SEPTEMBER 01, 2025: MONDAY OF THE TWENTY-SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 September 1, 2025

Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 431

 

Reading 1

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
about those who have fallen asleep,
so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose,
so too will God, through Jesus,
bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord,
that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord,
will surely not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself, with a word of command,
with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God,
will come down from heaven,
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left,
will be caught up together with them in the clouds
to meet the Lord in the air.
Thus we shall always be with the Lord.
Therefore, console one another with these words.

 

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 96:1 and 3, 4-5, 11-12, 13

R. (13b) The Lord comes to judge the earth.
Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Tell his glory among the nations;
among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.
For great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
awesome is he, beyond all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are things of nought,
but the LORD made the heavens.
R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.
Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;
let the sea and what fills it resound;
let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!
Then shall all the trees of the forest exult.
R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.
Before the LORD, for he comes;
for he comes to rule the earth.
He shall rule the world with justice
and the peoples with his constancy.
R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

 

Alleluia

See Luke 4:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me;
he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

 

Gospel

Luke 4:16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll,
he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
"Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."
And all spoke highly of him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
They also asked, "Is this not the son of Joseph?"
He said to them, "Surely you will quote me this proverb,
'Physician, cure yourself,' and say, 'Do here in your native place
the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'"
And he said,
"Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you,
there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian."
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town,
and led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.
But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090125.cfm

 

Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

The early Christians, including the Thessalonians, were convinced that Jesus would return in their lifetime. They were consequently upset about the fate of their brothers and sisters who had already died. What would happen to them if they were not around to greet the Lord when he came?

So here Paul takes up the practice among the Thessalonians of mourning excessively for their dead, a reaction deriving from the stress placed by the community on their belief that the Second Coming of Christ was going to happen very soon, definitely in their lifetime. But now people were dying off before this took place: what was going to happen to them? Did they think that the dead, in accordance with Jewish and Greek belief, went to a place for the dead (Hebrew, Sheol or Greek, Hades) from which there was no escape? And so they would not be around when Jesus came to take all the Christians to himself?

The Apostle reminds them of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead in Christ. On the basis of Christ’s teaching, he affirms that the resurrection of the dead is to precede the Second Coming. Those who are alive at the time of the latter will not have the advantage over the dead of being the first witnesses to it. On the contrary, the Lord will first command the dead to rise; the living will then join them and both groups will be witnesses of the Parousia.

The doctrine spoken of here is to be remembered when there are more deaths in the community. Since Paul does not know the time of the Parousia, he aligns himself with the Thessalonians in the hope of living to that day, i.e. within the first Christian generation. In his mind such a possibility seems not to have been excluded by the teaching of Jesus himself.

That is the background, now to the reading proper. The converts in Thessalonica had obviously been worried about friends and relatives who had died and would not be there to see the coming of the Lord. Replying to their questions, Paul affirms the fundamental doctrine of the resurrection so as to strengthen their faith and hope.

Paul wants the Thessalonians to be quite certain about the fate of those who have “fallen asleep”. This euphemism for death was common in both the Old and New Testaments and in Greek literature. It was natural, then, to refer to ‘resurrection’ to new life or from death as an ‘awakening’. For the Christian, sleep is a particularly apt metaphor for death, because of its finality.

Some of the Thessalonians seem to have misunderstood the meaning of the Parousia and thought all believers would live until Christ returned. When some died, the question then arose, “Will those who have died have part in that great day?”

But, says Paul, there is no need to grieve over them, as others do who have no hope. Inscriptions on tombs and references in literature show that first-century pagans viewed death with horror, as the end of everything. The Christian attitude was in strong contrast (see 1 Cor 15:55-57; Phil 1:21-23).

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. [i.e. those who have died as Christians]

The resurrection of Jesus is absolutely essential for Christian belief in a future life. As Paul wrote to the Christians of Corinth:

…if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith is in vain…If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. (1 Cor 15:14,17-20)

Paul can also state from the Lord’s own teaching, namely, that those who are still alive when the Lord comes will not have any advantage over those who have fallen asleep, that is, who have already died. The Thessalonians had evidently been concerned that those among them who died would miss their place in the great events when the Lord came, and Paul assures them that this will not be the case. There is no exact reference in the written Gospels for this saying of Jesus. Perhaps Paul is relying here on traditions he had received from others, but which did not find their way into the Gospel texts. There must have been many such sayings.

Paul next speaks about those believers who are still alive at Christ’s Second Coming:

…we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord…

‘We’ does not necessarily mean that Paul thought he himself would be alive then. He often identified himself with those he wrote to or about. Elsewhere he says that God will raise “us” at that time (1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14). If he is including himself among those who will be present at the Parousia, it is more by hope or desire rather than by conviction.

The Apostle then gives an image of the Parousia using traditional apocalyptic imagery for a divine intervention. It is not to be taken as a literal description of an experience that is totally beyond our imagination.

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven…

The only named archangel in the Scripture is Michael (Jude 9; Dan 10:13). In Luke, Gabriel is simply called an angel, and similarly, so is Raphael in the Book of Tobit. Later tradition calls them all ‘archangels’. The ‘trumpet’, together with voice and clouds, were traditional signs that accompanied a theophany, a divine manifestation, such as that at Mount Sinai. They were later adopted as conventional elements in apocalyptic literature, as for example, in Matthew’s description of the coming of the Son of Man at the end of time (Matt 24:29).

Then, in a reassuring remark, Paul affirms that:

…the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air…

This is the only place in the New Testament where a ‘rapture’—being caught up or taken up to God—is clearly referred to. Although some hold that such experiences will be secret, Paul seems to be describing something open and public, with loud voices and a trumpet blast.

Contrary to their fears, Paul says that:

…we will be with the Lord forever.

Of all the details given here: that the dead will answer the summons by returning to life, that they and the living will be taken to meet the Lord, and that they will accompany him to the judgement with which the eternal kingdom begins, the essential one is the last—eternal life with Christ. That is the ‘salvation’, the ‘glory’, the ‘Kingdom’ that Jesus shares among his chosen followers.

And, Paul concludes:

Therefore encourage one another with these words.

The primary purpose of the whole passage is not to give a chronology of future events, though that is involved, but to above all urge the Thessalonian community to mutual encouragement.

As mentioned, it is not necessary to take the scenario here described too literally; in fact, it would be quite wrong to do so. It consists of traditional apocalyptic and scriptural language to describe the indescribable—our future life with God after our death.

Very soon in the life of the Church people began to think less and less about this problem. We need to remember that this Letter is a very early Church writing. By the time we get to the Gospels, this anxiety has passed and the concern is now about how to live in a time of uncertain and presumably lengthy or indefinite duration.

But the warnings we saw in Matthew’s Gospel last week still remain valid. The critical issue is not the when or the how of the Lord’s final coming, but the when and the how of our leaving this earth. Will I be ready? Am I ready now?

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Commentary on Luke 4:16-30

Today we begin the reading from Luke’s Gospel, which will bring us to the end of the Church year. We have already gone through Matthew’s and Mark’s, and John’s Gospel has been spread through various parts of the year, especially during the Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons.

Luke’s Gospel is a companion volume to the Acts of the Apostles, and the language and structure of these two books indicate that both were written by the same person. They are addressed to the same individual, Theophilus, and Acts refers to Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel and Acts could be considered as volume 1 and 2 of the same book.

Luke presents the works and teachings of Jesus that are especially important for understanding the way of salvation. Its scope is complete from the birth of Christ to his ascension and it appeals to both Jews and Gentiles.

Today, we take up Luke’s Gospel at the beginning of Jesus’ public life (chap 4). After his baptism by John the Baptist:

Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee…
(Luke 4:14)

As we know, Galilee is the northern province of Palestine and his home province. Already people were talking about him everywhere.

