The Sunday Word

September 5, 2010
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 9:13-18b
Phmn 9-10, 12-17
Lk 14:25-33

This weekend is traditionally the last days for a great swim and some summer fun. On one hand it's Labor Day but on the church calendar it's the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Our Lord tells us upfront the sacrifice it will take to be His disciple. His words aren’t addressed to His chosen few, the Twelve, but rather to the “great crowds” - to “anyone,” to “whoever” wishes to be His disciple.

"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple."

Saint Luke is matched with a passage from the Book of Wisdom which echoes wonder in the face of God's inscrutable wisdom. And finally, these two texts are thrown together with a passage from Paul's letter to Philomen and the question of Onesiumus' status as a slave!

Happy Labor Day!

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Pray for the Canonization of Blessed William Joseph Chaminade

"The first and greatest of man’s weaknesses is pride. Pride is that hidden opinion man has of his own excellence, which causes the desire of his elevation or a complacency in what he believes to perceive in himself. To know the depth of this first weakness, let us consider the depth of the humiliations of the Son of God in his Incarnation."

Blessed William Joseph Chaminade