Homily for 6 Nov. 2026, -- Friday of the 31st even-numbered week
Phil. 3:17 -4:1; Luke 16:1-8
Homily
In this Gospel, which is certainly not easy to interpret, Jesus is probably referring to a cheat that had occurred a short time earlier and that was probably well known to his audience. It may have been a story that was repeated to each other and made for a good laugh. Jesus certainly has no intention of using this story to teach us how to cheat our employer or the government!
An interesting detail to note is that Luke is the only evangelist to have reported this story; and we know how preoccupied Luke is with everything to do with poverty and the danger of wealth and money. In fact, the sentence that sums up the whole story is the last one (we will have it in tomorrow's Gospel): "You cannot serve God and mammon". Luke gives money a proper name, ‘Mammon’, to make it clear that if we become slaves to money, it becomes our master and dominates us as a human master would.
Jesus' teaching in this story is as follows: If the children of this world, who are themselves slaves to material things, are so clever... how much cleverer should you be, you who claim to be the children of God. You should use money, not to build security for a temporal, worldly future, but to build an eternal kingdom, both for yourselves and for your fellow human beings. And the way to do that is to consider that you are not the owners of what you possess. You are its custodians, and you must use it according to the needs of all, not just your own personal needs.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul takes this reasoning a step further. Whenever we prefer something to God, that something becomes our master, even our belly!
We know that there is a great deal of greed in each of our hearts, and we know that there is a great deal of greed and cheating in the world, in individual relationships as well as between nations or blocs of nations. And we know that this is the source of all the tensions between individuals and all the wars between peoples.
Let each of us once again choose God over mammon or anything else, and let us ask God to enlighten the eyes and guide the actions of those who hold in their hands the lives and fate of millions of people in need.
Armand Veilleux
