27 Sunday C: Faith and Fidelity

From the Connections:

THE WORD:

Faith is not something that is won, bought or earned.  Faith only becomes genuine in our lives when we realize in all humility that faith is a gift freely given by God.  The two images in today’s Gospel point to this mystery of faith:
The gift of faith is like the mustard seed, among the tiniest of seeds.  The seed of faith needs to be nurtured or else it will wither and die; but allowed to grow, it yields the greatest of harvests.

26 Sunday C - Lazarus

 From The Connections:
 
 

THE WORD:

The rich man (sometimes known as “Dives”) is not really a bad man, but a self-centered, complacent one.  Dives’ sin is his remaining oblivious to the plight of Lazarus (a name which means “God’s help”) at his gate and his blind acceptance of the poverty of so many and wealth in the hands of so few like himself as the natural, inevitable order of things.  It was not his wealth that kept him from “Abraham's bosom,” but his untrustworthy stewardship of what he had.

25 Sunday C: Stewardship

Fr, Jude Botelho:

The prophets were aware of the role money plays in our life and in the practice of the faith. In fact, the prophet Amos quite bluntly states that one who exploits the poor cannot serve God. Worship of God cannot be genuine unless we are concerned about the poor and their needs. Amos faced a people outwardly religious, but inwardly corrupt. They went through the outward trappings of religiosity, but failed to love their neighbour, especially the poor, as they should. Amos felt called by God to denounce the injustices towards the poor and the oppressed.

24 Sunday C: Good Shepherd

From The Connections:

THE WORD:

The three “parables of the lost” in chapter 15 are unique to Luke’s Gospel.  Luke wrote his Gospel at a time when the Christian community was embroiled in a great controversy: many Jewish Christians were indignant that Gentiles should be welcomed into the Church without first embracing the traditions and laws of Judaism.
In these three parables, we enter God’s world: God communicates the depth of his love in his unconditional and complete forgiveness; his mercy breaks through and demolishes all human restrictions.  The Pharisees could not imagine a God who actually sought out men and women, a God who is more merciful in his judgments than we are, a God who never gives up hope for a sinner.
Today's Gospel reading of chapter 15 includes three parables: