Our readings for this Twenty-Fourth Sunday concern forgiving those who wound us and being reconciled with them. All three readings today remind us of the path to forgiveness, mercy, and reconciliation and challenge us to walk this, the only Way to Life.

Scripture lessons summarized: Sirach, in the first reading, reminds his listeners that if they don’t heal and forgive and show mercy, they can’t expect to receive mercy from God in return. It is unwise to nurse grudges and wise to forgive because our life span is very short and our eternal destiny is decided by how we forgive, how we work for reconciliation with those who wound us, and how we render humble and loving service to them. In today’s Psalm, (Ps 103), the Psalmist sings, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.” In the second reading, Paul reminds us that we have to forgive others because we belong to Christ who, by his own example in forgiving those who killed him, taught us how we must forgive in our turn. Since we humans are related to each other as brothers and sisters of Jesus, we are in the family of God, so hatred and bitterness toward anyone should have no place in our hearts. In today’s Gospel, through the parable of the two debtors, Jesus teaches us that there should be no limit to our forgiveness and no conditions attached to our reconciliation. We represent the greater debtor in the parable because we commit sins every day and, hence, we need God’s forgiveness every day. But we must forgive in order to be forgiven. Jesus explains, after teaching us the prayer Our Father, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father also will forgive you. “

Life messages: 1) We need to forgive, forget, and be reconciled: In the light of eternity and considering the shortness of our span of life, harboring old grudges is pointless. The forgiveness that we offer others is the indispensable condition for us to be able to open our hearts to recelve the Love God IS and so, makes it possible for us to receive God’s forgiveness for ourselves and to pray meaningfully: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” What God expects from us, He offers us grace to accomplish in us. In this case, He desires to give us the power of His Own limitless forgiviness so that we will be able to overlook each other’s faults willingly, and to keep on loving each other even in the face of insults.

2) We may never forget the hurt we have experienced, but we can, with God’s ongoing grace, choose to forgive and pray for our offenders. As life goes on, and we remember an incident that was hurtful and roused great anger in us, we need to remind ourselves that, with God’s grace, we have already forgiven the one that hurt us. Time does heal memories. Forgiveness finally changes us from being prisoners of our past to being liberated and at peace with our memories. Forgiveness allows us to move beyond the pain, the resentment, and the anger. When we forgive, we make the choice that heals. We can forgive the offender by wishing him God’s blessings and by offering that individual to God by simply saying, “Help so-and-so and me to mend our relationship.” When we withhold forgiveness, we remain the victim. When we offer forgiveness, we are doing it also for our own well-being.

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SOURCE: Fr. Tony's Homilies

The context: In today’s passage, taken from the Sermon on the Plain given in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches the necessity for cultivating a strong Christian moral character as the foundation of our Christian life.   The teaching: In the first part of the Gospel, Jesus teaches us that the good fruits of Christian virtues, like love, mercy, forgiveness, and service, result only from an upright character trained in and cultivated by the repeated practice of Christian principles. Jesus compares good works with figs and grapes and reminds us that thorny shrubs and bramble bushes cannot produce them.  In the second part, Jesus gives us two warnings: that we must match our profession of Faith with actual obedience to the will of God, and that we must build a life on the firm foundation of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus emphasizes the truth that we should not be mere hearers of the word of God, but also consistent doers of that word. In other words, our profession of Faith should be matched by our practice. Jesus compares mere hearers of the word to a foolish man who built his house on a sandy foundation, leading to disaster, and the doers of the word to a wise man who built his house on strong and solid rock and weathered  the storm.

FR. TONY'S LIFE MESSAGE
FOR SATURDAY

1) We need to be men and women of character with the courage of our religious convictions, doing what is right at all times. Such persons are honest and reliable before God, themselves, and their neighbors. 

