27 August 2025: Wednesday of the 21st week of TO

1 Thess. 2:9-13; Matt. 23:27-32

Homily

The long list of Jesus' curses against the Pharisees at the end of Matthew's Gospel has been divided into three blocks in the ferial lectionary, spread over the first three days of the 21st week of Ordinary Time. (The authors of the lectionary probably thought it would be a bit hard to take all of them on the same day!

What Jesus reproaches the Pharisees for is above all their hypocrisy, that is, the discrepancy between what they are and the impression they try to give of themselves. And this reminds us of the importance of truth and simplicity in our Christian life and our monastic life. We are who we are before God, with our qualities and our faults, our abilities and our limitations, and we know that we are loved by Him as we are – and called by Him to grow continually. Whenever we are concerned about what others think of us, when we try to impress them with our qualities while hiding our limitations, we are still far from the truth and simplicity that is the essence of monastic life.

Today's first reading, taken from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, speaks to us about the meaning of spiritual fatherhood (or motherhood).

If Paul considers himself a ‘father’ to the members of the churches he founded (or assisted), it is because he begot them through the Word of God. God alone is the Father. There is only one fatherhood: that of God. All human fatherhood or motherhood—whether physical or spiritual—is a participation in that of God.

The Father expressed Himself fully in His Son, in His Word; and it is through this Word that He created and brought forth all things. The Incarnate Word gave us new life by giving Himself to us in faith and in the sacraments.

Christ is the Father and Mother of every monastic community. According to the Rule of Benedict, the abbot is the father of the monastery, for he is the vicar of Christ. His task as father is not to beget spiritual children for himself, but to give birth to Christ in his brothers.

Similarly, when Saint Benedict, at the end of his Rule, invites us to mutual obedience, he invites us to be, each one for the other, father and mother, communicating the Word to one another, both by exhortation and by the example of our lives.

This is an enormous responsibility that we all have towards one another: to communicate life to one another or to refuse to do so.

Armand Veilleux

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Today we celebrate the memorial of saint Monica