Scripture Reflections for the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Perhaps the only thing that has changed since Amos’ time is that what we understand by north and south covers much vaster territories than he could have imagined.”

“If we don’t practice the Christian faith and charity, we cannot be among the chosen people in heaven. We need to constantly reflect. Are we faithful followers of Jesus? Do we really practice charity based on our faith and hope in God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ?”

“For the rich man in our Gospel there was no true understanding because the abyss he never crossed in his life on earth was listening to God in those who suffer”

“life can be grossly unfair sometimes and perhaps the greatest unfairness of all is not the injustice of being victimized, violated, raped, or murdered, but that, after all this has been done to us, we’re expected to forgive the one who did it to us”

“Kathleen Dowling Singh submits that in making a series of mental contractions we create our own fear of death. That’s true too for the afterlife: By making a series of unfortunate theological contractions we create our own fear of hell.”

“God must be akin to a loving parent or grandparent, looking at his or her children at the family gathering, happy that they have interesting lives that so absorb them, content not to be always the center of their conscious attention”

“When we are rich, we have a congenital incapacity to see the poor and, in not seeing them, we never learn the wisdom of the crucified”

“We need to listen to the prophets that call us to live on this planet without overconsumption that leaves people at the fringes hungry...Rather, we are to live this life with justice, integrity and sustainability listening to Moses, the prophets and the words of Jesus.”

“Paul tells Timothy to do what neither the Pharisees nor the leaders of 8th century BC Israel did. He preaches solidarity with God first. Then he urges him to minister from that foundation.”

“The message we are to take from scripture is not that we should not have lives of relative comfort and tranquillity...The warning today is about allowing ourselves to become distracted.”

“Charity is charity when it becomes sacrificial. It makes meaning when it goes beyond the boundary of our families and people of same rank with us to affect the lives of strangers.”

“Our life is among other things a preparation for seeing our Lord’s Face in judgment. We should practice for, and pray for, a good death, a Christian death. It is important that we should know this, because we are immortal animals, called to glory.”

“When we’re tempted to ease up, get comfortable with our situation, and get lazy, that’s when we need to humble ourselves, get back to the basics, and remember What got us here”

“To treat the resurrection as just an inert fact to prove a point would be to domesticate it, to subdue its explosive effects into the type of comfortable certainties that got the rich man into all that trouble”

“Do we try to live with integrity, listening to those asking difficult questions about our life-style or priorities? Do we party with an exclusive group of carefully selected like-minded friends, or do we gather at the Eucharist, the promise of an inclusive party in heaven?”

“Try to adopt, everybody, some concrete practice that makes real your commitment to the poor. Let Amos the prophet and let the story of Lazarus bug you today.”

“the conclusion is be converted, now. Do something for the poor, now.”

“Maybe ask the question that way next time there's someone that you concretely can help: why has God given me the wealth that I have and why has God placed that person or those persons in a perhaps unnerving way right on my doorstep?”

“what's the test of your religious conviction? It is precisely the way you treat those who are most immediately and concretely in need.”

“As we look around our homes and we look at our lives we can all find luxuries that we really don't need. Every year rid yourself of one of them. Friends, like it or not Lazarus is at the gate and we are called by God to care for him.”