Blog Post 08-10-2025 Homily Cycle C – 19th Sunday – Offered at OLPH.
My wife gave me a daily desk calendar and this past Friday’s message was “God doesn’t want shares of your life. He wants controlling interest.” We are all familiar with G.P.S. [Global Positioning System], it let us know where we are on Earth & helps us get to where we want to go. The Happiness GPS is based on Trusting and Following Jesus, it let us know where we are on Earth but guides to eternal life.
Today we are asked three Basic Questions: 1. “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?” 2. “What is Faith? And 3. What claims your heart?
Jesus teaches us right from wrong; He gives us grace to do the right and reject the wrong. He taught us to do everything for God because we are from God & will return to God. [Jesus] “…gathers us into a community of faith: to learn, to pray, to obey and to suffer and … do it together. [Richard J. Foster, Plough] Jesus is the beginning and the end of this community, His Church. Remember Jesus said, “Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”
What claims your heart? Today’s Scriptures remind us that one day each of us will come before God to give an accounting of our life; the gifts [material and spiritual], that we were given and what we did with them.
What is faith? In the Letter to the Hebrews, we learn: “Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see.”
Faith is an act of seeing in trust.
Christ reminds us too always be ready, by living each day in His love, shining His light as we store up treasure in heaven. The famous Dodger announcer Vin Sculley once said, “Being Irish, being Catholic, from the first day I can remember …. Death is a constant companion in our religion. You live with it easily; it is not a morbid thought. That has given me the perspective that whatever I have can disappear in 30 seconds…. the most precious thing I have—time. You never know how much of it you have left.”
Jesus told His disciples “Do not be afraid & …where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” St. John of the Cross put it well: “At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.” How can we always live ready? If we wait for the great occasions to love, we may have a long wait. But we have countless opportunities to prepare our hearts for our heavenly report card.
The key is to learn to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. How?
By being good stewards whether we are running a multi-national corporation, mowing the grass, doing the dishes, cooking a meal - whatever we do we should do for the Lord. We die as we live, and if we live choosing to love others, death will simply be what Pope Francis once described as the “Ultimate ‘Come’ spoken to us by the Father.”
Christ’s message is to live each day as a preparation to meet the Father in joy, a day that is known only to God. Maybe the lines from the Poem “The Road – The Way” can help our focus, “His Light illumines how to go, with Trust & Hope – each cry & cross a prayer to make.
The Lord leads us to the peaceful river, where it flows.
Let others know, The Road, The Way.
I beg of you today.”
Offer your daily actions as a prayer for one day before the throne of God, then you will have the answers to today’s questions:
1. “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?”
2. What claims your heart?
And 3. What is Faith?
Your pilgrimage here on earth will be over.
Your Faith and Hope in Jesus will be confirmed.
What claimed your Heart here you will give to God.
On that day may we hear God say, “Well done, good & faithful servant. Come into the joy prepared for you from all eternity.” Take a few minutes think about how closely you are following your Happiness G.P.S.?
May God Be Praised!
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