3 September 2025 - Wednesday, 22nd week of Ordinary Time
Col 1:1-8; Lk 4:38-44
Homily
In this 22nd week of Ordinary Time, we turn to two books of Sacred Scripture. We began reading the Gospel of Luke on Monday, and today we begin, as the first reading, Paul's letter to the Colossians. This letter from Paul to the Colossians is part of what are known as the Letters of Captivity. It is therefore a work that dates from the period of maturity in the Apostle's spiritual thought.
As for the Gospel of Luke, of the four Gospels, it is undoubtedly the best ‘constructed’, because Luke knew how to write. Above all, he knew how to organise his material well. The first two chapters of his Gospel, which seem to deal with the childhood of Jesus, in fact announce all the major themes of the entire Gospel. Similarly, the following chapters, particularly chapter 4 (yesterday and today), already announce the two great forms of Jesus' ministry: his healings and his proclamation of the Good News.
It should be noted that where we easily speak of miracles, Luke simply speaks of ‘healings’. In our modern conception, a miracle is something that cannot be explained in the context of what we understand to be the laws of nature. However, this conception of miracles is completely foreign to the men and women of the Bible. For the people of the Bible, there are no laws of nature. Nature is entirely subject to the will and omnipotence of God, who acts as He sees fit and when He wants. For the people of the Bible, there are no miracles; there are simply ‘mirabilia Dei’, ‘wonders of God’, that is, more striking actions in which God manifests His omnipotence. And all the marvellous actions performed by Jesus are not primarily manifestations of omnipotence, but rather manifestations of God's merciful love for human beings, especially the little ones, the suffering, the victims of the forces of evil.
We are not unaware of all the suffering that exists in today's world, in the bodies and souls of our brothers and sisters in humanity. Let us ask Jesus to continue to reveal in them, as he did in Galilee two millennia ago, the wonders of his Father's merciful love.
Armand Veilleux