September 7, 2025
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 129
Reading 1
Who can know God’s counsel,
or who can conceive what the LORD intends?
For the deliberations of mortals are timid,
and unsure are our plans.
For the corruptible body burdens the soul
and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.
And scarce do we guess the things on earth,
and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty;
but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?
Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from on high?
And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm
90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17
R. (1) In every age, O Lord, you have been our
refuge.
You turn man back to dust,
saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are as yesterday, now that it is past,
or as a watch of the night.
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
You make an end of them in their sleep;
the next morning they are like the changing grass,
Which at dawn springs up anew,
but by evening wilts and fades.
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper the work of our hands!
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Reading 2
I, Paul, an old man,
and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus,
urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus,
whose father I have become in my imprisonment;
I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.
I should have liked to retain him for myself,
so that he might serve me on your behalf
in my imprisonment for the gospel,
but I did not want to do anything without your consent,
so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.
Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while,
that you might have him back forever,
no longer as a slave
but more than a slave, a brother,
beloved especially to me, but even more so to you,
as a man and in the Lord.
So if you regard me as a partner, welcome him as you would me.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Let your face shine upon your servant;
and teach me your laws.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and he turned and addressed them,
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?
Otherwise, after laying the foundation
and finding himself unable to finish the work
the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
and decide whether with ten thousand troops
he can successfully oppose another king
advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
But if not, while he is still far away,
he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
In the same way,
anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090725.cfm
Commentary on Wisdom
9:13-18; Philemon 9-10,12-17; Luke 14:25-33
Today’s Gospel begins with this statement about Jesus:
Now large crowds were traveling with him…
Many of our famous personalities today feed off the
adulation of the crowds. They may be presidential candidates, pop stars, film
personalities or sports champions. They are mobbed when they appear in public
and people remain glued to their television screens as they perform. Popularity
with the fickle public is an important element of their ‘success’. Once they
begin to lose the crowds they know they are on the way down and out.
During his public life, Jesus had some of the star quality
that we recognise in personalities who capture the public’s imagination. In a
world that was much simpler than ours, Jesus must have been a kind of sensation
in otherwise drab, dreary and sometimes poverty-ridden lives. Stories must have
spread around like wildfire about the healings he had performed and there was
that extraordinary occasion when no less than 5,000 men (not including women
and children) were fed to satiety.
Sensation seekers
In the parable immediately preceding today’s Gospel passage, Jesus spoke of
those who had been invited to the banquet of his Kingdom making all kinds of
excuses not to come. Instead, said Jesus, people would be called in from all
“the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the
blind, and the lame” to come and fill the unoccupied places. (The implication
is that many of Jesus’ own people had rejected his invitation to be his
disciples so he would reach out to the despised and sinful pagans.)
It is implied that the crowds following Jesus were sensation
seekers. They were out to get something from Jesus, not altogether unlike some
of those who today converge in large numbers wherever some modern ‘miracle’ or
‘apparition’ has been reported. And, indeed, how many of us look on God or
Jesus as someone to turn to when we want something we cannot get ourselves?
Challenging words
With the people in today’s Gospel, Jesus suddenly stops in his tracks. He turns
round and says words that were quite shocking to his hearers and sound pretty
harsh to us too:
Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be
my disciple.
The Jews, like a number of other ethnic communities, are
recognised for their close family ties. What are we to make of such an
extraordinary statement? And surely we have an incomprehensible contradiction
here. Jesus, who tells us to love our enemies, now tells us to hate our nearest
and dearest! Is this the same Jesus who cured the mother-in-law of Peter? Is he
the same Jesus who told the story of the Good Samaritan? Could he be the same
Jesus who enjoyed the hospitality of his good friends, Mary and Martha?
Most radical
Of all the Gospels, Luke’s presents the following of Jesus in the most radical
terms. In following Jesus, we have to go with him the whole way. We have to
accept totally his way of seeing life and then put that into practice in the
way we live. There cannot be, as is the case with practically all of us, a kind
of wishy-washy compromise, trying to have our cake and eat it.
I suppose the majority of us follow a lifestyle largely
dictated by the surrounding culture. Our goals may be the goals of that culture
and, somewhere on the side, we try to fit in some aspects of Christian living.
In most of our modern, urban societies that lifestyle is for the most part
competitive, consumerist and materialistic. We would not want our Christianity
to get in the way of that. But it is precisely to people like us that Jesus is
speaking.
