For 1 September 2025, Monday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, based on 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14, Luke 4:16–30
(Image: From http://www.stainedglassinc.com/window/4062-compassion-in-action-the-good-samaritan/)
1 Thessalonians 4:13–14
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
Luke 4:16–30
When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
————-
When a member of my Dominican local community died last month, his death was in some measure expected, and we were grateful to see him set free from his recent repeated hospitalizations. I must admit, however, that while resurrection has been the foundation of my Christian faith since the age of sixteen, the death of someone with whom I have lived daily life for twenty years challenges my certainty about what I cannot see.
It’s not that I am having a crisis of faith, but I am facing into the dark mystery of the faith I profess. Yes, I do believe God will raise my brother on the last day. But it feels more important to me now to express that faith by raising one another up.
In the magnificence of God-with-Us, God become human, we do for one another what God does for us. What difference is there, really, between that man in the Parable of the Good Samaritan being lifted from the ditch and Jesus being raised from the tomb? Are not we who have been lifted up by Christ, and by so many others, to go and do likewise—to do as we have been done by? Don’t we long for our world to be like that? We lift others because we have been lifted, and because we believe that on the last day, God will lift us up. We believe that when our life takes us down into the ditch of suffering and death, other people will be there for us. And when we die, God is there for us. We are called to love one another, as God loves us.
And what of our neighbors and the thousands and millions abandoned and forgotten in our world? Must we not do as we have been done by, extending a hand and lifting them up? Then, this scripture will have been fulfilled in our hearing.
Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
About Gregory Heille, O.P.
Gregory Heille, O.P., is an Emeritus Professor of Preaching and Evangelization at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a friar of the Province of St. Albert the Great USA and has a particular interest in racial equity education.
1 Sep 2025
I Will Lift You Up
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(Image: From http://www.stainedglassinc.com/window/4062-compassion-in-action-the-good-samaritan/)
1 Thessalonians 4:13–14
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
Luke 4:16–30
When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
————-
When a member of my Dominican local community died last month, his death was in some measure expected, and we were grateful to see him set free from his recent repeated hospitalizations. I must admit, however, that while resurrection has been the foundation of my Christian faith since the age of sixteen, the death of someone with whom I have lived daily life for twenty years challenges my certainty about what I cannot see.
It’s not that I am having a crisis of faith, but I am facing into the dark mystery of the faith I profess. Yes, I do believe God will raise my brother on the last day. But it feels more important to me now to express that faith by raising one another up.
In the magnificence of God-with-Us, God become human, we do for one another what God does for us. What difference is there, really, between that man in the Parable of the Good Samaritan being lifted from the ditch and Jesus being raised from the tomb? Are not we who have been lifted up by Christ, and by so many others, to go and do likewise—to do as we have been done by? Don’t we long for our world to be like that? We lift others because we have been lifted, and because we believe that on the last day, God will lift us up. We believe that when our life takes us down into the ditch of suffering and death, other people will be there for us. And when we die, God is there for us. We are called to love one another, as God loves us.
And what of our neighbors and the thousands and millions abandoned and forgotten in our world? Must we not do as we have been done by, extending a hand and lifting them up? Then, this scripture will have been fulfilled in our hearing.
Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
About Gregory Heille, O.P.
Gregory Heille, O.P., is an Emeritus Professor of Preaching and Evangelization at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a friar of the Province of St. Albert the Great USA and has a particular interest in racial equity education.