October 21, 2025
Tuesday of the Twenty-ninth
Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 474
Reading
1
Romans 5:12, 15b, 17-19,
20b-21
Brothers and
sisters:
Through one man sin entered the world,
and through sin, death,
and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.
If by that one person's transgression the many died,
how much more did the grace of God
and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ
overflow for the many.
For if, by the transgression of the one,
death came to reign through that one,
how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace
and the gift of justification
come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.
In conclusion, just as through one transgression
condemnation came upon all,
so, through one righteous act
acquittal and life came to all.
For just as through the disobedience of one man
the many were made sinners,
so, through the obedience of the one
the many will be made righteous.
Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,
so that, as sin reigned in death,
grace also might reign through justification
for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (8a and
9a) Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin offerings you sought not;
then said I, "Behold I come."
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
"In the written scroll it is prescribed for me,
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!"
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
May all who seek you
exult and be glad in you,
And may those who love your salvation
say ever, "The LORD be glorified."
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Be vigilant at all times and pray
that you may have the strength to stand before the Son of Man.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his
disciples:
"Gird your loins and light your lamps
and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding,
ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.
Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself,
have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.
And should he come in the second or third watch
and find them prepared in this way,
blessed are those servants."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102125.cfm
Commentary on Romans 5:12,15,17-21
We move on
today to a different theme in this lette—the role of Jesus in our salvation
from sin. A contrast is made between Adam, our ‘first parent’, and Christ. Adam
brought sin and death into the world; Christ brought righteousness and life.
These two
persons also sum up the message of the Letter up to this point. Adam stands for
man’s condemnation and Christ for the ‘justification’ of the believer:
…just
as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so
death spread to all because all have sinned.
That “one
man”, of course, is Adam. Paul is referring to the creation story in Genesis
where the Man and the Woman, clearly disobeying the instructions they had
received from God, ate the fruit (which is not specified as an apple!) of the
tree, significantly called the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen
2:17).
It is significant,
because it was only after they had eaten the fruit that they had, for the first
time, a sense of evil, sin and guilt indicated by a newly-felt shame of their
nakedness and their hiding from God.
Even if
today we might not historically identify the ‘Man’ and the ‘Woman’ as actual
people, they represent the whole human race. There is no doubt that through
human activity sin, which is a turning away from God, came into the world and
continues to flourish in all of us. Through his disobedience, Adam, who sired
every human being, infected all those descended from him with sin, and hence
also with death.
Sin
divides man from God and this separation effectively is ‘death’, a death that
is spiritual and eternal, and of which physical death is the symbol (“death
reigned from Adam”). This happened either by our sharing in the sin of Adam, or
else because of each one’s personal sins. None of us can claim that we have
never sinned. We are born into an environment where sin can be found everywhere
and in every person. It touches us from the moment we are born. And through our
personal sins, we join with Adam in his rebellion against God.
However,
no matter how great the sin, God’s grace is infinitely greater in nullifying
the effects of Adam’s sin. God’s saving love is a free gift given to all in
abundance:
For if
the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace
of God and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the
many.
And Paul
says:
If,
because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more
surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of
righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Paul
continues:
Therefore
just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of
righteousness leads to justification and life for all.
This is
the key statement expressing the meaning of the whole passage. Condemnation
came through the disobedience of one person, Adam, representing all of us, and
it is the single act of one Man, Jesus Christ, who by his death and
resurrection brought justification and life to all.
“Justification”
means, as we have said, our total restoration into a life of union with God, a
union which is accessed by our believing in Jesus as Lord and Saviour:
For
just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so
through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
For this
restoration of our relationship with God, we do not have to wait until the
Final Judgement. Being reborn in Christ is a process that continues from the
moment we first begin to believe in Jesus as Lord:
…but
where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin reigned
in death, so grace might also reign through justification leading to eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Nothing we
have ever done, and nothing we could ever do by ourselves could have undone the
sin which penetrates every corner of our world and of our existence. It could
only happen by the grace, the freely-given love of God, which has been poured
into our hearts.
‘Grace’ is
the love of God given to us spontaneously by God without our meriting it in any
way. Once we allow that love to take over our lives, its power will be greater
than sin. Sin and love are totally incompatible. Where there is love, there is
God and where there is sin, love is absent.
It is
‘grace’ too which brings ‘saving justice’, the saving power of God which
transforms our lives and is the beginning of that eternal life which Jesus our
Lord wants us to share with him.
Jesus does
not just ‘cover over’ our sins. He makes it possible for our hearts to be
flooded with his Spirit effecting a real inner change and the possibility of
replacing sin with goodness. But it is always his work and never ours alone.
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Commentary on Luke 12:35-38
In today’s
Gospel, we have more advice from Jesus about readiness. It is an echo of the
parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids (Matt 25:1-13).
We are to
be ready, with our belts fastened and our lamps burning, like servants waiting
for the groom to return from the wedding. If we prepare in this way, when the
master comes and knocks, we will be ready to admit him without delay.
There is a
reward, a surprising reward, for servants thus prepared. When the master comes
back and finds his servants awake and ready, he will seat them at table and
himself wait on them:
Blessed
are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you,
he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and
serve them.
Jesus had
said of himself:
…just
as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a
ransom for many. (Matt
20:28)
He is the
one who, as Master and Lord, washes the feet of his disciples. And if the
master comes in the middle of the night or before dawn, blessed are those
servants who are ready for his return.
This need
for readiness is not a reason to be anxious nor a reason to be afraid. Reason
and experience tells us again and again that the Lord’s call comes at the most
unexpected times. The only solution is to be ready here and now and leave the
future to take care of itself.
In our
relationship with God, it is always the present which counts. The prepared
servant lives constantly in the present and seeks and finds God there. A life
so lived takes care of itself—and its future.
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Tuesday,
October 21, 2025
Ordinary Time -
Opening Prayer
Almighty and everlasting God, our source of power and
inspiration, give us strength and joy in serving you as followers of Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 12: 35-38
Jesus said to his disciples: 'See that you have your belts
done up and your lamps lit. Be like people waiting for their master to return
from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks.
Blessed those servants whom the master finds awake when he
comes. In truth I tell you, he will do up his belt, sit them down at table and
wait on them. It may be in the second watch that he comes, or in
the third, but blessed are those servants if he finds them ready.
Reflection
By means of this parable, the
Gospel today exhorts us to be vigilant.
•
Luke 12: 35: Exhortation to be vigilant,
watchful. "Be ready and have your belts done up and your lamps lit.” To
gird oneself meant to take a cloth or a cord and put it around the robe. To be
girded meant to be ready, prepared for immediate action. Before the flight from
Egypt, at the moment of celebrating the Passover, the Israelites had to gird
themselves, that is be prepared, ready to be able to leave immediately (EX 12:
11). When someone goes to work, to fight or to execute a task he girds himself
(Ct 3: 8). In the letter of Paul to the Ephesians he describes the armor of God
and he says that your waist must be girded with the cord of truth (Ep 6: 14).
The lamps should be lit, because to watch is the task to be carried out during
the day as well as during the night. Without light one cannot go in the
darkness of the night.
•
Luke 12: 36: A parable. In order to explain what
it means to be girded, Jesus tells a brief parable. “Be like people waiting for
their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon
as he comes and knocks.” The task of waiting for the arrival of the master
demands constant and permanent vigilance, especially during the night, because
one does not know at what time the master will return. The employee has to
always be attentive and vigilant.
•
Luke 12: 37: Promise of happiness. “Blessed
those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; In truth I tell you,
he will do up his belt, sit them down at table and wait on them.” Here in this
promise of happiness, things turn upside down. The master becomes the employee
and begins to serve the employee who becomes the master. At the Last Supper
Jesus teaches that even though He is Lord and Master, He became the servant of
all (Jn 13: 4-17).The happiness promised has something to do with the future,
with happiness at the end of time, as opposed to what Jesus promised in the
other parable when He said: “Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding
sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, come and have your
meal at once? Would he not be more likely to say, ‘Get my supper ready; fasten
your belt and wait on me while I eat and drink. You yourself can eat and drink
afterwards? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So
with you, when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘we are useless
servants; we have done no more than our duty” (Lk 17: 7-10).
•
Luke 12: 38: He repeats the promise of
happiness. “And if he comes at midnight, or at dawn, and finds those servants
ready, blessed are they!” He repeats the promise of happiness which requires
total vigilance. The master could return at midnight, at three o’clock in the
morning, or at any other moment. The employee must be girded, ready to be able
to do his work immediately.
Personal Questions
•
We are employees of God. We should be girded,
ready, attentive and vigilant twenty-four hours a day. Do you succeed to do
this? How do you do it?
•
The promise of future happiness is the opposite
of the present. What does this reveal to us of the goodness of God for us, for
me?
Concluding Prayer
I am listening. What is God's message?
Yahweh's message is peace for his people.
His saving help is near for those who fear him, his glory will
dwell in our land. (Ps 85: 8-9)
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