October 19 through October 25, 2025
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(October 19, 2025: Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Jesus told his disciples a parable on the necessity of praying always and of not becoming weary.”
In a perfect world, we would always be mindful of the presence of the God who created us, who redeemed us and who inspires us. In a perfect world, we would always recognize – and always manage to seize – the countless opportunities God presents to us to do what is right, what is good, what is creative, what is forgiving and what is loving. In a perfect world, we would always be energetic and enthusiastic about living each day, each hour and each moment as a gift from God. In a perfect world, nothing would ever distract us from the things in life that really matter.
Our world, of course, is anything but perfect. We, for that matter, are anything but perfect.
Sometimes, we forget the presence of God. Sometimes, we miss the chances God gives us to do what is right, good and loving. Sometimes, we take the gift of life – and each moment of it – for granted. Sometimes we are consumed by trivial, even petty, concerns.
Simply put, there are times when grow weary: we lose heart.
Prayer reminds us of God’s enduring presence. Prayer helps us to see the countless occasions we have each day to grow in virtue and to turn away from sin. Prayer enables us to gratefully embrace the gift of each new day as it comes. Prayer is what keeps us connected to God; prayer is what keeps us connected to the divine in ourselves; prayer is what keeps us connected to the divine in one another. Prayer is less about something we do and more about an attitude – and vision – that we develop and deepen.
Francis de Sales described prayer thus:
“The essence of prayer is not to be found in always being on our knees but in keeping our wills clearly united to God’s will in all events.” (On Living Jesus, p. 295) In another place, he observed: “Prayer is the holy water that makes the plants of our good desires grow green and flourish; it cleanses our souls of their imperfections; it quenches the thirst of passion in our hearts.” (Ibid, p. 309)
Prayer gives us the humility to acknowledge where we’ve been; prayer gives us the gentleness to accept where we are; prayer gives us the courage to consider where we need to go. In the midst of our very busy, frequently demanding, sometimes frustrating and occasionally overwhelming lives, prayer helps us to stay connected with the people and things in life that really matter. When we “...give our hearts to God a thousand times a day” (Ibid, p. 298), we know how to be truly happy, healthy and holy.
Yes, prayer truly gives us the presence of mind to not grow weary...to be people of heart.
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(October 20, 2025: Monday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Take care to guard against all greed…”
Greed is defined as “an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.”
What’s important to note is that greed is not equated with merely possessing material wealth, but that greed is also about having an excessive or inordinate desire to possess material wealth. It isn’t about the amount of the wealth; it’s about the size – and intensity - of the desire for wealth.
Francis de Sales certainly understood this distinction. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he wrote:
“I willingly grant that you may take care to increase your wealth and resources, provided this is done not only justly but properly and charitably. However, if you are strongly attached to the goods you possess, too solicitous about them, set your heart on them, always have them in your thoughts and fear losing them with a strong, anxious fear, then, believe me, you are suffering from a kind of fever. If you find your heart very desolated and afflicted at the loss of property, believe me, you love it too much…” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 14, p. 163)
The Gospel parable is a classic example of what Francis de Sales described. The rich man isn’t condemned because he is rich. No, the rich man is condemned because he does not even consider sharing his good fortune – his rich harvest – with others.
Note the distinction that Jesus makes in saying, “Guard against all greed”, because he isn’t limiting greed just to material possessions. Many of the things to which we cling – many of the things about which we have inordinate desires to keep for ourselves - aren’t material at all: our time, our opinions, our plans, our preferences, our comforts, our routines, our ways of seeing things and our ways of doing things are just a sampling of the many things to which we excessively cling.
What kinds of greed – in any form, in all forms - might we need to be careful to guard against today?
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(October 21, 2025: Tuesday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more…”
It has been said that the only irrefutable dogma of the Catholic Church is the teaching on Original Sin. One only needs to read the daily newspaper to recognize countless and unrelenting proofs of the existence of Original Sin in particular, and overall sin in general. It is all the more humbling when we recognize proofs of the existence of that same sinfulness in our own lives: our thoughts, feelings, attitudes and actions. We don’t need to take the reality of sin on faith - we see and experience it every day!