Not to be taken literally
It is quite obvious from the overall context of Luke’s Gospel that Jesus could
not mean us literally to hate our parents, brothers and sisters. Nor does Jesus
literally mean us to hate our own lives. People who feel that way effectively
commit suicide. (Hate and the anger and violence that hate produces are the
product of fear.) On the contrary we are called to have love and compassion for
every single person, irrespective of who they are or what their relationship
may be to us. True love casts out fear. What Jesus is saying today is putting
in another way what we have already seen in discussing other passages, such as,
the story of the Good Samaritan and the Lord’s Prayer. Namely, those who are
truly disciples of Jesus recognise that, as children of one God, we all belong
to one family, that we are all brothers and sisters to each
other.
We are therefore bound to love our close family members—but
not only them. If we find, for instance, the wants of family members are being
put before the genuine needs of others, then we are acting unjustly towards
members of our wider family. In not recognising those other brothers and
sisters, we fail in being disciples of Jesus:
Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the
least of these, you did not do it to me. (Matt 25:45)
That immigrant, that homeless person is my brother or
sister. That waiter in the cafe, that streetwalker is my sister. I owe them my
love and care. I may, in fact, in certain circumstances owe them more love in
action than my own family needs.
“My family—right or wrong”, or “My country—right or wrong”
can never be the slogan of the disciple of Christ. And so, there may be
times—and they can be painful experiences—when we would have to reject family
members who want us to join them in behaviour that is harmful, unjust or
unloving to others. We cannot support family members who cheat in business; we
cannot support family members who practise racism or other forms of
discrimination. To do so would not be really loving them. On the contrary, we
would show our concern for their well-being precisely by opposing any immoral
behaviour.
Loving our family
While saying all this, we might also draw attention to another common, but
unfortunate, phenomenon. For there are those who have become totally or partly
alienated from their own family. They will do anything for others, but nothing
for their own flesh and blood. Quite obviously, such behaviour is as much against
the Gospel as making one’s family the beginning and end of all living. That is
certainly a kind of hate that Jesus is not promoting.
To sum up, as true followers of Jesus, we enter a new family
where we recognise every person as a brother or sister. Family members are
obviously included, but so are others. There are times when the needs of others
precede family concerns.
At the same time, ‘Charity begins at home’—this is very
true—and, in our day, there may be little love in the home. But charity does
not end at home; it is constantly reaching out. Sometimes we have to challenge
the wishes and expectations of our family. A boy wants to be a priest, a girl
to be a sister; one decides on a career of service rather than one that wins
prestige and money. In contrast, one refuses to condone immoral behaviour in
business or sexual abuse.
A good example
The kind of love Jesus speaks about is described beautifully by Paul in today’s
extract from the Letter to Philemon (the shortest of Paul’s letters and the
shortest book in the New Testament). He is writing to his friend Philemon
asking him to take back a slave who had apparently done something wrong, but
who, under Paul’s influence, had become a Christian. Paul speaks with the
greatest affection of this young man:
…whose father I have become during my imprisonment.
Of the boy, Paul says:
I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.
Paul asks Philemon to treat the young man, Onesimus:
…no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved
brother…welcome him as you would welcome me.
This is a call for forgiveness. Onesimus may well have done
wrong, but it is clear that, with his conversion, he is now a changed person
who can be trusted and relied on. Even more, as a Christian, he is in a special
way a brother to his owner, Philemon.
Hating our own life
We have yet to comment on the phrase about hating “even life itself”, i.e. our
own life. This is just an extension of the earlier part. Jesus wants our lives
to be lived in total truth and love. Our lives are not to be determined and
manipulated by attachments, desires, ambitions or fears and anxieties which can
become very much part of ourselves. We are to live in total freedom:
Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be
my disciple.
It is the ability to let go, even of health and life itself.
Any aspect of a person or any thing that lessens that freedom to follow truth
and love is to be ‘hated’ and transcended.
Are we ready for that? That is the meaning of the two
parables, which Jesus gives as illustration. “Large crowds” were following
Jesus with enthusiasm, but were they ready? Did they realise what it really
meant? If not, they are like a general who goes out to war totally unprepared
to deal with the opposing side. They are like a man who started out to build a
tower and then ran out of funds or material, and he becomes a laughing stock.
If we try to walk on the Way with Jesus without being aware
of what is involved, we will not exactly become a laughing stock (there will be
so many people with us!). However, we will miss the joy and happiness of a
totally fulfilled life that Jesus—despite the apparently negative language of
today’s Gospel—is holding out to us.
