Sunday Gospel Reflection, November 1, 2026: Everyone who has this hope...

Everyone who has this hope…
What is our hope? 

 

    In the time of King David, anyone who approached the temple had to respond to a series of questions before they would be allowed in. Psalm 24 speaks of the people that longs to see the Lord’s face. Are we ready to stand before the Lord, ready to see God face to face? Do we clearly desire to be in his presence, and if so, are we dedicated to doing his will? Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord? the psalmist asks. One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is vain. 

    The saints are those who we believe have been brought into the blessing of God’s presence. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount offers a series of blessings, or beatitudes, designed to help us to know that blessing one day as well. We are to be poor in spirit, surrendering ourselves in spirit to our dependence upon God, renouncing all desire for power and thus remaining meek in the eyes of God, opening our hearts – our clean hearts – in mercy and making peace for all by revealing the love of God as something we all hold in common. Like the saints, we hope that our reward will be great in heaven, that we might see the face of God. 

    As the author of the First Letter of St. John writes, what we shall be has not yet been revealed. But right now, we know the love the Father has bestowed on us, that we might be called the children of God, and that is a tremendous blessing indeed. And so we hope for salvation, making ourselves pure, as he is pure, striving to become the very image of God. 

    Many have entered the Kingdom of God before us – a great multitude, the Book of Revelation tells us – and are standing before the throne and before the Lamb, worshipping God. We too hope to be marked with the seal of the living God, marked as belonging to God, and thus ready for perfect union in heaven. May this Solemnity of All Saints offer us encouragement, that we might stay true to our hope, remaining faithful to our God forever, that our blessings may be eternal! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Somewhere a child goes to bed hungry (Alessandra Olanow)

I am in the store touching things.
Linen napkins, a blue bowl.
The world is on fire and I am choosing
between two kinds of soap. 

Everyone here is doing this, filling carts
with small comforts while somewhere a child
goes to bed hungry, while the earth heats,
while men make decisions about who gets to live. 

I know what this is, this careful arranging
while everything collapses.
This is how we survive.
And also how we disappear. 

--Alessandra Olanow 

Image source: https://www.latimes.com/style/la-hm-1213-thriftyke-pg-photogallery.html
Quotation source

It's finally about love (David French / Bishop Robert Barron)

Were you raised in a fear-the-world church
or in a love-your-neighbor church?

--David French

   [Matthew’s] Gospel puts us on very holy ground, since it features the Word of God himself telling us what stands at the heart of the law. The Pharisees pose, as a kind of game, the following question: “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” It was a favorite exercise of the rabbis to seek out the “canon within the canon,” the law that somehow clarified the whole of the law. 

    Jesus gives his famous answer: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

    It’s finally about love, and the love of God and neighbor are inextricably bound to one another. If we follow the law, but don’t love, we’re wasting our time. If we love God, but hate our neighbors, we’re wasting our time. 

    Why are the two loves so tightly connected? Because Jesus is not just God. He is the God-man, the one in whom divinity and humanity come together. Therefore, it’s impossible to love him as God without loving the humanity that he’s created and embraced. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: Maurycy Gottlieb, Christ Teaching in Capernaum (1878-1879), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maurycy_Gottlieb_-_Christ_preaching_at_Capernaum_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Jesus' radical claim (Henri Nouwen)

    Perhaps we must continually remind ourselves that the first commandment requiring us to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind is indeed the first. 

    I wonder if we really believe this. It seems that in fact we live as if we should give as much of our heart, soul, and mind as possible to our fellow human beings, while trying hard not to forget God. At least we feel that our attention should be divided evenly between God and our neighbor. 

    But Jesus’ claim is much more radical. He asks for a single-minded commitment to God and God alone. God wants all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul. It is this unconditional and unreserved love for God that leads to the care for our neighbor, not as an activity that distracts us from God or competes with our attention to God, but as an expression of our love for God who reveals himself to us as the God of all people. It is in God that we find our neighbors and discover our responsibility to them. We might even say that only in God does our neighbor become a neighbor rather than an infringement upon our autonomy, and that only in and through God does service become possible. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Bro. François Carbonnier, CM, St. Vincent de Paul contemplates the crucifix (mid-19th century), https://vincentianpersons.azurewebsites.net/StVincentImages/Home/ViewArchive/34
Quotation source

A command that should stop us in our tracks (Eilis McCulloh)

    To Love your God with your whole being is daunting in and of itself. However, today’s Gospel issues one more challenge to us after quoting the passage from Deuteronomy. It challenges us to love your neighbor as yourself. This, he reminds us, is worth more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. 

    This command should stop us in our tracks. Love our neighbor as ourselves? What does that look like? Who is our neighbor? 

    It takes great courage to love our neighbors as ourselves. In a country and world, divided by fear and hatred of anyone deemed “other,” we are called to see every person as neighbor... regardless of their country of origin, gender or sexuality, economic status, education or employment level, how they live or how they worship. We must be open to encounter… to moving beyond fear and hatred… and into community. 

    May we be beacons of love that brings about justice and peace. May we, as I say in my vow formula, “strive to share the love of Jesus through the message of the Gospel and the witness of my (our) life.” May this be the way we live out our radical call from God. May we have the courage to love God with our whole heart and our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

--Eilis McCulloh, HM 

Image source: Gustave Courbet, Le Désespéré (1843), https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/art/features/why-gustave-courbet-still-has-the-power-to-shock-744386.html
Quotation source

Living for each other (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

     Our quality of life is not measured by what I can do independently, but by who is there to help me. We were made with free choice to live in each other’s context, for each other. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Scripture Class, October 12, 2023

Image source 1: Set-Up Crew for OLMC’s annual parish potluck, July 2025, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1193296409502438&set=a.1193321379499941
Image source 2: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1193298082835604&set=a.1193321379499941

Learning to have a heart that is moved (Frederick Buechner / Pope Leo XIV)

The final secret, I think, is this:
that the words ‘You shall love the Lord your God’
become in the end less a command
than a promise.

--Frederick Buechner

    If Christ shows us the face of a compassionate God, then to believe in him and to be his disciples means allowing ourselves to be changed and to take on his same feelings. It means learning to have a heart that is moved, eyes that see and do not look away, hands that help others and soothe their wounds, shoulders that bear the burden of those in need. 

--Pope Leo XIV 

Image source: William-Adophe Bouguereau, Compassion! (1897), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_(1825-1905)_-_Compassion_(1897).jpg
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2