Archive for September 6, 2025

SUNDAY BIBLE REFLECTION

Posted: September 6, 2025 by CatholicJules in Sunday Reflections
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Twenty-Third Sunday in
Ordinary Time

Wisdom 9:13–18
Psalm 90:3–6, 12–17
Philemon 1:9–10, 12–17
Luke 14:25–33


Counting the Cost

Like a king making ready for battle or a contractor about to build a tower, we have to count the cost as we set out to follow Jesus.

Our Lord today is telling us up front the sacrifice it will take. His words aren’t addressed to His chosen few, the Twelve, but rather to the “great crowds”—to anyone, to whoever wishes to be His disciple.

That only makes His call all the more stark and uncompromising. We are to “hate” our old lives, to renounce all the earthly things we rely upon, to choose Him above every person and possession. Again He tells us that the things we have—even our family ties and obligations—can become an excuse, an obstacle that keeps us from giving ourselves completely to Him (see Luke 9:23–26, 57–62).

Jesus brings us the saving wisdom we are promised in today’s First Reading. He is that saving Wisdom.

Weighed down by many earthly concerns, the burdens of our body and its needs, we could never see beyond the things of this world; we could never detect God’s heavenly design and intention. So in His mercy He sent us His Spirit, His Wisdom from on high, to make straight our path to Him.

Jesus Himself paid the price to free us from the sentence imposed on Adam, which we recall in today’s Psalm (see Genesis 2:7; 2:19). No more will the work of our hands be an affliction; no more are we destined to turn back to dust.

Like Onesimus in today’s Epistle, we have been redeemed. We have been given a new family and a new inheritance, made children of the Father, brothers and sisters in the Lord.

We are free now to come after Him, to serve Him—no longer slaves to the ties of our past lives. In Christ, all our yesterdays have passed. We live in what the Psalm today beautifully describes as the daybreak, ready to be filled with His kindness. For He has given us wisdom of heart and taught us to number our days aright.

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: September 6, 2025 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections
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Everyone who desires to follow after the Lord knows that it is all too easy to drift away, to lose our focus, instead of remaining steadfast and rooted to our faith in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who has already redeemed us. He has washed us clean so that we are blameless, holy, and pure.

And yet, oftentimes, we fall back into sin, into the old deluge and murkiness. But does that mean we give up all hope? Do we fall back to our old ways, finding comfort in things that do not satisfy? Instead, let us turn back to the Lord, who is the Lord of the sabbath, the Lord of lords, and King of kings. He is the only one, the Almighty, who can give us the grace to overcome our weaknesses and overcome the sins that we have committed against Him. It is through His grace alone that we are restored.

Let us then not be fearful and approach the throne of grace so that we may be once again sanctified to be one in holy communion with Him. Amen.


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First reading
Colossians 1:21-23


God has reconciled you by Christ’s death in his mortal body

Not long ago, you were foreigners and enemies, in the way that you used to think and the evil things that you did; but now he has reconciled you, by his death and in that mortal body. Now you are able to appear before him holy, pure and blameless – as long as you persevere and stand firm on the solid base of the faith, never letting yourselves drift away from the hope promised by the Good News, which you have heard, which has been preached to the whole human race, and of which I, Paul, have become the servant.


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Gospel
Luke 6:1-5


The Son of Man is master of the sabbath

One sabbath Jesus happened to be taking a walk through the cornfields, and his disciples were picking ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands and eating them. Some of the Pharisees said, ‘Why are you doing something that is forbidden on the sabbath day?’ Jesus answered them, ‘So you have not read what David did when he and his followers were hungry – how he went into the house of God, took the loaves of offering and ate them and gave them to his followers, loaves which only the priests are allowed to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is master of the sabbath.’