Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 25, 2026: You know what sort of people we were among you...

You know what sort of people we were among you…
What is the source of our integrity as a people? 

    One of the most important functions of the scriptures is to help humankind to understand what it means to live in the context of each other, in community. In the Book of Exodus, once the people of Israel reach Mount Sinai, the Lord God spends no small amount of time helping them understand that their identity, and therefore their collective integrity, is based on the relationships they cultivate with God and with one another. You shall not oppress or molest an alien, the Lord tells them. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. Their own memory of what it was like to live in another land, without any rights or possessions or land, should remind them that they were once dependent upon other people’s generosity and good will. Like the Lord God, they themselves must be compassionate, responsible to other because they value the compassion that God and others have shown them, and will imitate it. Psalm 18 invites the people of Israel into the present moment, where they can recognize God’s compassion towards them now – My God, my rock of refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold – and ground themselves in the identity and integrity that relationship builds for them. 

    When, in Matthew’s Gospel, the scholar of the law asks Jesus, Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?, he does so to test him. Here, the Pharisees have clearly missed the point: their relationship with the Lord God does not depend on the absolutes of Mosaic law, but on the message of love Jesus embodies in their midst, even to the point of loving the very Pharisees who will one day effect his death. Love of God is necessary to love of neighbor, as love of neighbor is necessary to love of God. The love in question here is not a feeling, but an action: to will the good of the other in order to insure the collective identity and integrity of the community. This is how you enter into right relationship with your God, Jesus says: by loving. 

    Likewise, in his Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul will affirm the righteous conduct of the community that has become imitators of the apostles and of the Lord through their reception of the Word of God. It is the Word that is effective; it transforms, sustains, and is spreading all over the known world. The Word is the source of their integrity – it is their belief in God’s mercy and love, revealed in Christ crucified, revealed in their own life in community. The Word is their integrity – is it ours?

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Praising my Savior all the day long (CeCe Winans and Terrence Blanchard)

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. 

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long;

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long. 

Perfect submission, perfect delight,

Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;

Angels, descending, bring from above

Echoes of mercy, whispers of love. 

Perfect submission, all is at rest,

I in my Savior am happy and blest,

Watching and waiting, looking above,

Filled with His goodness, lost in His love. 

To hear CeCe Winans and Terrence Blanchard perform Blessed Assurance in honor of Cicely Tyson, click on the video below: 

Image source: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/theater/cicely-tyson-and-blessed-assurance.html?_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&adxnnl=1&emc=edit_th_20130528&adxnnlx=1369763276-4uipPr4qYEURbYzfOo9hxw
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God's glory is the source of my life (Br. Andrew Lyons)

Life in man is the glory of God;
the life of man is the vision of God. 

--St. Irenaeus 

    [In the above statement,] Irenaeus is not saying that my life should be a source of God’s glory; he’s saying that God’s glory is the very source of my life… [When] I [first] read it, [I] thought of how I could reveal God to others through my life, but Irenaeus was trying to make me think of how God’s revelation of himself to me is my very life. In short, I thought the quote was about me; it was really about God. 

    Irenaeus [is expressing] the fundamental conviction that man comes to life when he knows God. We pray and study in order to know God, and we preach so that others also might know him. Knowing God must come first—everything else, everything that we do, comes second. 

    We still need to hear this truth today. Human nature hasn’t changed—even a devout Christian still thinks first of himself, of what he can do to glorify God. Although this is a good and holy desire, placing it first can be dangerous—it draws our eyes on ourselves rather than on God. [Instead, let us put] first what ought to be first: the contemplation of Truth, the “vision of God.” 

--Br. Andrew Lyons, O.P. 

Image source: Theophanes the Greek, The Transfiguration, detail (15th century), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Transfiguration#/media/File:Transfiguration_by_Feofan_Grek_from_Spaso-Preobrazhensky_Cathedral_in_Pereslavl-Zalessky_(15th_c,_Tretyakov_gallery).jpeg
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To be grateful for all of our lives (G.K. Chesterton / Henri Nouwen)

I would maintain that thanks are
the highest form of thought;
and that gratitude is happiness
doubled by wonder.

