Homily for Tuesday, Week 21 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Tuesday
21st Week of Ordinary Time

Aug. 26, 2025
Ps 139: 1-6
1 Thes 2: 1-8
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

David, traditionally regarded
as author of many psalms
(St. Mary's Church, Fredericksburg)

“You have probed me and you know me” (Ps 139: 1).

Today’s psalm acknowledges how deeply, how intimately, the Lord knows us.  He knows us inside out:  “you understand my thoughts from afar” (139:2).

The Lord doesn’t know us so as to find fault with us—tho of course he knows our failings better than we do.  Paul commented to the Corinthians:  “I’m not conscious of anything against me, but I don’t thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord” (I, 4:4).

But the Lord doesn’t exclaim at us, “Woe to you, Brothers!” (cf. Matt 23).  He loves us.  He’s judged us “worthy to be entrusted with the Gospel” (1 Thes 2:4)—to hear the Gospel, to be converted by the Gospel, to be saved by the Gospel—and, by his grace, to live by the Gospel.  Living by the Gospel, we are gentle with one another “as a nursing mother cares for her children” (2:7) and “share our very selves” with one another (2:8), as Jesus has shared himself with us.