Homily for November 8th, 2025 – Saturday of the 31st week of Ordinary Time.
We are at the end of a section of Luke's Gospel (chapters 14 to 16) that could be called Jesus' ‘table talks,’ which ends with some general recommendations that we read in today's Gospel. This text calls for consistency in our behaviour, whether in the management of our material goods or in our liturgical services. And this consistency invites us to make concrete choices. Jesus says it in a clear way that seems almost brutal: “You cannot serve both God and money”. We can and indeed must use money to do good, but it must not become our master. We can have only one true master, and that is God.
As for today's first reading, taken from Paul's letter to the Romans, it gives us a fine example of the personal relationships that structured the early local churches and Paul's attitude towards them. For Paul, these churches are not anonymous groups or organisations. They are communities formed by bonds between living people who are known by their own names. They are Priscilla and Aquila, Andronicus and Junia, Ampliatus, Urban, Erastus, and many others. And Paul has a very personal thought for each and every one of them. There is an important lesson here about the quality that our personal relationships should have within a monastic community, as within any ecclesial community.
Armand Veilleux