 --G. K. Chesterton

    To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives -- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections -- that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. 

    Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://medium.com/refresh-the-soul/the-silent-artistry-of-gratitude-finding-wonder-in-everyday-life-fc1ab823e4ba
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Render unto God what is God's (Pope Francis)

    [In today’s Gospel,] Jesus concludes: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (cf. vv. 19-21). On the one hand, suggesting they return to the emperor what belongs to him, Jesus declares that paying tax is not an act of idolatry, but a legal obligation to the earthly authority; on the other — and it is here that Jesus presents the “thrust” of his response: recalling the primacy of God, he asks them to render to Him that which is His due as the Lord of the life and history of mankind. 

    The reference to Caesar’s image engraved on the coin says that it is right that they feel fully — with rights and duties — citizens of the State; but symbolically it makes them think about the other image that is imprinted on every man and woman: the image of God. He is the Lord of all, and we, who were created “in his image” belong to Him first and foremost. From the question posed to him by the Pharisees, Jesus draws a more radical and vital question for each of us, a question we can ask ourselves: to whom do I belong? To family, to the city, to friends, to work, to politics, to the State? Yes, of course. But first and foremost — Jesus reminds us — you belong to God. This is the fundamental belonging. It is He who has given you all that you are and have. And therefore, day by day, we can and must live our life in recognition of this fundamental belonging and in heartfelt gratitude toward our Father, who creates each one of us individually, unrepeatable, but always according to the image of his beloved Son, Jesus. It is a wondrous mystery. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source: https://new.coinsweekly.com/antike/the-four-coins-jesus-knew/
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Gratitude (John Ortberg)

    Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift that liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation. 

--John Ortberg      

Image source: The Samaritan woman’s gratitude at Jesus’ gift of salvation, https://margmowczko.com/everything-i-ever-did-john-4/ 

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Our lives must be acts of praise and gratitude (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Our lives must be acts of praise and gratitude to the Creator. 

    Such obligations would indeed be burdensome and dehumanizing if they proceeded from a competitive and needy supreme being, but since they come from the one who cannot compete with us and who stands in need of nothing, they are in fact liberating. The gratitude that we offer to the true God is not absorbed by God but rather breaks against the rock of the divine self-sufficiency, redounding to our benefit. 

    In one of the prefaces to the Eucharistic prayer in the Roman rite of the Mass, we find this remarkable observation directed toward God: “You have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift, since our praises add nothing to your greatness but profit us for salvation.” 

    It is precisely because God has no need of our praise that our act of gratitude is a gift; it is precisely because God’s plenitude cannot be increased that our prayer intensifies rather than compromises our participation in the loop of grace. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: Noah in the ark as the dove returns, from the Catacomb of St. Peter, ca. 2-4 B.C., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah#/media/File:Noah_catacombe.jpg
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 18, 2026: Give the Lord glory and honor!

Give the Lord glory and honor!
Are we ready to give God thanks, always? 

    When the Lord God empowers Cyrus, King of Persia, to send the people of Israel home from exile with the wherewithal to rebuild, the people are meant to understand that God is at work through Cyrus, even if Cyrus himself is unaware of this. I am the Lord and there is no other, God announces through the prophet Isaiah. God is at work even when we ourselves are not doing God’s work. This is why we have hope: because God is at work and so we do not despair. Rather, all are to give the Lord glory and honor, as Psalm 96 reminds us, singing a new song that speaks of God’s wondrous deeds to all nations. 

    In Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees are still blind to all that God is doing in their midst, and so they go off and plot how they might entrap Jesus in speech. But their plan is faulty. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? they ask him. Their thought is that, if Jesus says they should pay the census tax, he would be seen as supporting their oppressor, Rome, whereas if he says they should not pay the census tax, the Roman authorities could arrest him. Instead of responding immediately, Jesus asks them to show him the coin that pays the census tax. The very fact that the Pharisees can readily produce such a coin in itself condemns them. Yet Jesus simply says, Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God. And what is it that we owe God? Glory and praise! Jesus is calling upon the Pharisees to open their eyes, their ears, and their heart so that they can see what God is doing right in their midst, and give praise. 