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Sunday,
September 7, 2025
Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Shaddai, God of the mountain, You who
make of our fragile life the rock of your dwelling place, lead our mind to
strike the rock of the desert, so that water may gush to quench our thirst. May
the poverty of our feelings
cover us as with a mantle in the
darkness of the night and may it open our heart to hear the echo of silence
until the dawn,
wrapping us with the light of the new morning, may bring us,
with the spent embers of the fire of
the shepherds of the Absolute who have kept vigil for us close to the divine
Master, the flavor of the holy memory.
LECTIO
The Gospel Text – Luke 14: 25-33
25 Now great multitudes
accompanied him; and he turned and said to them, 26 "If any one comes to
me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and
brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and
count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has
laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,
30 saying, 'This man began to build, and was not able to finish.' 31 Or what
king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take
counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him
with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he
sends an embassy and asks terms of peace. 33 So therefore, whoever of you does
not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
A Moment of Silence:
Let us allow the voice of the Word to resonate within
us.
MEDITATIO
Some Questions:
•
If any man comes to me without hating, he cannot
be my disciple: Are we convinced that we must get to the point of separating
ourselves from all that ties our hearts: affection received and given, life
itself, in order to follow Jesus?
•
Anyone who does not carry his cross and come
after me cannot be my disciple: Do I possess the logic of the cross, that is,
the logic of love freely given?
•
The means to fulfil this: does my capability to
think inform my life of faith or is it just an interior impulse that dissolves
with time and slips by the events of my daily life?
•
To avoid having onlookers make fun of something
started: does the reward of someone who started to follow the Lord and then did
not have the human resources to go on, that is, derision for inability, apply
to me?
•
None of you can be my disciple unless he gives
up all his possessions: am I convinced that the key to discipleship is the
poverty of non-possession and the beatitude of belonging? A Key to the Reading:
We are among those who follow
Jesus, with all our baggage of the past. One among so many, our name can be
lost. But when He turns around and his word strikes the pain of the ties that
strongly bind the pieces of our life, questions roll in the most
ancient valley of echoes and one single humble reply
comes forth from the ruins of unfinished edifices: Lord, to whom shall we go?
You alone have the words of eternal life.
•
v.
25-26: Great crowds accompanied him
on his way and he turned and spoke to them:
«If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother,
wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my
disciple.” The Lord is not interested in counting those who come to him. His
words are strong and are free of all illusion. Is there anyone who does not
know what it means to hate? If I hate a person, I stay away from that person.
This choice between the Lord and affection for parents is the first demand of
discipleship. To learn from Christ, it is necessary to find once more the
nucleus of every love and interest. The love of a follower of the Lord is not a
possessive love, but a love of freedom. To follow someone without any
guarantees such as blood relationship can give, namely, family ties and one’s
own blood, that is, one’s life, is discipleship, a place where life is born of
divine Wisdom.
•
v. 27: Anyone who does not carry his cross and come
after me cannot be my disciple. The only tie that helps us follow Jesus is the
cross. This symbol of love that cannot be taken back, capable of being word
even when the world silences everything by condemnation and death, is the
lesson of the Rabbi born in the smallest village in Judea.
•
v.
28: Which of you here, intending to
build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had
enough to complete it? To build a tower requires a large sum for someone who
has limited resources. A good intention to build is not enough, it is necessary
to sit down, calculate expenses, seek the means to bring the project to
completion. Man’s life is incomplete and unsatisfied because the larger the
project the larger the debt! A project made to measure: not to know how to
calculate what is within our means to accomplish is not the wisdom of those who
after having ploughed wait for the rain, but the lack of awareness of those to
expect flowers and harvest from seed thrown among stones and brambles, without
making the effort to loosen the soil.
•
v. 29-30:
Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to
finish the work, the onlookers would all start making fun of him and saying:
“Here is a man who started to build and was unable to finish.” The derision of
others which grates like sand on one’s the feelings of hope of the person who
wanted to reach high on his own, is the reward of one’s own arrogance clothed
in good will. How many humiliations do we not carry with us, but what little
fruit do we reap from these painful experiences! Putting down foundations and
then not finish the building is useless. Shattered desires sometimes are good
tutors to our naïve self-affirmation… but we fail to understand them so long as
we try to cover up our failures and the delusion of our waking up from the
fairytale world of the dreams of our childhood.
Yes, Jesus does tell us to become childlike, but a child
will never pretend to build a “real” tower! The child will be happy with a
small tower on the beach, because he/she knows well his/her capacity.
•
vv.
