Homily for Thursday, 23d Week of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
23d Week of Ordinary Time

Sept. 11, 2025
Luke 6: 27-38
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

“Jesus said to his disciples: … ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you’” (Luke 6: 27).

The World Trade Center cross
standing above the pit where the twin towers had stood
Feb. 24, 2005

What a gospel for the 24th anniversary of 9/11!

Perhaps you lost a relative, a past pupil or the parent of one, or a friend.  My Scout troop, Mt. Vernon Troop Forty, lost our Scoutmaster, who worked in the north tower.  

All of us lost an element of our national innocence and sense of invulnerability, and we all felt violated.

City of Mt. Vernon's September 11 Memorial
with candles for Michael Boccardi and 4 others from the city

The world hasn’t been the same since that day.  It’d be hard to make the case that we’re safer or that nations are more peaceful as a result of our reaction to being so brutally attacked, to the murder of almost 3,000 innocent people—besides even more lives abbreviated by what they call “post-9/11 illnesses.”

Today we might ask how can Jesus expect a Ukrainian to love a Russian or a Palestinian to love an Israeli?  Surely he who commands us to love our neighbors and do good to them wants us to defend them, too.

Self-defense, however, doesn’t preclude our praying for those who mistreat us or those who inflict massive evil upon humanity.  We can commend to God our enemies.  He can turn hearts that our weapons can’t touch.  Maybe that’s all you and I can do about the dozens of horrible conflicts around the world; I think Pope Francis counted over a hundred of them; or about the political vitriol that leads to assassinations.

Closer to home, we can pray for family members who don’t get along with each other—and for brothers who sometimes irritate us.  We make every effort to “put on, as God’s chosen ones, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” (Col 3:12), a powerful form of “giving to everyone who asks of you” and “doing to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:30-31).  So we make our own little offering for the peace of the world.

A Mt. Vernon commemoration of 9/11.
Members of Troop Forty in the foreground.

[For a Sunday 9/11 homily: From the Eastern Front: Homily for 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time]