    The greeting of Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians demonstrates quite clearly the praise that Paul knows is due to God: We give thanks to God always for all of you, Paul says. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy can be with the Thessalonians in spirit, supporting them in their prayers, unceasingly calling to mind the Thessalonians’ work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ. To endure in hope is to continue to follow the gospel even though you are not yet experiencing it in its fullness, allowing God to dwell in you and to work in you. In so doing, the Thessalonians praise God, and so should we, allowing God to continue to speak to us, that our relationship with God might form and deepen over time, hearing the Word and living the gospel with our hearts and with our lives, in praise! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Come to the wedding! (St. Thomas Aquinas / Pope Francis)

Nothing created has ever been able
to fill the heart of man.
God alone can fill it infinitely.

 --St. Thomas Aquinas

    To return to the king’s command in the parable, the servants are told not only to “go”, but also to “invite”: “Come to the wedding!” (Mt 22:4). Here we can see another, no less important, aspect of the mission entrusted by God. As we can imagine, the servants conveyed the king’s invitation with urgency but also with great respect and kindness. In the same way, the mission of bringing the Gospel to every creature must necessarily imitate the same “style” of the One who is being preached. 

 --Pope Francis

Image source: Andrey. N. Mironov, Parable of the Wedding Feast (2014). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parable_of_the_Wedding_Feast.jpg
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Your soul unites with mine (St. Edith Stein)

I can do all things in him who strengthens me.

--Philippians 4:13

Full of love, you sink your gaze into mine
And bend your ear to my quiet words
And deeply fill my heart with peace. 

Yet your love is not satisfied
With this exchange that could still lead to separation:
Your heart requires more. 

You come to me as early morning's meal each daybreak.
Your flesh and blood become food and drink for me
And something wonderful happens. 

Your body mysteriously permeates mine
And your soul unites with mine:
I am no longer what once I was. 

--St. Edith Stein,
scholar and nun
who was killed at Auschwitz

Image source: https://wherethewind.com/2021/02/15/the-loving-gaze-of-god/
Quotation source & full prayer

How do you live in a dangerous world? (Rabbi Harold Kuschner)

    The twenty-third Psalm [states]: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” 

    The psalmist is not saying, “I will fear no evil because evil only happens to people who deserve it.” He’s saying, “This is a scary, out-of-control world, but it doesn’t scare me, because I know that God is on my side, not on the side of the hijacker. God is on my side, not on the side of the illness, or the accident, or the terrible thing that happened. 

    And that’s enough to give me the confidence.” The twenty-third Psalm is the answer to the question, “How do you live in a dangerous, unpredictable, frightening world?” 

--Rabbi Harold Kuschner

Image source: https://nypost.com/2014/05/25/three-young-men-survive-horrific-car-crash/
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Donning the wedding garment of love (St. Augustine / Bishop Robert Barron)

God is always trying to give good things to us,
but our hands are too full to receive them.

--St. Augustine

    [Matthew’s] Gospel likens the kingdom of God to a king who gives a wedding feast for his son. The biblical authors couldn’t find a more apt metaphor for the coming together of divinity and humanity than a wedding banquet. God and humanity are married, and they are surrounded by joy, peace, celebration, and good food. 

    What was Jesus’ strategy? Open table-fellowship; outreach to all, to the righteous and the unrighteous, to the healthy and the sick, to the mainstream and the marginalized. Here comes everybody. You don’t have to be good to receive God’s grace; that’s why they call it “grace.” 

    But then something puzzling emerges. When the king comes to welcome his guests, he finds someone not properly dressed: “The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’” It was customary at the time (as it still is) for people to come to a wedding dressed up. 

    The play here is between grace and works. We can refuse the invitation altogether, or we can refuse the transformation that should follow from grace. We have to cooperate with grace, donning the wedding garment of love, forgiveness, peace, and nonviolence. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: https://sparkleinpink.com/products/red-sequin-hearts-dress?srsltid=AfmBOopU3xCkYf9vAKPpty0Xo0e79l69uuoboK_DwpCDQ5w3ltu0vEj3
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The hope of the Gospel is meant for all peoples (Pope Leo XIV)

   The hope of the Gospel is meant for all peoples, for such is the breadth of God’s heart and the abundance of his harvest. Indeed, God continues to work in the world so that all his children may experience his love and be saved. 