31-32: Or, again, what king marching
to war against another king would not first sit down an consider whether with
ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who advanced against him with
twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he
would send envoys to sue for peace. No one can win a war without first sending
envoys of peace. To fight for royal supremacy over every other is in itself a
lost battle, because man is not called to be a ruling king, but the lord of
peace. Approaching the other while still a long way away is the most beautiful
sign of victory where no one wins and no one loses, but all become servants of
the one true sovereignty in the world: peace and fullness of the gifts of God.
•
v. 33: So,
in the same way, none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up all his
possessions. If we examine the capital sins, we shall discover them in the
manner of possessing that Jesus speaks of. A person who bases his/her life on
possessions is a dissolute person who pretends having power over all things
(pride), enjoying a life of pleasure (lust) going beyond the limits as a
personal right (anger), being hungry for material goods (gluttony), stealing
from others (envy), keeping things for him/herself (avarice), spoiling
him/herself apathetically without committing to anything (sloth). The disciple,
on the other hand, travels on the rails of the living virtues of the gifts of
the Spirit: he/she is a person who has a sense of the things of God (wisdom)
and shares it without keeping it to him/herself, and delves deep into the
essential meaning of all that is Life (knowledge), who listens to the voice of
the Spirit (counsel), and reflects on every discernment (counsel), who allows
him/herself to be protected by the limitations of his/her being (fortitude) and
does not give in to the allurement of sin, who knows the secrets of history
(knowledge) to build horizons of goodness, who does not take unto him/herself
the right of making sense, but who welcomes the source of divine intervention
(piety) who springs from the abyss of silence and is thankful for the marvels
of grace of his Creator (fear of God) without being afraid of his/her
smallness. Thus, a disciple is another Jesus.
Reflection:
Our hearts are nets made of chain. We have ties of tenderness
and gratitude, ties of love and dependence, endless ties with everything that
touches our feelings. Jesus speaks of ties of consanguinity: father, mother,
wife, children, brothers, sisters, and of ties with life itself which in the
Semitic mentality is symbolized by blood. But the heart must be free of these
ties in order to go to Him and create a new tie that gives life because it
gives the person freedom to be his/her authentic self. Every disciple has but
one task: to learn and not to depend. Blood ties create dependence: how often
does affective blackmail stop people from building the tower of their
existence? How often do the words: If you love me, do this! Or: If you love me,
do not do this…? Life itself can imprison you when it ties you to that which
does not suit you physically or mentally thus influencing your complicated
story, or when it ties you to that which you choose haphazardly by a will made
weak by a thousand grids of events and blackmail. The cross does not tie, it
urges that all that you have may be shed, blood and water, even to the last
drop: your whole life as a gift that does not expect any reward. To belong rather
than to possess is the secret of the gratuitous love of the Master and of the
disciple. Anyone who follows Jesus is not just any disciple who learns a
doctrine, but is one who becomes a beloved disciple, capable of narrating the
wonders of God when the fire of the Spirit will turn him/her into a flame on
the candlestick of the world.
ORATIO
Psalm 22
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green
pastures. He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they
comfort me.
Thou prepares a table before me
in the presence of my enemies; thou anoints my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
CONTEMPLATIO
Lord, as you turn around and look at me, your
words go through my mind and challenge me with everything that is my life. It
is as though a pair of scissors unhesitatingly but sweetly cut the umbilical
cords that nourish me to keep me going. And this certain and necessary action
restores my full breath and my freedom. Scripture says in its first pages of
the human race: Man will leave his father and mother and will go towards a new
fullness, all his, towards the unity of one person, capable of bearing fruit
and new life. But we have not grasped the key word of this magnificent project,
a word that inconveniences because it is like the waves of the sea where you
cannot let yourself go with no security, the word: movement. Life does not
stop. A love and a life received from a father and a mother. Yes, a full love,
but one that does not limit horizons. Man will leave… and will go… A man and a
woman, two in one, children who will be the face of their meeting of love, but
who tomorrow will leave to go in their turn… if you stop to grasp life, life
dies in your grasp. And with life also your unfulfilled dream dies, the dream
of a full love that is never exhausted. Lord, grant us to understand that to
love is to follow, to listen, to go, to stop, to lose oneself in order to find
oneself in a movement of freedom that fulfils every desire for eternal
possession. Let me not, for the sake of possessing a part of life, lose the joy
of belonging to life, to that divine Life that comes and goes in me for others
and from others to me to make of the days that go by waves of Freedom and of gift
from God within the limitations of each life. Grant that I may always be the
beloved disciple of your dying Life, capable of welcoming in inheritance the
sonship and guardianship, in your Spirit, of every authentic motherhood.
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