at Jesus’s feet, giving thanks. This is not mere gratitude; this is worship.

And here is the crucial moment, the point of the whole passage: Jesus asks, “Ten were cleansed, were not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then, to the Samaritan, He says, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

Gratitude as True Salvation

My friends, the nine were healed; the one was saved.

The Greek word Jesus uses for the Samaritan’s action is related to Eucharist—the very act of thanksgiving we celebrate right now. It is the recognition that gratitude is the highest form of faith.

In our world today, we are often like the nine. We are consumers of grace. We pray in distress, God answers with a blessing—health, a job, safety, the forgiveness of sin—and we race off to enjoy the restored life. We treat God like an ATM: we make a withdrawal when we need it, and then we forget the Source.

This Gospel calls us to be the Samaritan. It calls us to the counter-cultural, transformative act of intentional gratitude in an age of entitlement.

When you rush through your morning, do you pause to acknowledge the gift of the new day?

When a prayer is answered, do you take the time to return to the altar, in prayer and deed, to glorify the Giver?

When you look at your life, do you recognize that everything—your breath, your talent, your very existence—is an unearned grace?

The Samaritan was saved because his gratitude was a posture of the soul. It was his complete acknowledgment of dependence on Jesus, which deepened his relationship with God far more than his physical cleansing.

Furthermore, his identity as a foreigner reminds us that true faith is often found on the margins. We must look for Christ in the places we least expect—in the faces of the poor, the marginalized, and those whom society, or even our own prejudices, would label as “outsiders.”

So let us, as we approach the altar to receive the Eucharist—the ultimate act of thanksgiving—resolve to return to the Lord not just in moments of petition, but in a lifelong act of radical, humble gratitude. May our faith be the faith of thanksgiving, so that we too may hear Christ’s voice saying, “Go; your faith has saved you.” Amen.

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, grace and peace be with you.

Today, on this 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we hear a challenging and profound Gospel from Luke (17:5-10). It is a teaching from our Lord that speaks directly to the demands of Christian discipleship in any age, including our own. This passage gives us two key lessons: a lesson on the power of faith and a difficult lesson on the true meaning of humility in service.

The Power of a Mustard Seed

The Gospel opens with the Apostles, feeling overwhelmed by Jesus’s recent teaching—especially the radical command to forgive a brother who wrongs us seven times in a single day. They respond with an honest cry: “Lord, increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5).

They felt inadequate. They thought they needed a super-sized faith to handle such a monumental task.

Jesus’s reply is a masterful re-orientation. He uses the image of the tiny mustard seed and the uprooting of a deeply-rooted mulberry tree. He is telling them, and us: You don’t need more faith; you need to trust the power of the small faith you already possess.

The issue isn’t the quantity of your belief; the issue is the quality of the object of your belief. The power lies not in the size of the seed, but in the power of the soil and the God who makes it grow.

For Today’s Society

In our modern world, we often feel like the Apostles. We look at the great “mulberry trees” of our time—the deep roots of violence, division, injustice, and personal sin—and we cry out, “I don’t have enough faith to change this!”

Jesus’s message to us is to stop waiting for a heroic, once-in-a-lifetime burst of spiritual power. Start acting with the small, genuine faith you have right now. The call of a disciple today is to:

Forgive the person who hurt you yesterday.

Serve that one neighbor who needs a helping hand.

Pray that one consistent prayer for justice or peace.

That is the mustard seed in action. Don’t worry about moving the mountain; worry about using the faith God has already given you to take the next faithful step.

The Humility of the Unprofitable Servant

Jesus immediately follows the lesson on faith with the challenging parable of the slave returning from the field. After a long day, the master does not thank him or release him to eat; he orders the servant to prepare dinner and wait on him first. Jesus asks: “Does he thank the servant for doing what was commanded?” (Luke 17:9). The implied answer is no.

The lesson ends with this difficult line: “So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.” (Luke 17:10).

This is not a teaching about poor labor practices. It is a teaching about attitude and discipleship.

For Today’s Society

This parable is a powerful counter-cultural message to a world obsessed with merit, recognition, and reward. It is a necessary check against spiritual pride.

Service is Not a Transaction: God owes us nothing for our obedience. Our service is not a transaction for which we earn a bigger heavenly paycheck or special thanks. It is simply the expected duty of a child of God, a creature responding to the goodness of the Creator.

The Mark of Humility: As Christians, whether we are a priest, a parent, a teacher, or a travel advisor, we must resist the temptation to believe God needs us or that our good works somehow make us superior. When we serve, when we give, when we forgive—even when we do mighty things in Christ’s name—our final word must be, “I only did my duty.”

This humility sets us free. It frees us from the need for external praise, it frees us from becoming resentful when our work goes unnoticed, and it frees us to be what we are truly called to be: faithful, humble instruments in God’s hands.

So let us pray today for the grace to use the small, powerful faith we have, and the humility to be tireless, yet joyful, servants of the Lord.

Amen.

Today’s Gospel, Luke 16:19-31, presents us with the stark parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We have the rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen, feasting sumptuously every day. Outside his gate lies Lazarus, a poor man covered with sores, who longs for the scraps that fall from the rich man’s table. Dogs even come to lick his sores. Both men die. Lazarus is carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man finds himself in torment.

