Homily for Wednesday, Week 23 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Wednesday
Week 23 of Ordinary Time

Sept. 10, 2025
Luke 6: 20-26
Collect
Col 3: 1-11
Salesian Missions, New Rochelle

Today’s gospel is St. Luke’s version of the beatitudes, a little briefer than St. Matthew’s version, which we’re more familiar with.  In both versions, the word “blessed” could also be translated “happy.”  In both, Jesus invites us to consider what makes us happy—not immediately but ultimately.  Where is true contentment to be found?  Or, in the words of this morning’s collect, where is “true freedom”?

The collect refers to us as God’s “beloved sons and daughters” whom he has adopted.  Because of that, he has planned for us “an everlasting inheritance.”  Attaining that inheritance, promised to his adopted children, is what will content us forever; it’s what finally makes us happy; it’s the blessing we all seek.

Jesus advises us that such a reward comes to those who follow him, “the Son of Man” (6:22-23).  “Blessed are the poor,” he says, meaning those who don’t focus their lives on the accumulation of wealth and power but who focus on God; “the kingdom of God is yours” (6:20).  “Blessed are you who are now hungry” (6:21)—hungry not for food but for sharing the gifts of God with others and not being selfish with them.  “Blessed are you who are weeping” (6:21)—weeping for all the evil in the world and for our own sins.  Jesus offers us laughter because he offers us forgiveness and the joy that comes from following his teachings and acting like children of God.

If people “put away” anger, malice, slander, lying, greed, and impurity—vices that Paul lists today (Col 3:5-9) and instead looked to Christ, raised in glory, then we’d all be happier.  Freedom from our passions and vices is the “true freedom” we long for.  We’re happier when we “put on the new self,” the one made in the image of our creator, the image that we see in person in Jesus Christ (5:10).  We make others happy or blessed when we give the goodness of Jesus to them.  Then, when we stand before Christ on Judgment Day, “when Christ [our] life appears, [we] too will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:4).