--Pope Leo XIV 

Image source: https://www.humandevelopment.va/en/eventi/2023/hope-for-the-earth-hope-for-humanity.html 
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No one is left out (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

How do you have a victory banquet
when everyone is invited?
 It’s a victory because everyone is invited.
 No one is left out.

--Fr. Patrick Michael,
Homily, December 6, 2023
(Funeral Mass for Mary Cosgrave)

    What is it we have to celebrate? 

    The people of Israel saw a victory over their enemies as something to celebrate. When they could see their enemies – who had threatened their way of life, threatened their peace, threatened their way of being – crushed, they were grateful to their God for having crushed them. 

    When Isaiah says that the web that is woven over all people, the veil that veils all people, would be removed, and then he says, He will destroy death forever, I’m not sure death is the veil. Fear of death is the veil. Fear is what keeps us from seeing the Lord’s hand at work in our everyday life, because it sends our focus somewhere else when we worry and we fret and we are disturbed by many things… 

    We may have lots of things to be worried about, lots of things to fret about. If you get the New York Times notifications on your phone, you will be sent all sorts of reasons to worry twenty or twenty-five times during the day. It’s not the handiest service from that standpoint, and you could focus on what the New York Times is concerned about, or you could focus here, on what you’re living, on what God is doing right now, what God is unfolding in our lives that will help remove the veil, help destroy the web that hangs over us, that blinds us. 

    We gather here to celebrate at a Eucharistic banquet. It foreshadows the banquet of eternity when we are one with him. Perhaps we just have to learn how to not use the veil or the web, but to see past it, and to find everything there is to celebrate in a day for what God is doing for us. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, December 4, 2024

Image source: Studio Tomás Saraeno (Berlin), spider web (one of the artist’s main sources of inspiration), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/t-magazine/tomas-saraceno-spiders-shed.html

Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 12, 2026: A feast of rich food and choice wines...

A feast of rich food and choice wines…
 God’s gifts are abundant and meant for all --
 do we come with the right disposition to receive them? 

    Jesus’ challenge of the chief priests and elders continues in Matthew’s Gospel this week with the parable of the wedding feast. When a king gives a wedding feast for his son and some ignore the invitation while others mistreat and even kill the king’s servants, the king says to his remaining servants, Go out into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find. God’s salvation, Jesus is suggesting, is for all, no matter their origin, so long as their wedding garment – that is, the depth of their investment in relationship with the Lord – is intact. 

    The universality of God’s gift of salvation can also be seen in Isaiah: On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, the prophet announces. Isaiah is speaking of a victory banquet, but an unusual one: usually, a victory implies one victor, but here all will be drawn to God. Christians read this text as a prophecy of what God will do in salvation history. Jesus’ death on the cross will destroy death, the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations. Moreover, God’s banquet gives life, as both Isaiah and Psalm 23 affirm: You spread the table before me; my cup overflows. So let us be glad that he has saved us! 

    Paul knows the abundance of God’s gifts in his own life and therefore can reassure the Philippians that God will fully supply whatever you need. No matter the circumstances – poverty or abundance – all are invited to find glorious riches in Christ Jesus, whose kingdom is present here and now, waiting for us to enter and participate… so long as Christ remains the source of our union and our hope! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Puffed up with self-importance (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Jesus offers to free us from the burden of our pride. 

    What is it that makes our lives heavy and weighed down? Precisely the burden of our own egos, the weight of one’s own self. When I am puffing myself up with my own self-importance, I’m laboring under all that weight. Jesus is saying, “Become a child. Take that weight off your shoulders and put on the weight of my yoke, the yoke of my obedience to the Father.” 

    Anthony de Mello proposed the following parable to describe us prideful souls. A group of people sit on a bus that is passing through the most glorious countryside, but they have the shades pulled down on all the windows and are bickering about who gets front seat on the bus. This is the burden of pride: preferring the narrow and stuffy confines of the bus to the beauty that is effortlessly available all around. This, of course, is why Jesus can say, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” What the Lord proposes is not a freedom from suffering but, what is much more important, a freedom from the self. 