2) We need to build our family on a strong Christian foundation. There can be no great marriage and no great family without a solid foundation, and that foundation begins with the husband and wife doing, and being, the love of Christ for each other and for their children. 3)  We need to get ready to face the storms of life: Jesus wants us to follow his words and to build our lives and our families on these words. He wants us to be ready for the storms of life, including, among others, economic downturns, pension defaults, war, depression both mental and economic, relationships that fade, dementia in our loved ones, the deaths of those who love us and whom we love, devastating illness, and protracted disease.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony's Homilies

The context: In today’s passage, taken from the Sermon on the Plain given in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus condemns our careless, malicious, and often rash judgments about the behavior, feelings, motives, and/or actions of others by using the funny examples of one blind man leading another blind man and one man with a log covering his eyes trying to remove a tiny speck from another’s eye.

FR. TONY'S LIFE MESSAGE
FOR FRIDAY

Reasons why we should not judge others:  1) No one except God is good enough to judge others because only God sees the whole truth, and only He can read the human heart. Hence, only He has the ability, right, and authority to judge us.  2) We do not see all the facts or circumstances or the power of the temptation which has led a person to do something evil. 3) We are often prejudiced in our judgment of others, and total fairness cannot be expected from us.  4) We have no right to judge because we have the same faults as the one we are judging and often to a greater degree (remember the critical man with a wooden beam in his eye?) St. Philip Neri commented, watching the misbehavior of a drunkard: “There goes Philip but for the grace of God.” Abraham Lincoln said that only he who has the heart to help has the right to criticize

The context: Today’s Gospel passage is the second part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain as given by Luke.  It describes the power of Christian love when exercised by practicing the golden rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” This golden rule is amplified by a string of particular commands: 

1) "Love your enemies...Do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you and pray for those who maltreat you."    Jesus orders us to love our enemies.

2) Show our Christian love to everyone, especially to our enemies by treating them with mercy and compassion because our Heavenly Father is merciful and compassionate to all His children. “Be compassionate, as your Father is compassionate."

3)   Stop judging and start forgiving.

FR. TONY'S LIFE MESSAGE
FOR THURSDAY

1) We need to answer the invitation to grace-filled behavior: What makes Christianity distinct from any other religion is the quality known as grace, i.e., our ability to treat others, not as we think they deserve, but with love, kindness, the spirit of forgiveness and mercy.

2) We need to accept the challenges of day-to-day life. Jesus challenges our willingness to endure unjust suffering for His sake and the sake of His Gospel.

3) We need to pray for the strength to forgive. At every Mass we pray the “Our Father,” asking God to forgive us as we forgive others. We must forgive, because only forgiveness truly heals our relationships and heals us. If we remember how God has forgiven us, it will help us forgive others.   4) We need to live our lives in accordance with “the Golden Rule." 

SOURCE: Fr. Tony's Homilies

The context: Luke presents the Sermon on the Plain as following immediately upon the choosing of the twelve Apostles. Today’s Gospel passage, taken from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, teaches us that true happiness or beatitude lies in the awareness of who we are and what we are supposed to do. The eight beatitudes Jesus gives in Mathew, like the four in Luke, contradict the ideas of “real” happiness prevalent in the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day (and in our modern society as well), according to which wealth, health, power, pleasure and influence are the “true” beatitudes.  

The Beatitudes: Jesus instructs his disciples in the paradoxical   blessedness of poverty, hunger, sorrow, and persecution, which contradict our natural expectations in every way.  Blessed are those who are poor, hungry, weeping, hated, excluded, insulted, and denounced because in poverty, we recognize God’s reign; in hunger, His providence; in sorrow, true happiness; and in persecution, true joy. Experiencing these miseries opens the way for us to receive the true riches, the food, comfort and acceptance we find only in His love and His presence here and in His Kingdom forever. The Beatitudes are commands for how we should live, and what we should do. What makes one blessed is not simply poverty or hunger or sadness or suffering for one’s Faith, but commitment to Jesus and His spirit of sharing.

