“Every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14

Thirty-first Week of Ordinary Time

On the Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time we have Luke's marvelous account of Jesus' encounter with the wealthy tax collector, Zacchaeus from Luke's Gospel. Watching from a tree, he is invited by Jesus: “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”

Monday is the Memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo, Bishop. Saturday is the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.

During the regular readings this week, we conclude a four-week series of first readings from Paul's Letter to the Romans. He reminds us, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?”

In the Gospel according to Luke we see Jesus living out his daily life with challenging honesty. He calls us to extend an invitation out of our hearts, not with an eye on an invitation in return: “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” Then Jesus tells the parable of the invited guests who made excuses to decline the invitation. He sends his servants to invite everyone. Jesus tells a crowd that they have to renounce their possessions to be his disciple and that to do something really important, we have to prepare and be ready. When the religious leaders complain, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them,” Jesus tells parables of the man who finds his lost sheep and the woman with the lost coin, both of whom rejoice in finding what was lost. A steward protects himself by pardoning those who owe his master. We end the week with Jesus asking which is more important, God or money? “No servant can serve two masters.”

On the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, in Luke's Gospel, the Sadducees ask sly questions of Jesus, hoping to confuse him on the idea of a Resurrection. Jesus refutes them by quoting Moses: “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Daily Prayer This Week

This week guides us deep into our faith in several ways. With the Solemnity of All Saints, we are reminded of all the women and men whose faithful living of the Gospel is so clear that we are sure we can imitate their lives. These are all the named saints. It would be great to name the saints whose example we desire to shape our lives. All Souls day gives us the opportunity to remember and pray for all our brothers and sisters who have died. We confidently hope and pray that they may be embraced by the love and mercy of God, poured forth in the life giving death and resurrection of Jesus. This is a wonderful day to name all those we want to pray for, and to include in our prayer those who have no one to pray for them.

As we go about our very busy lives this week, we can continue to practice focusing our attention on an ongoing conversation with our Lord throughout the day. Our desires - for union with our Lord, to know God's love for us, to become more aware of our failings, to become more generous with our family and friends, to be more patient and forgiving, to love as we have been loved - can be expressed in these simple expressions. These expressed desires will naturally interact with the real events of our day.

The gospels this week will draw us into desiring to be more merciful and to not let money or pride dominate our behavior. We won't be “unprepared” if we keep making openings for our Lord to enter the ordinary moments of our days. In repeated momenets, we can simply open our hearts and ask God for the desire to have our lives focus on God's desires for us, rather than what our culture wants us to focus on so constantly.

Each night, let's look back over the day briefly, and give thanks for a God who listens to our desires.