July/August 2025: Points to Ponder
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
6 July 2025
One of the reasons we prefer to delegate our Lord’s evangelistic work to priests, religious and missionaries is that we fear rejection. When by our words and lifestyles we tell others about Jesus, we sometimes find ourselves labeled as ‘religious fanatics,’ ‘Bible-thumpers,’ or perhaps, simply as ‘old-fashioned.’ Many times we take the rejection personally. So Jesus consoles us: ‘Let your peace come back to you.’ This means, ‘Don’t take it personally. You have done your part, so don’t worry about the outcome.’ He goes on, telling them, ‘Rejoice because your names are written in Heaven’ in the Book of Life! It is not up to us to force anyone to accept Jesus. Our mission is to prepare the way. If a person’s heart is open, the Lord will enter in.
A recent survey asked the question, ‘Why do adults join the Catholic Church in spite of the scandals publicised in the media?’ Seventy-five percent of the new adult converts to the Catholic Church reported that they were attracted by a personal invitation from a Catholic who had a lively relationship with Christ and his Church. As faithful Catholics, we will attract others to the Catholic Church – just as a rose attracts people by its beauty and fragrance. It’s our job. It’s our responsibility. We must not miss the current opportunities to be apostles in everyday life by our words and deeds.
Sundaypulpit.comr
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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
13 July 2025
When individuals or groups are in conflict, it can be difficult for the conflicting parties to see any good in each other. In times of war, in particular, the warring parties often demonise each other. In the case of the current Israeli Palestinian conflict, for example, it is probably very difficult for many Palestinians to bring together the noun ‘Jew’ and the adjective ‘good’, and equally difficult for many Jews to associate the noun ‘Palestinian’ with the adjective ‘good’. A pastor working in the Middle East confessed that never once was he even tempted to tell Palestinians a story about a noble Israeli. However, Jesus does the equivalent of that in today’s gospel reading. We have become used to referring to the story Jesus tells as the parable of the good Samaritan. We can forget that in the Jewish world of Jesus the words ‘good’ and ‘Samaritan’ would never have been found together.
We all have the potential to make tangible God’s compassionate presence to others. The first step in doing that is to notice. It is first said of the Samaritan that he saw the traveller, he noticed him. Noticing is a small but very significant first step. Yet, it is not enough. The priest and the Levite also noticed, they too saw. What distinguished the Samaritan from them was that he allowed himself to be deeply moved by what he saw. Compassion involves that deep inner movement which comes from allowing ourselves to experience something of the pain of the other. That inner movement will lead to some form of outer movement, some appropriate action on behalf of the other. Such, according to the gospel reading, is the path to life.
Fr Martin Hogan curate in the parish of
Finglas, Finglas West and Rivermount
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Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
20 July 2025
Most people on hearing that gospel feel some sympathy for Martha. There she is working hard in the service of Jesus and Jesus declares that Mary has chosen the better part. ‘Poor old Martha’ would be a fairly common response. Jesus is clearly not opposed in principle to people working hard in his service, in the service of others. The immediately preceding passage in Luke’s gospel is the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan was very active on behalf of the injured man by the roadside; Jesus points to him as someone who exemplifies his own compassionate love. Yet, as the book of Ecclesiastes says, ‘there is a time for every matter under heaven’. Apparently, Jesus understood that his visit to the home of the two sisters was a time for them to refrain from activity so as to listen to his word. Jesus had something to say and he wanted them to listen. It was Mary who recognized that this was the kind of hospitality Jesus wanted on this occasion, the hospitality of listening rather than the hospitality of activity. Mary was more attuned to what the Lord really wanted than Martha was. Yes, the Lord wants us to work on his behalf, but he also wants us to listen to him. Wisdom consists in knowing when it is time to be active and busy in the Lord’s service and when it is time simply to sit and listen to his word.
Fr Martin Hogan curate in the parish of
Finglas, Finglas West and Rivermount
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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
27 July 2025 • World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly
Prayer does not guarantee an outcome, undo the past, or offer an escape from life or the circumstances of our lives. It keeps us open to the future. And the future is always better, not because it necessarily will be, but because it might be (Caputo). That possibility, the ‘might be’ of the future, is our daily bread, why we forgive, and why we refuse to turn away. Some mornings that ‘might be’ is the only reason we have the will to get out of bed; because it might be different, it might be better, it might offer something new. The ‘might be’ of the future is at the heart of every prayer we offer.
Where there is a future, whether it is an hour, a day, a month, or twenty years, there is the possibility of life and more life. That’s what Jesus is promising in today’s gospel. And it’s what I want, don’t you? I want the possibility of life and more life for you, and myself.
Jesus is not teaching a technique of prayer or a magic formula of words. He’s teaching prayer as a posture, a way of standing before God, exposed and responsive to a holy and life-giving Spirit (Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct? p.55). It is a risky and vulnerable place to stand. It asks a lot of us. It means you and I have a role in bringing about the future. It means we have work to do.
The prayer Jesus taught asks us to offer ourselves as the place and means for the in-breaking of the future, for change, for life and more life.
Michael K. Marsh
interruptingthesilence.com
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Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
3 August 2025
Today’s gospel goes to the heart of our Cistercian life. Our spiritual ancestors such as Saint Anthony of the Desert, St Francis and St Benedict adopted lives of penance and simplicity when they didn’t ultimately need to. For many people the decisions that these great Saints made was weird. They turned away from wealth and grandeur and privilege, and embraced the kind of life that we live here at Mount St Joseph Abbey. At the centre of our vocation is the desire to communicate with our creator. This desire transcends the need and desire for temporal goods, money and worldly power, and for any of the other vacuous trappings of life. The decision that these Saints made is not necessarily a single decision but had to be remade sometimes on a daily basis. This is what we call daily conversion. Starting again. In other words, getting back up again when we fall flat on our faces. Looking into a bank account full of savings is wonderful because we see the result. But building a spiritual store house is not so easy. We may feel totally useless or incapable, even after much effort in the spiritual sphere. But the storehouses of Heaven are a mystical place and we do not fully understand them. God wants us in some ways to experience the full range of humanity, and this includes the truth of failure, of not being any good. Yet all of this is part of our store, part of the gift that God gives us towards becoming members of his Kingdom.
Mount St Joseph Abbey
Order of Cistercians of the strict observance
msjroscrea.ie
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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
10 August 2025
The unexpected
Most of us don’t like to be taken too much by surprise. We like to think that we have a good idea of what is coming down the road and when it is coming. Yet, we know from experience that the unexpected does happen. It is that experience of the unexpected that features in the parables Jesus speaks in this morning’s gospel reading. The burglar breaks through the wall of a house at an hour nobody expects; the master arrives home at a time when his irresponsible servant is not expecting him. Jesus indicates that there can be the element of the unexpected in his relationship with us and ours with him. The Son of Man comes at an hour we do not expect. We may be inclined to relate that to the hour of our death; sudden and unexpected death is certainly a reality. However, more may be being referred to than that. The Son of Man comes to us in the course of our lives; his daily coming in the midst of life can also be unexpected. The Lord may call us to do something we had never thought about; he may take us down a path we might never have gone down if left to ourselves. The Lord can come to us through unexpected people, through people we would never think of as the Lord’s messengers. The gospel reading suggests that when it comes to the Lord, we can expect the unexpected. He is always the God of surprises and that requires us to be alert and attentive to his many unexpected comings.
Fr Martin Hogan curate in the parish of
Finglas, Finglas West and Rivermount
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The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
15 August 2025
Pope Francis has said that Christians must bring joy to the world, not sorrow.
Mary brought God wherever she went – literally and spiritually. In other words, she brought joy to the world. How? By bringing Christ into the world. Joy and Christ go together like milk and honey.
The fruit of Christ’s presence in our lives is joy. It isn’t naivety. It isn’t foolishness. It isn’t drunkenness. It isn’t blindness or wishful thinking. It is joyfulness. It is the joy that comes to us from seeing things like never before… like God sees them!
Very often I get put down as a reference for someone. A few weeks ago, a representative from a charitable organisation called me with regards to an applicant. I was surprised yet delighted to give them my perspective and impressions. The person they were inquiring about is young, talented and highly motivated. I was more than happy to give them my highest recommendation. It turns out the representative agreed with everything I said. However, they doubted the candidate. I asked them why? They told me it was because this person never smiled.
The world is falling apart. Morals among our youth are crumbling. Families are a mess. What should we do? What St Paul did. ‘Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer’ (Romans 12:9-16).
If you think about it, the last thing in the world this world needs is for Christians to be sad.
Fr Alfonse
fralfonse.blogspot.com
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Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
17 August 2025
The Gospel does, at times, cause trouble. It can set a soul on fire with love for God and fellow man, and that soul then understands through wise spiritual counseling, the mission it has been given by the Lord to continue His work here on earth.
The saints all experienced this fire, this blaze of mystical love and desire for God that not only consumed them, but – by their witness – those around them, too.
Jesus tells us in St Luke’s Gospel that He wants to inspire a mystical fire – a blaze of faith, love, and action, and yet, He knows this will cause division; Jesus is exclaiming that His peace is not the peace of the world.
The peace and love that Jesus offers to us is often at odds with the frauds, shams, and counterfeits of this world: the politics, economics, and religious expressions that do not lift people up in love, unity of purpose, and individual liberty, but tear them apart, in anger, stress, and confusion.
Today’s Gospel challenges us to know that like Jesus, Jeremiah, and the saints we must expect misunderstanding, ill treatment, and possibly even death when we glorify God by living a Gospel centered life.
Our faith provides us with the grace and love of God. Yet, the Cross refines our perspective to see that God’s love is a purifying fire of salvation and covenant that demands that His people not compromise with the world, or declare a bogus truce with evil. So when you stand before society proclaiming your faith – do not be afraid.
Deacon Paul O Iacono
fraangelicoinstitute.com
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Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
24 August 2025
What types of challenges do we face in our lives today and what do we choose to do? And when we face these challenges, do we persevere to do what is right or do we take the easy path out through the back door.
- When faced with situations that make us angry, how often do we stay calm?
- When faced with those who are better and more successful than us, how often do we give in to jealousy?
- When faced with situations to tell the truth, how often have we given way to lying?
- When faced with people in need of our love, our respect and our kindness – our parents, spouses, children, neighbours, orphans, widows, the weak and underprivileged, the lonely, the elderly… how often have we given them our love?
- When faced with situations to speak out for justice and what is right, how often have we raised our voice?
- When faced with the need to be with our children – either for their homework, their play or another need – how often have we given in to our personal pleasures.
- When faced with the need to work hard, how often have we given way to laziness and pushed things away for later?
Those are all situations when we need to go through the narrow door. Do we push our way through the narrow door, or do we give up and take the easy way out?
Sacred Heart Catholic Tamil Group
www.shtcg.orgr
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Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
31 August 2025
What is ‘humility’?
Some think being humble means we can’t acknowledge the good we do. They might go so far as to think being humble means thinking they are not good. That’s not true. We can be humble and acknowledge the good we do by giving credit where credit is done.
This begins with acknowledging that the Lord is ‘the giver of every good gift’ (opening prayer for Mass today). We are able to do good because of the gifts God has given us.
Jesus teaches about humility in the context of places of honor at a wedding banquet. Humility is a virtue that we need to make part of our whole life.
Isn’t it easier to work with someone who humbles themselves and will work with you rather than work with someone who will do anything to get ahead without concern for others?
In proper humility we open ourselves to the help of others. We open ourselves to God’s guidance. Here I think of Sirach’s words, ‘the mind of a sage appreciates proverbs and an attentive ear is the joy of the wise.’ If we are truly humble and wise, we want to listen so that we may grow.
After all, what is our goal? Are we looking to make a lot of money (that would be greed)? Do we just want to look good (that would be pride)? Or are we trying to live the words of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘your kingdom come,’ working to make God’s kingdom known in this world?
Fr Jeff
blog.renewaloffaith.org
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