Homilies & Thoughts

A cathedral on Rome’s Lateran Hill—St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome—bears the name “Mother and Head of all churches in Rome and in the world.” Today the Church celebrates the dedication of that cathedral. Strange, perhaps, to keep a feast for a building. Yet the Church asks us to do so because what we dedicate in stone reveals what God desires to do in us. Walls and doors cannot contain God. He fills heaven and earth. Still, he gives us a place set apart so our scattered hearts can be gathered, our senses focused, our lives reoriented toward him.

A single desire pulses beneath every distraction, every ambition, every fear: to be loved and to love in return. God did not fashion us because he lacked company; the Trinity is eternal communion. He wanted creatures who could share the joy he is. We were made for love—real, infinite, unexhausted.

Yet reaching for that desire is not easy. Sin crowds the heart. Pride distorts. Greed narrows. Selfishness turns us in on ourselves until we confuse appetite for love. Seeing this, the Father sent the Son to reopen the way home. Jesus shows that love is not a feeling we hoard but a life we receive and learn to give. He conquers the very sins that steal what we most long for and offers grace so we can begin again and again. Holiness, for most of us, is not a clean sprint; it is a long walk with stumbles, hand in hand with mercy.

Sometimes we can become too focused on sin. That might sound surprising, because it seems like the world around us is not focused on sin at all—and there’s truth in that. Yet even within the Church, we can fall into the opposite error: we can make sin and morality the entire focus of our faith, reducing Christianity to a system of rules.

Faith, however, is far more than moralism. Even if we somehow managed to live our entire lives without committing a single sin, that alone would not make us perfect. It would not make us true imitators of Christ. Christ did not simply avoid sin—he went far beyond that. He lived a life of perfect charity, of complete self-giving love. He lived as those in heaven live, fully united to the love of God.

There is a certain comedy to the Pharisee’s prayer. He speaks as if heaven should applaud his résumé, as if the problem with the world is everyone else. We know that swagger. We have seen it, maybe even felt it tug at us. Yet Jesus does not waste time telling us simply not to be that person; he turns our gaze to the other figure in the doorway—the man who cannot raise his eyes.

At the city gate, the dust never settles. Merchants haggle, travelers shout, carts rattle by. Here the courts meet in the open: respected elders and judges sit from morning to evening, hearing disputes where anyone may step forward. A widow has no husband to represent her; she must speak for herself before neighbors and strangers alike. There—at the busiest spot in town—a widow appears again. She stands where everyone can see. She is not proud. She is not powerful. She simply returns, day after day, to plead for justice.

Mercy always costs somebody something. Sometimes it costs time. Sometimes pride. Sometimes the ache of being taken for granted. The ten lepers cry out, and the plea is familiar to our lips at the start of every mass, in a slightly different translation: Lord, have mercy. Their illness has pushed them to the edges—forced to live apart, forced to warn others away. They are not simply unwell; they are unwelcome.

The request from the apostles is disarmingly simple: “Increase our faith.” Yet the response they receive is startling—vivid images and a story with a demanding master. At first hearing, the tone feels harsh. That is on purpose. Jesus leans on exaggeration to uncover an essential truth: the Christian life is not a part-time hobby. It is non-stop. It is all-consuming. It touches everything we do because it is about everything being made new in Christ.

When we hear the word sloth, we may think simply of laziness. But Scripture and the Christian tradition speak of something deeper. They speak of acedia: a heaviness of soul that resists the demands of love.

When Love Grows Heavy

The Catechism describes spiritual sloth as refusing the joy that comes from God and being repelled by divine goodness. CCC 2094. Catechism citations refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. In prayer, acedia can arise from lax ascetical practice, decreased vigilance, and carelessness of heart. CCC 2733. It may appear as procrastination, distraction, or chronic inconstancy: a recurring paralysis before the “next faithful step.”

This parable sketches two worlds divided by a gate: a banquet inside, a wounded neighbor outside. Step by step, a life is constructed around that gate—habits, choices, comforts, and blind spots harden into architecture. When death comes, the architecture holds. As Abraham says, “a great chasm is established.” The tragedy is not only punishment; it is permanence. A man who would not cross toward communion discovers he can no longer cross at all.

Imagine being told the audit is coming and you have already blown through the budget and squandered the resources. Your stomach drops. You start thinking, not about excuses, but about how to repair what has been damaged. That is the hard reckoning that forces the manager in the parable to act—and it names us. We have all wasted what the Lord placed in our hands: hours scrolled away, skills left idle, chances to love postponed for “later.” Yet the turning point is not in shame. It is in action.

Every medicine cabinet hides a story. Bottles with child‑proof caps, labels we can’t quite pronounce, doses we would rather skip. Bitter cures seldom feel like kindness in the moment. Yet the physician who truly loves us prescribes what heals, not what flatters the tongue.

Sin opened a wound we could not stitch. Death came as the consequence, and it has torn through families, hopes, and every human story. But listen to the strange mercy of God: the punishment becomes the medicine. The wood meant for execution becomes a tree that bears life. The valley of shadows is turned into a doorway. The cross does not decorate suffering; it transforms it.

The Lord warns us plainly: “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” Lk 12:15, NABRE. Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE). This is a spiritual battle for every disciple, not only for the wealthy. For Franciscans, the answer is not contempt for the world. It is joyful dependence on God and an open-handed love for our neighbor.