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The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Today’s second reading answers the longing of the human heart that asks: Is there a God? Is sin a myth or a reality? If so, how do we become reconciled with this God? Is this God a personal, loving God, or is he disinterested or impersonal? Is there only one God, or are there a plurality of Gods? Is there such a thing as objective truth, or is truth an illusion and all is relative?

Saint Paul says that God “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:4-6). So many questions of the human heart find an answer in this one small, simple passage taken from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy.

As members of the human race, we are born poor, without the saving grace of God. We are among dust, seated in the dunghill of our sin. In today’s Psalm, we sing: “He raises up the lowly from the dust; from the dunghill he lifts up the poor to seat them with princes” (Psalm 113:7-8). In Christ, we are ransomed from our sinful depravity and seated with the heavenly court. He alone reconciles us to God, for there is no other savior, no other path of salvation, no other Way.

When our souls are filled with the supernatural life of God first in baptism, then subsequently through the other sacraments, we are joined to Christ so intimately that Paul calls us “the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27). We are given the profound privilege of participating in Christ’s work of reconciling men with God. We offer “prayers … for everyone … in all devotion and dignity,” for “this is good and pleasing to God our savior” (1 Tim 2:1-3). We become evangelizers who intercede for the salvation of souls through prayer and apostolic works.

The Gospel parable taken from Luke 16:1-13 can be summed up in the final verse, which says, “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Mammon is the Greek transliteration of a Hebrew or Aramaic word that means literally: “that in which one trusts.” It was a word used to denote monetary wealth. Jesus specifically uses this term to emphasize that trust is to be placed not in the passing wealth of the here and now but rather in the God who is the purpose for our existence.

Between this Sunday and the next, will you spend your time serving your monetary savings, your luxury car, the many and various things you’ve acquired, the large house you don’t really need, or the frivolous electronic devices that steal your time and numb you from reality? Or, will your time be invested in a personal, vital, and living relationship with your savior, Jesus Christ and in serving him? Let us follow the example of St. Paul who summarized life’s meaning with: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).