Now, as our reading opens, we find him in Nazareth, the small town in Galilee where he grew up. From the verses immediately preceding, it does not seem that Jesus actually began his ministry in Nazareth. The event described here may not have taken place until a year later. One suggestion (NIV Bible) is that all that is described in John’s Gospel between 1:19 to 4:42 took place between the temptation in the desert and the moving north to Galilee (see Luke 4:13-14).

But Luke has arranged the structure of his Gospel so that Jesus will begin his public life in Nazareth, and will gradually proceed southwards towards his goal, Jerusalem, without turning back. In the other Synoptics, he moves around Galilee in all directions, and John suggests that he made a number of visits to Jerusalem during his public life.

The Jerusalem Bible suggests that our passage today actually combines three distinct parts:

1. vv 16-22 Jesus is honoured: occurring at the time indicated by Matthew 4:13;
2. vv 23-24 Jesus astonishing his audience: the visit of which Matthew and Mark speak;
3. vv 25-30 the life of Jesus threatened: not mentioned by Matthew or Mark and to be placed towards the end of the Galilean ministry.

In this way Luke presents an introductory tableau which is a summary and symbol of Christ’s great offer and of its contemptuous rejection by his own people.

As the reading opens we find Jesus in the town synagogue. It is a Sabbath day. He gets up to read the Scripture and comments on it. The ruler of the synagogue could authorise any adult Jew to read the Scripture lesson. The passage he reads is full of significance. It comes from the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus’ reading of it amounts to a manifesto or what we might call today a ‘mission statement’. ‘Books’ in those days were in the form of scrolls, and the Scriptures were kept in a special place in the synagogue and given to the reader by an attendant. Jesus may have chosen the passage himself or it may have been assigned for that day.

But it is more than just a mission statement. As he reads, it becomes clear that the whole statement is about Jesus himself:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…

This has already been confirmed during his baptism in the river Jordan when “the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” and a voice was heard to say:

You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
(Luke 3:22)

Next Jesus, still reading from Isaiah, says:

…because he has anointed me…

In saying this, he is making an unequivocal claim to be the Messiah or the Christ, the long-awaited liberating King of Israel. The word ‘Messiah’, translated into Greek as Christos, means someone who is anointed with oil (we call the oil in baptism and confirmation ‘chrism’). And a person was made king by having oil poured over his head (remember how David was anointed king). Jesus, of course, was not literally anointed, but had been figuratively ‘anointed’ by the coming of the Spirit on him during his baptism. ‘Anointing’ is our equivalent of ‘coronation’, symbolised by the putting of a crown on the new king.

Then comes the mission of this King:

-to bring good news to the poor,
-to proclaim release to the captives,
-recovery of sight to the blind,
-to set free those who are oppressed,
-to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

There is nothing here of restoring the glories of Israel, nothing about conquering enemies and laying waste their lands. No, it is about letting the poor of this world hear the Good News of God’s love for them. It is about healing and reconciliation. It is about liberating those who are tied down by any form of enslavement. It is about helping people to see clearly the true meaning of life. It is about restoring wholeness to people’s lives and to societies. It is about the inauguration of the Kingdom by its King.

It is, in short, the whole picture of Jesus that will unfold in the pages of Luke, a Gospel which focuses on the poor and vulnerable, a Gospel of tenderness and compassion, a Gospel of the Spirit and of joy, a Gospel of prayer and healing.

It is about proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor”. This refers to the Messianic age when salvation would be proclaimed. Isaiah, in the original text, is alluding to the Year of Jubilee, when every 50 years slaves were set free, debts were cancelled and ancestral lands were returned to the original family. Isaiah was thinking mainly of freedom from Babylonian captivity, but Jesus was speaking of liberation across the board of human living.

As he finished the reading, Jesus put down the scroll and said:

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And the townspeople who thought they knew him so well were overawed by the wisdom with which he spoke. This positive reaction to Jesus is a favourite theme in Luke.

Rhetorically they asked:

Is not this Joseph’s son?

