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Today's Gospel sounds puzzling to contemporary readers, but it can be made less so by considering the economic system which stands behind the parable. The manager of the property said to himself, “Now that my master is taking the stewardship from me, what am I to do? Dig? I am not strong enough. Go begging? I would be too ashamed. Ah, I know what I will do to make sure that when I am dismissed from office there will be some to welcome me into their homes” (Lk 16: 3-4). Here then is the crux of the story of today: the manager could have very well asked the debtors to give him part of the debt. After all, the master seems to have no idea of the amount owed to him by his debtors. The manager could have made some good money out of it. But he plans to do something more lasting: to use the wealth to build something more lasting – friendships.

We lift up our Nation in prayer to God this weekend as we recall with a heavy heart the loss of life, the way of life and the disruption of peace caused by the tragedy of 9/11. Our world needs more than ever, the healing that can come only from God. In chapter 15 of Luke's Gospel, Jesus tells three parables about losing, finding, and rejoicing. The outcasts of society, the taxpayers, and the sinners approach Jesus eager to hear what he has to say. In Luke's Gospel, hearing is a sign of conversion. The Pharisees and scribes, still suspicious of Jesus, complain about him associating with sinners. So, he tells them these three parables.

      The Gospel readings these past Sundays have a theme running through them forming a trilogy. Two Sundays ago, the Lord told us to strive to enter the narrow door. Being narrow, it involves not only great effort and focus, but also bending down low. So, in last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus taught us the absolute necessity of the virtue of humility through the parable of the dinner guest choosing the place of honor without deserving it. But one thing more is needed. The narrow gate will not allow us to bring in any extra baggage. So, this Sunday, the Lord tells us: “Every one of you who does not renounce all his possessions, cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:33). And to make sure we are admitted, we must show the distinctive sign of membership, namely, the cross: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow after me cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:27). Our idea and the significance of the ‘cross’ has undergone a lot of changes. From being a sign of commitment to the mission, as Jesus did, to just being a decorative symbol or even a statement of profanity.

As summer is waning, we carry many memories of meal gatherings with family and friends. The sharing of food is one of the most common elements in the gospel of Luke. It progresses the narrative along and provides the setting for major teaching moments in the gospel. So let us reflect on today’s meal narrative through Jesus’ Mediterranean world lens. The meals were very powerful means of communication. Above all, meals affirmed and gave legitimacy to a person’s role, and it also carried a status symbol in a given community. For this reason, most meals in antiquity were attended by people of the same social rank much like the protocol of an exclusive club gathering of our time. Accepting an invitation to dinner in the ancient Mediterranean world obligated a guest to return the favor.

The 13th chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel recounts in parables the reversal of fortunes as the hallmark of the Kingdom of God. The first parable is about the tiny mustard seed that grows into a large tree and the second is about the small amount of yeast that makes a large batch of dough rise. We read the third parable in the Gospel today. The image of the ‘narrow gate/door’ is quite unique. Even in our day of expansive buildings and structures, we too, at times encounter small doors as we board small planes or go through security checks or get a whole-body scan. The last one in particular can be a scary experience but is a reminder of the precious nature of life.

The Reading for this 20th Sunday, could be jarring to our ears. If we feel so, then we must pay close attention to our call to be prophets. We who have been confirmed have been given a share in Christ’s prophetic anointing. If our goal is to be everybody’s ‘likeable fellow’, we are going to have a hard time being faithful. The word that God commands us to share is sometimes comforting, sometimes disturbing. We must get over our fear of offending people and love them enough to tell them the truth. Of course, there is always the question of the right place and time. But if no place is the right place and the right time never comes, we can be sure that we are allowing fear of other’s opinion to get in the way of love. Love is not about being sentimental or popular. It shakes things up and sets the world on fire.

Viktor Frankl, in his account of what he learned about human nature in a Nazi concentration camp, "Man’s Search for Meaning", notes that the people most likely to survive that ordeal were those who had something to look forward to—a loved one with whom they hoped one day to be reunited or an enterprise they hoped to accomplish. What we look forward to is so deeply a part of our personality that this mental and spiritual reality impacts our bodily health and vitality. The lack of something to look forward to results in a deterioration of energy and performance and may even shove us into the temptation to give up on life.

Ecclesiastes' wisdom comes from someone identified as “Qoheleth.” It’s not certain whether this is a personal name, some sort of pseudonym, or the title of an office. Judging from the meaning of the related verb, it would seem that the word means “convener” or “assembler”—thus the common English translations “Teacher” or “Preacher.” The book’s more common name, Ecclesiastes, is an approximate translation into Greek of the Hebrew name. The book comprises an extended reflective essay employing autobiographical narrative, proverbs, parables, and allegories.

The central theme of the Word of God on this 17th Sunday is prayer. The first reading, strange as it sounds to us, the book of Genesis tells this episode of Abraham bargaining with God. He kept haggling and badgering: “Are you really going to destroy the just man with the sinner?” Abraham’s prayer highlights a certain familiarity between Abraham and the Lord God. Abraham gives up the ‘bargain’ since he concludes the people earned their punishment by their wanton lifestyle. In the Gospel reading of today, Luke collects together some teachings of Jesus on prayer – including the prayer that Jesus gave us as the pattern of all prayers – the Our Father. Underpinning these readings is an invitation towards an attitude in prayer that goes beyond particular formulas and specific locations.

We have two famous hospitality stories from the Bible today. They are joined together to form a narrative though there are about one thousand eight hundred years between Jesus and Abraham. Abraham being a nomadic tribesman ends up at a certain place near present day Jerusalem at a location close to the desert called Mamre. At Mamre, there is a terebinth, which is a huge oak tree, and there he sets up his tent. Sitting outside his tent, he sees three travelers. He gets up and runs to them and he falls on his knees before them, which is an Asian sign of great reverence in the old days, and he says to them, “Would you do me the favor of staying here with me and I will give you water to wash your feet.”

