10 November 2025 – Monday of the 32nd week ‘B’ – Memorial of Saint Leo the Great
Homily
The tone of the biblical readings at Mass already makes us feel that we are approaching the end of the liturgical year. As the first reading, we begin today the Book of Wisdom, which will accompany us throughout the week. In its first verses, this book addresses ‘those who govern the earth’ – Love justice, you who govern the earth – but the message applies to each one of us. It is a call to live in justice, but in the deepest sense of the word, that is, to have a righteous heart that acts in accordance with the Spirit of God, referred to here as ‘Wisdom’.
This beautiful Book of Wisdom could be our guide during the journey we will take together this week. Let us ask the Holy Spirit, the Wisdom of God, to guide our hearts in the search for communion and truth, repeating over and over again the beautiful verse from Psalm 138 that accompanied our first reading: Lead me, Lord, on the path of eternity.
The passage from the Gospel that we have read is a little disconcerting. It consists of three sayings of Jesus, unrelated to each other and undoubtedly spoken at different times and places. With a little imagination, we could probably find all sorts of reasons why Luke has brought them together in this place in his Gospel, among several other sayings and parables scattered along the road that leads him to Jerusalem, where he will live his Passover.
Perhaps it is better not to try to find connections between these three disparate words of wisdom, but to let them illuminate the various disparate aspects of our lives. There will always be scandals in our lives, that is, stones, small or large, that may cause us to stumble on our own journey. For this reason, we must always be vigilant; but what is even more important, according to Jesus' message, is that we ourselves should not in any way be an obstacle on the path of our brothers and sisters.
And since it is inevitable that this will happen sooner or later, Jesus invites us to practise among ourselves, even up to seven times a day, that is, without counting the number of times, the forgiveness that He Himself offers us unceasingly.
Finally, Jesus' last words in this Gospel are a call to faith. Faith, which is not simply intellectual assent to abstract truths, but faith that is an attitude of trust. The Apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith, to make it grow. And with his colourful language, well rooted in the local context of the people he was speaking to, Jesus tells them that if they had faith as small as a mustard seed, they would unleash the power within them to move trees or mountains. Indeed, let us note that Jesus does not invite the Apostles to ask that the big tree move and throw itself into the sea, but he invites them to say to the big tree themselves: ‘Uproot yourself and go and plant yourself in the sea.’
In reality, Jesus invites us to have faith in ourselves – which is a necessary step towards faith in God. If we have confidence in the power that He Himself has given us to walk uprightly and in righteousness, we will know, with this strength that is within us and that comes from Him, how to continue on our path, whatever obstacles may lie ahead.
Armand VEILLEUX