But they were wrong. He was not Joseph’s son; he was the son of Mary and of the Father, the divine Word sharing our ‘flesh’ (as suggested above, this event may have occurred on a second visit).

And this in turn leads us to the third section of the reading which provides an unexpected turn of events and is more in harmony with the later part of Jesus’ public life. Jesus’ hearers were surprised at the way he spoke, but they were not moved to change. After all, he was ‘just’ the son of Joseph, and someone they knew so well could have nothing to say to them. At the same time Jesus says they, his own townspeople, must be wondering why he is not doing the things in Nazareth that he was doing in places like Capernaum.

Capernaum, apparently a sizeable town, was where Peter lived and Jesus made his house, the centre out of which he did his missionary work in Galilee. A modern church now stands over the ruins of a 5th century basilica on the supposed site of Peter’s house and there is a 4th century synagogue nearby.

The reason for the townspeople’s non-acceptance of Jesus is that they do not really accept him for what he is. He reminds them that prophets are seldom accepted in their own place. Familiarity blinds people to their message. Their attitude was: “I know who he is and he has nothing to say to me.” Jesus then gives two rather provocative examples:

• During a great famine in the time of the prophet Elijah, Elijah was sent to help, not his fellow Israelites, but a poor widow in Zarephath, near Sidon, in non-Jewish territory. Sidon was one of the oldest Phoenician cities on the Mediterranean coast and about 33 km north of Tyre. (Later, Jesus would heal the daughter of a gentile woman here.)
• In the time of the prophet Elisha, there were many lepers in Israel, but Elisha was sent to cure Naaman, a gentile general from Syria.

God’s reaching out to Gentiles through his prophets sets the stage for the Gentiles to receive the message of the Prophet Jesus, which is so much a theme of Luke’s writings. These remarks so angered the people of Nazareth that they dragged Jesus to the brow of a hill with the intention of throwing him down, but:

…he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Whether he did this miraculously or from the sheer power of his personality is not clear. In any case, his time had not yet come.

Prophetic voices being rejected by their own is a phenomenon only too common in our own day. And it was something Jesus foretold would happen to his followers, simply for being his followers and proclaiming his vision of life. In the meantime, let us make Jesus’ mission statement our own. It is what being a Christian means.

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Monday, September 1, 2025

Opening Prayer

Almighty God, every good thing comes from You.

Fill our hearts with love for You, increase our faith, and by Your constant care protect the good you have given us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Gospel Reading - Luke 4: 16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, "Is this not the son of Joseph?" He said to them, "Surely you will quote me this proverb, 'Physician, cure yourself,' and say, 'Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'" And he said, "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

Reflection

Today we begin the meditation on the Gospel of Luke, which will extend three months until the end of the liturgical year. Today’s Gospel speaks about Jesus’ visit to Nazareth and the presentation of His program to the people of the synagogue. At first the people were amazed. But immediately, when they became aware that Jesus wanted to accept all, without excluding anyone, people rebelled and wanted to kill Him.

•           Luke 4: 16-19: The proposal of Jesus. Urged by the Holy Spirit, Jesus returns to Galilee (Lk 4: 14) and begins to announce the Good News of the Kingdom of God. He goes to the community, teaches in the Synagogue and arrives in Nazareth, where He had grown up. He was returning to the community in which He had participated since He was small and for thirty years. The following Saturday, as was the custom, Jesus went to the synagogue to participate in the celebration, and He stands up to read. He chooses the text of Isaiah which speaks about the poor, of prisoners, of the blind and the oppressed (Is 61: 1-2). This text is an image of the situation of the people of Galilee at the time of Jesus. The experience which Jesus had of God, the Father of Love, gave Him a new perspective to evaluate the reality. In the name of God, Jesus takes a stand to defend the life of His people and, with the words of Isaiah, He defines His mission: 

•           (1) to announce the Good News to the poor; 

•           (2) to proclaim liberty to captives;

•           (3) to give sight to the blind; 

•           (4) to release the oppressed, and taking the ancient tradition of the prophets;

•           (5) to proclaim “a year of grace from the Lord.” He proclaims the Jubilee Year!

•           In the Bible, the "Jubilee Year” was an important law. Every seven years, at the beginning (Dt 15: 1; Lev 25: 3) it was necessary to restore the land to the clan of origin. All had to be able to return to their own property; and this way they prevented the formation of large estates, and families were guaranteed their livelihood. It was also necessary to forgive their debts and to redeem the people who were slaves. (Dt 15: 1-18). It was not easy to have the Jubilee Year every seven years (cf. Jer 34: 8-16). After the exile, it was decided to have it every fifty years (Lev 25: 8-12). The objective of the Jubilee was and continues to be to re-establish the rights of the poor, to accept the excluded and to reintegrate them into the society to live together with others. The Jubilee was a legal instrument to return to the original sense of the Law of God. This was an occasion offered by God to make a revision of the path being followed, to discover and to correct the errors and to start again from the beginning. Jesus begins His preaching proclaiming a Jubilee: “A year of grace from the Lord.”

•           Luke 4: 20-22: To unite the Bible and Life. Having finished the reading, Jesus comments on the text of Isaiah and says, “This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening!” Taking the words of Isaiah as His own, Jesus gives them a full and definitive sense and He declares Himself Messiah who comes to fulfill the prophecy. This way of interpreting the text provokes a reaction of disbelief on the part of those who were in the synagogue. They were scandalized and did not want to know anything about Him. They did not accept that Jesus was the Messiah announced by Isaiah. They said, “Is He not the son of Joseph?” They were scandalized because Jesus spoke about accepting the poor, the blind and the oppressed. The people do not accept Jesus’ proposal. And, thus when He presents the idea of accepting the excluded, He Himself is excluded.

•           Luke 4: 23-30: To overcome the limits of race. In order to help the community to overcome the scandal and to help them understand that His proposal formed part of tradition. Jesus tells two stories known in the Bible, the story of Elijah and the one of Elisha. Both stories criticize the narrow-mindedness of the people of Nazareth. Elijah was sent to the widow of Zarephath (1 Kgs 17: 7-16). Elisha was sent to take care of the Syrian (2 Kgs 5: 14). Here arises Luke’s concern, who wants to show that openness stems from Jesus. Jesus had the same difficulty which the communities at the time of Luke were having. But the call of Jesus did not calm people down. Quite the contrary! The stories of Elijah and Elisha produced even greater anger. The community of Nazareth reaches the point of wanting to kill Jesus. But He remains calm. The anger of others does not succeed in drawing Him away from His own path. Luke tells us that it is difficult to overcome the mentality of privilege and of narrowmindedness.

•           It is important to notice the details used in the Old Testament. Jesus quotes the text of Isaiah up to the point where it says, “to proclaim a year of grace from the Lord.” He does not quote the rest of the sentence which says, “and a day of vengeance from our God.” The people of Nazareth throw stones at Jesus because He pretends to be the Messiah, because He wants to accept the excluded and because He has omitted the sentence about vengeance. They wanted the day of Yahweh to be a day of vengeance against the oppressors of the people. In this case, the coming of the Kingdom would not have been a true change or conversion of the system. Jesus does not accept this way of thinking; He does not accept vengeance (cf. Mt 5: 44-48) His new experience of God the Father helped Him to understand better the meaning of the prophecies.

Personal Questions

•           Jesus’ objective is to accept the excluded. Do we accept everybody or do we exclude some? What are the reasons which lead us to exclude certain people?

•           Is the mission of Jesus truly our mission, my mission? Who are the excluded whom we should accept better in our community? Who or what thing gives us the strength to carry out the mission entrusted to us by Jesus?

Concluding Prayer

How I love Your Law, Lord! I ponder it all day long. You make me wiser than my enemies by Your commandment which is mine for ever. (Ps 119: 97-78)

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