Homilies & Thoughts

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.

You know the hush that falls when a sunset sets the sky on fire. For a breath, everything stops and you simply receive. Then the colors dim, and the shoreline returns to ordinary. Beauty lets us glimpse God, and then it slips from our grasp. The moment was real, but it was never meant to be owned.

Our families, our plans, even our very lives are like that—astonishing gifts that point beyond themselves. Then comes the sentence that jolts us awake: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” These words sting because love for family runs deep. Yet the Lord is not commanding contempt; he is unmasking a temptation—to clutch a gift so tightly that we stop seeing the Giver.

Envy disrupts fraternity; kindness builds it. Envy turns another person’s gift into a threat. Kindness allows us to recognize that gift and rejoice because the Lord is at work. St. Paul therefore names kindness as one of the fruits of the Spirit. Gal 5:22. Scripture citations are taken from the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), unless otherwise noted.

This is especially important in Franciscan fraternity. Francis taught the brothers to recognize every good in another as the Lord’s own work. Francis of Assisi, Admonition VIII.3, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1, 132; A Mirror of Perfection 85, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 3, The Prophet, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2001), 333. If envy makes us want to silence another person’s song, kindness helps us hear how that voice belongs within the larger harmony God is creating. Christ can free us from the need to compare ourselves and teach us to receive one another as gifts.

Jesus can feel like the guest who spoils a party—the one who stands in the doorway, notices every flaw, and starts rearranging the seating chart. Many Pharisees saw him that way: not fun, not flattering. But look closer. He is not ruining the celebration; he is teaching us how to finally enjoy it.

Hosting can be exhausting. The menu, the timing, the conversations that must be managed so certain people do not collide. Beneath the lists and the candles burns a deeper pressure: the need to impress. We carry it into our homes, our jobs, our social feeds. Show that life is curated, successful, enviable. Spend more. Prove you belong at the head of the table.

Pride and humility stand in sharp opposition. Pride has long been considered the root of all sin, while humility is the cornerstone of holiness. For those who walk in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, humility is not an optional virtue but the very ground on which the Franciscan life is built. Francis himself called his followers the fratres minores, the “lesser brothers,” and referred to himself as “the least of the brothers,” echoing Christ’s own humility in the Incarnation. To understand this tension, we must first consider how pride manifests in human life, then reflect on the Franciscan witness of humility, and finally turn to the cultivation of humility in daily practice.

The question sounds religious enough: How many will be saved? Yet it is a poor guide for a disciple. Whether the number is many or few, nothing essential changes—love does not shrink or expand because of a statistic. Counting souls does not convert a single heart. It distracts us from the work right in front of us.

Jesus refuses the headcount and gives us a marching order: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” Not a spreadsheet, a path. He redirects curiosity into courage. The image is tight, demanding, almost like a trail that steepens at the end. And the warning is clear: many will try, and strength will fail. So what now?

Ancient Israel wanted soothing voices. If a message promised comfort, they would pay to hear it. Prophets became a profession, and when a profession depends on pleasing customers, the truth gets trimmed to fit the market. Many in that guild learned to say only what people wished to hear. Yet, in the midst of all that noise, a few refused to sell the word. Their sermons were not crowd-pleasers. They spoke of judgment and course correction. And when the kings needed an honest messenger, they searched for the one no one wanted to hire—the one whose words stung.