FR. TONY'S LIFE MESSAGE
FOR WEDNESDAY

We need to respond to the challenges of the Beatitudes in our daily life.  Millions are starving, persecuted, homeless, and leading hopeless lives. When we reach out to help them, we are living out the Beatitudes.  In addition, Jesus tells us that it is he himself whom we are serving inthese suffering people. We are also loving our neighbours as Jesus loves us.  That is why we are told that we will be judged on the basis of our acts of mercy and charity (Mt 25:31-46). Let us also remember that each time we reach out to help the people who are needy, sick, and/or oppressed, we give them the experience of God's love for them. Just as the Apostles were called to minister to society's untouchables, so all Christians are called to minister to the untouchables, the discriminated against and the marginalized in our own modern society, that they may meet God's love in human flesh.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony's Homilies

History: As one of the oldest Marian solemnities, this feast is based on the second century (A.D. 175), apocryphal book Protoevagelium Jacobi (The Pre-Gospel of James), which reflects the traditions of the early Church, although it is not considered an inspired book.  According to this book, Mary’s parents were Joachim and Anna. Mary was born either in Jerusalem or in Sephoris, three miles north of Bethlehem.  The Annunciation is believed to have taken place later in the house of Mary’s parents. The feast originated in the fifth century in Syria or Palestine. St. Romanus of Syria is supposed to have brought it to Rome. The Roman Church adopted it in the 7^th century and fixed it on September 8^th. It is found in the 8^th and 9^th century Gregorian Sacramentary.

Importance: The feast is the birthday celebration of the mother of Jesus, our Heavenly Mother and the Mother of the Church. It is the birthday of an ordinary woman who was chosen to become the mother of an extraordinary Divine Child. The Church celebrates the death day of a saint as his/her feast day, considering it his/her “birthday in Heaven.” The three exceptions are Jesus’ birthday (Christmas), Mary’s birthday (September 8), and John the Baptist’s birthday (June 24). Mary’s birthday is celebrated because of her Immaculate Conception. John the Baptist, in Elizabeth's womb, was filled with the Holy Spirit during Mary’s visitation of Elizabeth. We honor Mary because God “has done great things for me” (Luke 1:49), a) by choosing her as the mother of Jesus His Son, b) by filling her with His Holy Spirit twice, c) by making her the embodiment of all virtues (“full of grace"), and our Heavenly Mother and d) by allowing her to become the most active participant with Christ, her son, in our redemption.  

FR. TONY'S LIFE MESSAGE
FOR TUESDAY

1) Let us, as Mary’s children, give a suitable birthday gift to our Heavenly Mother. Every mother wants her children to inherit and acquire all her good qualities. Hence, the best birthday gift to Mary is for us to become holy children of a Holy Mother.

 2) Let us make this day a day to start practicing Mary’s virtues. Let us practice her virtues of a) trusting Faith in the power of God (“nothing is impossible for God’), b) perfect obedience to the will of God (“be it done to me according your will”). c) the spirit of sacrificial and sharing love and d) the acceptance of suffering  with one hundred percent commitment to her heroic mission. 

SOURCE: Fr. Tony's Homilies

The context: Today’s Gospel describes a miraculous healing performed by Jesus one Sabbath as a public violation of Sabbath laws, in order to demonstrate by the miracle that God's intention for the Sabbath was for His people to do good and to save life rather than to do evil or to destroy life.  The incident and the reaction: Ex 20:8 and Dt 5:12 instructed the Jews to keep the Sabbath holy. But the scribes and the Pharisees hadamplified God’s law on the Sabbath, misinterpreting it and making it burdensome for the common people through man-made laws. Jesus wanted to demonstrate in public the original intention of God in declaring Sabbath holy. For Jesus, the Sabbath was a day of rest on which Israelites were meant to adore God, to learn and teach His laws, and to do good to/for others. Hence, Jesus took the liberty of healing a man, without touching him and only telling the man to stretch out his withered hand which he did with ease, for the first time in his life,in the local synagogue immediately after the worship service, thus infuriating the scribes and the Pharisees.

FR. TONY'S LIFE MESSAGE
FOR MONDAY

1) Our Catholic “Sabbath” observance of participating in the Eucharistic celebration on Sunday is meant to recharge our spiritual batteries for doing good to/for others and avoiding evil.

2) Our Sunday observance is further meant to be an offering of our lives to God on the altar, to praise God, to thank Him for His blessings, to ask His pardon and forgiveness for our sins, to present our needs before the Lord, and to participate in the Divine Life by receiving Holy Communion.

3) It is finally a day to spend with the members of the family and to help our neighbors in the activities of our parish and neighborhood.

SOURCE: Fr. Tony's Homilies