This parable is not a simple story about a rich man going to hell and a poor man going to heaven. It’s a profound challenge to our priorities and our responsibilities. The rich man’s sin was not his wealth itself, but his indifference. He saw Lazarus every day. He knew his suffering. Yet, he did nothing. Lazarus was not a person to him; he was part of the scenery, a problem he chose to ignore.

How does this apply to us today? We live in a world of unprecedented wealth and connectivity. We are surrounded by information about suffering, both near and far. The modern-day Lazarus is not just a person at our gate. He is the person sleeping on the street corner we drive past, the family struggling with food insecurity in our own community, the victims of natural disasters and war we see on our screens every day.

The parable calls us to see. To move from a state of indifference to one of compassion and action. It’s about recognizing the dignity of every human being, especially those who are suffering, and understanding that their well-being is our responsibility. We are called to be our brother’s and sister’s keeper, not just through prayer, but through tangible acts of charity and justice.

The rich man’s plea for Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool his tongue, and later to warn his brothers, shows a final, desperate recognition of the reality he ignored in life. But it’s too late. The message from Abraham is clear: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.” This means the truth is already available to us. We have the Gospel. We have the teachings of the Church. We have the call to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t need a sign from the dead to tell us what we already know.

As Dominicans, our mission is to preach the truth. The truth of this parable is that our salvation is tied to our charity. Let us not be so preoccupied with our own lives that we fail to see the Lazarus at our gate. Let us open our hearts and our hands to those in need, so that when our time comes, we may be found worthy to be carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham.

Y’all…..Interesting times we’re living, right?  Now, I’m no expert, and frequently, I’m  not real bright, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that a bunch of folks have their priorities mixed up and they have forgotten just who they are supposed to be serving and how they should be conducting themselves.  God forbid I try to “control” anyone or be anyone’s “thought police.”  But some things need to be said and so this is a (maybe not so gentle) reminder…..

In the scriptures appointed for today, there is a lot of talk about how to treat the poor, folks’ attitudes toward the poor, and, conversely, about those who have the power over the poor.  So here we go.  From the prophet Amos we have God talking to some rich folks who are planning on cheating the poor:  Hear this, you who trample upon the needy  and destroy the poor of the land!   “When will the new moon be over,” you ask,  “that we may sell our grain,  and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?  We will diminish the ephah,  add to the shekel,  and fix our scales for cheating!   We will buy the lowly for silver,  and the poor for a pair of sandals;  even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!”  The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Never will I forget a thing they have done!

And Jesus had his own commentary in Luke 16:13:  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 “mammon” thing?  It’s not just money.  Nope.  We’re talkin’ the immense power derived from wealth, influence, and material possessions. The term, originally from Aramaic for wealth, evolved to personify avarice and the greedy pursuit of money, later becoming a demonic lord of greed in Christian demonology. In a broader sense, the “Gospel of Mammonism” refers to the excessive materialistic power of capitalist institutions and the overwhelming influence of wealth on individuals and societies.   Think of the power wielded by those billionaires who influence our laws and policies.  Think of those billionaires who have meddled in politics.  Think of those other folks who cater to those billionaires.  See what I mean?

And then, think of the sway those folks have on the “little people,” those who, like you and I, certainly aren’t worth zillions of dollars, but who can be, and are, influenced by those who consider themselves our ‘betters.’  Those who try to talk a good game and try to teach us that because they use the name of Jesus a lot, they are good people.  These are the self-same folks who God was talking about when he said, “Thou shalt not take my name in vain.”  The folks who follow policies and procedures who are the antithesis of what our Lord has taught us.  These are also the people who advocate for oppressive legislation — rooted in far-right religious beliefs — that strip away equal rights  from LGBTQ folks, non-Christians, women, people of color, and immigrants, among others.  

They cry, “It’s a baby!” and then do their best to take food out of  babies’ mouths, refuse them health care, or any care at all.  They demand the 10 Commandments be posted in classrooms but shun The Sermon on the Mount as being woke.  They cry to “teach religion in our schools,” but only that bit of religion with which they agree (most of which comes from the holiness codes in the Hebrew Scriptures) but refuse to practice.  And heaven forbid any other religion but theirs be even mentioned in schools.

We are taught in Galatians 3:28 that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  That also means, by extension, no race, no nationality.  Isn’t it time we act like it?  Isn’t it time that we hold those in power accountable if this is what we wish?  We are taught in the book of James to “ show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” James 2:1-26   Further, we are taught, again in James, that faith without works is dead. In other words, if the faith inside of us doesn’t get expression through our actions and words, it will no longer be alive. If we don’t use it, we will lose it, so to speak. We have to step out in faith in order to keep faith alive.  (James 2:26:  For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.  But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.)

As Christians, have we lost our focus of what is truly important?  Regardless of politics, of whether we are ‘blue’ or ‘red’ or ‘rainbow,’ we are to remain focused on the one thing that really matters in this world and the next:  Spreading and sharing the love of and for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  No matter who sits in the Oval Office, our job, our mission, our focus, has not changed and will not change:  We are called to love and to serve the Lord with gladness and singleness of heart.  We are called to care of each other, regardless of our politics.  We are commanded to ‘bless those who persecute us’ and we are called to ‘pray for our enemies.’  We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless. (Matthew 25:31-46). 

The hymnist, Eleanor H. Hull writes,

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me save that thou art.

Thou my best thought by day and by night;

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise;

Thou mine inheritance, now and always.

Thou and thou only, first in my heart,

High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.

May we, all of us, be reminded to keep our eyes, our souls, focused on the One True Light.

Amen.