The Good Samaritan or ‘Good-sam’ institutions around the globe have monumentalized the hero of Jesus’ story we read in today’s Gospel. Relations between the Jews and the Samaritans were always strained. Jesus ben Sirach (ca. 180 B.C.) referred to the Samaritans as "the foolish people that dwell in Shechem" (Sir 50:26). There is a tradition that 300 priests and 300 rabbis once gathered in the temple court in Jerusalem to curse the Samaritans with all the curses in the Law of Moses. When the Jews wanted to curse Jesus Christ, they called him demon-possessed and a Samaritan in one breath (John 8:48). To Jesus’ fellow Jews, a Samaritan was a despicable creature. Missing this note, we might miss much of the punch of the parable.

All three synoptic Gospels (Mathew, Mark and Luke) record a mission of the Twelve during Jesus’ earthly ministry. The mission of the Seventy (some texts have seventy-two) is peculiar to Luke. There can be little doubt that the number seventy is symbolic. The mission of the Twelve represents the Church’s mission to Israel (twelve tribes); and the mission of the Seventy, its mission to the nations of the world (which according to Jewish tradition, numbered seventy or seventy-two).

In the First Reading, Elisha is called by the Lord to be the helper and successor of the prophet Elijah. Elisha is a wealthy farmer with twelve yoked oxen. He is comparable to our mid-western farmer with a rototiller with immense power. He wants to go home and bid farewell to his family. Prophet Elijah reacts sternly. “Go back!” the prophet says to Elisha—and he seems to mean, “who wants you anyway?”

We live in a world that is obsessed with consumerism. Swimming in the current, we might even be unconscious of its impact. We invest time, energy, and money on our gadgets, fancy food, and drink, clothes, home decor, etc. We chase wealth, fame, and the admiration or notice of others. So why do so many people seem dissatisfied? This is indicative of the fact that we are made for a higher reality. Our deepest desire is to love. So why do we try to fill up with consumerism? Unfortunately, when we turn away from God, we tend to try to fill the emptiness with worldly things. And while most of these things are not bad in moderation, when we use them as substitutes for God’s love, we become addicted to them. They can truly become “idols”, substitutes for God. Of course, we still need to eat and drink and have clothes and tech gadgets. But we should not desire these more than union with God. St Ignatius of Loyola discovered that the things of the world give only temporary pleasure, but the things of God truly satisfy our desires. He introduced in his Spiritual Exercises the daily “Examen of Conscience”. This is a daily check on what material things we consume and how much we invest in spiritual practices.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. Our ordinary devotion to the Holy Trinity is revealed in the Sign of the Cross, when we say: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The sign of the cross distinguishes us from other Christian groups. Making the sign of the cross in the Church or before we enter the church, before our prayers, shows that we are followers of the Holy Trinity, and we believe in the Trinitarian God. If we do it in public, it is an expression to the world that we believe in the Holy Trinity. It is a noble sight to see professional athletes make the sign of the cross before a game, because they profess their faith in the Blessed Trinity as if to say that without the Holy Trinity, they are nothing.

 Fifty days after the Passover, the People of Israel celebrated “Pentecost,” observing the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, when God wrote the law with his own finger on the tablets of stone. The feast was originally rooted in the celebration of the harvest. It was on that Pentecost Day that the apostles reaped the harvest of the Lord’s Passover of suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection, and received the Holy Spirit, who writes the law on our hearts. This same Holy Spirit who came mightily on Pentecost comes to us. The same Spirit is in us, by our baptism and confirmation – the same Spirit who transformed the apostles, who raises the dead, and who changes bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood. That same Spirit is in us, and this should give us tremendous confidence in following Christ.       

In the First Reading (Acts 7:55-60), we read the story of the death of Stephen; the first Christian martyr. The Jewish authorities at the time accused him of blasphemy for preaching about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and hatched a plan to stone him to death. In the narrative, we also meet Saul, a young man who is overseeing the lynching as he is the keeper of the cloaks so that he can eventually ‘reward’ the team that carried out the sentence of execution. The power to execute was reserved solely to the Roman Governor. The witness of Stephen might have sown seeds of conversion in Saul who will encounter Christ later, on the way to Damascus. We learn that Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and looking up to heaven; he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.    

This weekend, we rejoice with our teenagers who received the Sacrament of Confirmation. May the experience of being sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit help them to live holy lives. His Eminence Bishop Gerald T. Walsh stressed that our lives must be guided by wisdom and understanding that come from the Spirit. This weekend’s readings reflect this aspect of our Christian faith. I hope that families can sit with their teenagers and enter into the process of discernment as many life changing decisions will be made in the next five or six years of their lives.

On February 25, 2004, Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, was released to hostile reviews but strong audiences. It was soon the highest grossing ‘Christian film’ of all time. One of the most moving moments in the film is when Mary (played by Maia Morgenstern) runs to meet her Son (played by Jim Caviezel) on his way to the cross and the two strengthen each other. Gibson uses poetic license to put on the Suffering Christ’s lips the words He speaks from His heavenly throne in today’s second reading (Rev 21:1-5): “See Mother how I make all things new!”

The fourth Sunday of Easter is always given over to the imagery of the Good Shepherd and is being christened ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’. It carries an invitation to pray for the Holy Father, Bishops and Pastors and all who play the role of a shepherd in the Church. The image of the shepherd appears to have been precious to the people of God for a very long time, perhaps it was a familiar motif even when David penned those familiar words of Psalm 23 over three thousand years ago.