Month: October 2025

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” — Luke 17:15–18 Jesus speaks these words—part of the Gospel reading (Luke 17:11–19) assigned for this upcoming Sunday, the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL Year C—with a peculiar edge. Not quite anger—more like astonished disappointment. Ten men healed. One returns. And Jesus doesn’t speak to the Samaritan…

The righteous live by their faithfulness — Habakkuk 2:4b The Present Grief On August 27, during a morning mass attended by students at a parochial school adjacent to Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, a 29-year-old shooter killed two children and wounded others as they prayed. On September 10, Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University. Last Sunday, a man attacked a Mormon church in Michigan, killing four, wounding others, and bombing the building itself. We watch the news footage—shattered glass, police tape, grieving families—and the questions rise unbidden: How long, O Lord? Where were you? Why didn’t you stop this? We’ve become almost numb to such headlines, haven’t we?…