--Bishop Robert Barron
 

Image source 1: https://www.facebook.com/WildBeyonds/posts/-the-bird-that-breathes-like-a-balloonthis-isnt-photoshopthis-is-the-english-pou/122236944704215393/
Image source 2: https://medium.com/the-observer-is-the-observed/youre-either-on-the-bus-or-off-the-bus-6054c3d457b5
Quotation source

Seeking the path that is ours (St. Francis of Assisi / Pope Leo XIV)

There are beautiful wild forces within us.
Let them turn the mills inside
and fill sacks that feed even heaven.

--St. Francis of Assisi

   We are all pilgrims and we are always pilgrims, walking as we seek to follow the Lord, and as we seek the path that is truly ours in life. 

    That’s certainly not easy, but with the help of the Lord, the intercession of the saints, and by encouraging one another, you can be certain that, as long as you remain faithful, trusting always in God’s mercy, the experience of this pilgrimage will continue to bear fruit throughout your lives. 

--Pope Leo XIV 

Image source: David Frampton, St. Francis of Assisi, https://www.patmora.com/october-4-feast-st-francis-assisi/
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Openness to awe and wonder (Pope Francis)

     If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. 

    By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled. 

--Pope Francis,
Laudato Si

Image source 1: Timothy Schmalz, St. Francis Embracing the World (2026), https://sfarch.org/sculpture-unveiled-on-cathedral-plaza-honors-special-year-of-saint-francis-of-assisi/  
Image source 2: St. Francis of Assisi, Stella Niagara Education and Retreat Center, https://www.facebook.com/groups/507562226004694/posts/1974466265980942/
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Seeing God in everything (Molly Hartle)

    One of the first things that comes to mind when people think of St. Francis of Assisi is “The Prayer of St. Francis,” which starts “Lord make me an instrument of thy peace.” And yet the origins of this prayer have only been traced back to the early twentieth century, nearly seven hundred years after St. Francis’ death in 1226. 

    While there is nothing inherently wrong with the association, I think we sometimes overlook the prayers he did write. Among these prayers was “The Canticle of the Sun.” In it, St. Francis acknowledges all of nature as members of God’s extended family including, Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Mother Earth, and even Sister Death. 

    St. Francis is indeed famous for his simple and peaceful ways. But perhaps his greater contribution was a profound humility that not only saw the face of God in the most marginalized people, but also in all of nature. Bruce Davis, the author of “Simple Peace: The Spiritual Life of St. Francis of Assisi,” writes “The trees, rocks, birds, animals—all of the life that was unimportant to others, was important to Francis.” 

    In the latter part of today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks to the very people who have fallen under the Jewish elite’s perfectionistic adherence to Mosaic law — all those who “labor and are burdened.” Jesus offers them a simple, inclusive faith that doesn’t require an education. Perhaps this is what he means when he says, “my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” Here, Jesus opens the door for anybody and everybody to follow him, even those people who lack an education, social standing, and money. He himself was born into poverty, was unable to read and write, and had little to no standing in society. 

    What a contrast to the birth of the man we know as St. Francis today. Born to wealthy parents in 1181 in Assisi, Italy, Francis possessed all those things, including a good education, plenty of money and a secure future as the son of a merchant. However, at a relatively young age — 25 —Francis formerly renounced his inheritance and became poor for the purpose of drawing closer to God. In Davis’ words, “While most people were fearful of having too little, Francis found in his simplicity more and more joy.” 

    Francis saw God in everything. One day, when riding through the countryside on his horse he came upon a leper begging for alms. Initially filled with disgust, he intended to continue riding. But he ended up dismounting and kissing the leper instead; for in that moment, Francis believed he had seen the face of God. Nor was Francis’ love confined to humans. This was a man who made no distinction between the people he ministered to and the birds in the trees; rather, he simply saw everything as a part of God’s creation. 

    Paul Gallico’s “The Small Miracle,” a little boy—Pepino—seeks papal permission to bring his sick donkey into the tomb of St. Francis’ in Assisi for healing. Predictably, he encounters quite a few roadblocks including, clerical outrage in his hometown of Assisi; a treacherous foot journey to Rome; and difficulty securing an audience with the pope. 