And yet, as many proofs as there are for the reality of sin, Francis de Sales suggests that there are even more proofs of God’s mercy! In his Treatise on the Love of God, Frances de Sales wrote:
“God’s providence has left in us great marks of his severity, even amid the very grace of his mercy. Examples include the fact that we must die, that there is disease, that we must toil and the fact that we rebel against what we know is good. God’s favor floats over all this and finds joy in turning all our miseries to the greater profit of those who love him. From toil God makes patience spring forth, from death comes contempt for passing riches and from our interior struggles emerge a thousand victories. Just as the rainbow touches the thorn aspalathus and makes it smell sweeter than the lily, so our Savior’s redemption touches our miseries and makes them more beneficial and worthy of love than original innocence could ever have been. The angels, says our Savior, have ‘more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance. So, too, the state of redemption is a hundred times better than that of innocence.”
“Truly, by the watering of our Savior’s blood – made with the hyssop of the cross – we have been restored to a white incomparably better than that possessed by the snows of innocence. Like Naaman, we come out of the stream of salvation more pure and clean than if we had never had leprosy. This is to the end that God’s majesty, as he had ordained for us as well, should not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good, in order that his mercy – like a sacred oil – should keep itself ‘above judgment’ and ‘his mercies be above all his works.’” (TLG, Book II, Chapter 6, pp. 115 – 166)
There’s no doubt about it - sin is real. However, let there be even less doubt that God’s mercy, generosity and love is far more real – and powerful – than sin.
With God’s help – and with the support of others - how might we overcome evil with good today?
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(October 22, 2025: John Paul II, Pope)
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“You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come…”
We all know the expression, “Hindsight is 20-20.” As we know from our own experience, often times it is much easier to recognize the truth about something hours, days, weeks and perhaps even years after the fact. While hindsight is better than having no sight at all, there are certain limitations associated with recognizing how God has been active in one’s life only after further reflection.
This pattern gets played out time and time again in numerous accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. People didn’t seem to recognize that the Son of Man was standing right in front of them. Put another way, insofar as they were not prepared to recognize who Jesus was before he appeared, they failed to recognize him when he actually arrived!
The aim of the Spiritual Directory – the goal of the Direction of Intention – is to help us to acquire foresight when it comes to recognizing the activity and presence of God in our lives. Living in each and every present moment challenges us to anticipate the variety of ways in which God may visit, speak to or inspire us just this day and to recognize God’s divine activity and presence as it actually occurs in each and every present moment - and not merely after the fact.
In the movie Field of Dreams, Doctor “Moonlight” Graham (played by actor Burt Lancaster) says to Ray Kinsella, “You know, we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. Back then I thought, 'Well, there'll be other days.' I didn't realize that that was the only day.”
May God give us the awareness that we need to be prepared for the most significant moments - and each and every moment - in our lives, each and every day. But then, when you consider that we have only a limited number of moments allotted to us on this earth, shouldn’t every moment be a significant moment?
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(October 23, 2025: Thursday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”
In a film released in 2004, Denzel Washington stars as John Creasy, a despondent former CIA operative/Force Recon Marine officer-turned-bodyguard. Creasey gets a shot at redemption when he is hired to protect the daughter of a wealthy businessman in Mexico City. When the nine-year-old girl is kidnapped and held for ransom, Washington’s character will stop at nothing to get the young girl back, even to the point (spoiler alert!) of giving his life in exchange for hers.
The name of the film is Man on Fire.
Jesus Christ clearly was a man on fire. He tells us so in today’s Gospel selection from Luke. All throughout the three years of his public ministry, Jesus demonstrated again and again to us that he would stop at nothing to proclaim the power and promise of the Kingdom of God – forgiving the sinner, healing the blind, lame and leprous, finding the lost, raising the lowly, humbling the proud and challenging the haughty. His efforts not only won him many friends but also made him more than a few enemies. Undaunted by the challenges of his vocation, Jesus remained faithful to the work of redemption, even to the point of giving his very life for others.
Jesus wants us to be men and women on fire with the love of God and neighbor. Jesus wants us – his brothers and sisters – to be unrelenting in demonstrating in our own lives the power and promise of the Kingdom of God.
How can we get “fired up” for the sake of the Gospel today?
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(October 24, 2025: Friday, Twenty-ninth Week Ordinary Time)
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“For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”
You can feel the frustration in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Redeemed as he was by Jesus Christ, not only did Paul fail to do many of the things that he knew that he should have done, but also he did many of the things that he knew that he shouldn’t have done. In another place Paul describes this disconnect as if having two men battling inside of him, each wrestling for dominance over the other.
In a letter to Peronne-Marie de Chatel (one of the four original members of the nascent Visitation congregation at Annecy who, notwithstanding her virtues and gifts, nevertheless experienced “discouragement, scruples and even moments of very human impatience and irritation,”), Francis de Sales wrote:
“You are right when you say there are two people in you. One person is a bit touchy, resentful and ready to flare up if anyone crosses her; this is the daughter of Eve and therefore bad-tempered. The other person fully intends to belong totally to God and who, in order to be all His, wants to be simply humble and humbly gentle toward everyone…this is the daughter of the glorious Virgin Mary and therefore of good disposition. These two daughters of different mothers fight each other and the good-for-nothing one is so mean that the good one has a hard time defending herself; afterward, the poor dear thinks that she has been beaten and that the wicked one is stronger than she. Not at all! The wicked one is not stronger than you but is more brazen, perverse, unpredictable and stubborn and when you go off crying she is very happy because that’s just so much time wasted, and she is satisfied to make you lose time when she is unable to make you lose eternity.”
“Do not be ashamed of all this, my dear daughter, any more than St. Paul who confesses that there were two men in him – one rebellious toward God, and the other obedient to God. Stir up your courage. Arm yourself with the patience that we should have toward ourselves.” (Letters of Spiritual Direction, p. 164-165)
Of course, there aren’t really two people battling inside of us trying to see who will win out! Thank God for that, because most days we have more than enough to handle with our singular personalities! Of course, it is discouraging when we don’t live up to God’s standards or our own. Of course, it is frustrating to make what often appears to be little progress in the spiritual life. Of course, there’s more good that we should do and more evil that we should avoid. Rather than drive yourself crazy, gently – and firmly – follow Francis de Sales’ advice: “Stir up your courage. Arm yourself with patience that we should have toward ourselves.”
And - of course - with one another.
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(October 25, 2025: Saturday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“The concern of the spirit is life…”
In a scene from the film Schindler’s List, Itzhak Stern (played by Sir Ben Kingsley) says the following about the names of the Jews whose safety the German industrialist is attempting to buy: “The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.”
“Stern makes this pronouncement as he and Schindler complete Schindler’s list. The two men have been working all night, adding as many names as possible—everyone Schindler can afford to buy. The list stands on its own as unadulterated good, unaffected by the mystery behind Schindler’s motives and any other mitigating factor. It represents the life of the Jewish race. Stern is perhaps stating the obvious when he says this, but symbolically, the list is the essence of life itself and, obviously, stands in stark contrast to the Nazi lists of death.”
“In the second half of the quotation, Stern mentions more than the life the list represents. He mentions the ‘gulf’ that surrounds the list. The gulf is the millions of Jews who will not be saved but rather are left in a real-life purgatory - held prisoner - awaiting either freedom or death. The goodness of the list does not cancel out the evil that befalls the victims of the Holocaust, but even a small goodness is total goodness. Acknowledging all those who cannot be saved intensifies the impact of the good of the list, impressing upon the viewer the power of Schindler’s deed.” (http://www.sparknotes.com/film/schindlerslist/quotes.html)
In the end, Oskar Schindler saved over 1,100 Jews from almost certain death at the hands of the Nazi killing machine. By contrast, contemporary estimates indicate that perhaps as many as 10 million less-fortunate Jews perished in the conflagration.
It is a powerful demonstration of how - to paraphrase the words of St. Paul – the spirit’s concern for life is not a numbers game. All life is sacred; every life matters and is worth being saved. (Hence another quote from the lips of Itzhak Stern: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”)
We can eschew the darkness of death, but it is far wiser - as we see so clearly in the life of Jesus – to do what we can to establish and grow the light of life. By dedicating ourselves to that same concern – for life – may we one day find our names written on another list.
In the Book of Life!
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