    But through it all, Pepino stays close to both his love of his donkey and of God. And, in the end, he perseveres: Not only does he get the permission he needs, but he also receives help from the stonemasons who remove a portion of the church walls so that the donkey can enter the crypt. The story ends with the stonemasons finding a box of St. Francis’ things, while the boy and the donkey disappear through the illuminated opening of St. Francis’ tomb. 

    St. Francis of Assisi calls on us to be humble, radically inclusive, and peaceful. But mostly he calls on us to love God with all our heart, abandoning ourselves to the beauty of that love, like a boy’s love for his sick donkey. 

--Molly Hartle,
OLMC Communion Service,
October 4, 2022

Image source: Cover of Paul Gallico’s The Small Miracle, https://www.amazon.com/Small-Miracle-Paul-Gallico/dp/9997550994

In the kingdom of love (John O'Donohue)

     There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. 

     In the kingdom of love there is no competition, there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have. 

--John O’Donohue,

Anam Cara

Image source: John August Swanson, Francis of Assisi, https://johnaugustswanson.com/catalog/francis-of-assisi-giclee/?srsltid=AfmBOooGU3wYbg1tgtLcpC9iV6JLJpIia97VoeVw3V5Gf4CX3B1PMIIo

Invited to praise God (Friar Thomas of Celano)

    When Saint Francis came upon a quantity of flowers, he would preach to them and invite them to praise God, just as if they had the ability to reason. He would also speak to cornfields and vineyards, stones, woods, and every beauty of the land in this way. He would experience the elements of earth, air, fire, and water with gratitude. He understood that they all willingly served God. 

    In short, he called all creatures by the name brother or sister. He saw hidden things of creation with the eye of compassion. For, in his own way, he had escaped back into the wondrous freedom of childhood. 

—Friar Thomas of Celano,
The First Life of St. Francis (ca. 1229)

Image source: https://thesophiacenterforspirituality.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/in-praise-of-creation/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 4, 2026: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened...

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened…
How do we come before the Lord? 

    In the case of St. Francis of Assisi, the Patron of San Francisco whose solemnity we celebrate this weekend, the answer was straightforward. Unlike Israel, whom God has put on trial for their infidelity in the Book of the Prophet Micah, Francis knew that he should come before the Lord, and bow before God most high with humility and virtue. As Micah tells the people: You have been told, O mortal, what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice and to love goodness and to walk humbly with your God. Francis let go of all he possessed in order to walk humbly with God, in order to understand all that God was calling him to. 

    St. Francis was able to, in the words of Psalm 16, say to the Lord, my Lord are you; you are my only good. The psalmist celebrates the fact that God and his rule over mankind are more important than any other inheritance. God counsels him, leads him, and cares for him; even in the night the psalmist’s heart exhorts him, urging him forward, toward God, that God might show him the path to life, abounding joy in God’s presence. Francis of Assisi found his joy in the Lord, as, on our best days, do we. 

    Yet St. Francis was not without suffering. Like Paul, whose scars spoke to the Galatians of his participation in Jesus’ suffering, Francis bore the marks of Jesus on his body in the form of the stigmata. Such marks proclaimed that Francis found his identity in Christ: the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world, as Paul writes. In the cross, Francis found salvation. 

   In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to those who have accepted his revelation of God’s love in the world: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Unlike the yoke of the law that burdens the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus’ yoke allows Jesus to bear the weight of our struggles with us, walking beside us, guiding us along right paths. The Son of God, meek and humble of heart, was Francis’ invitation to become the vehicle by which God’s message would be transmitted to the world. Unlike the wise and learned who rejected Jesus, Francis saw himself as a humble instrument of God, obedient not out of fear but out of choice, full of faith in the Savior who died for him, and ready to live the message of Jesus’ love for the world with the whole of his being. 

    We come before Jesus laboring and heavily burdened, but, like our patron St. Francis of Assisi, we come with open hearts, ready to receive the revelation as ones to whom the Son wishes to reveal the Father. May we do so in humble obedience, accepting the Lord’s peace and mercy as we follow his rule, conforming our life to Christ’s. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com