How to Persist Charitably: Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025

                                                     How to Persist Charitably:

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025 

October 19, 2025

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Exodus 17:8-13; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8

 

Today we see how Moses’ persistence rallied the troops around the Israelites against the Amalekites in a battle of nomads in the Egyptian desert. As long as his arms were stretched out and upward, the Hebrew troops fared well. His raised arms served as a symbol that God was indeed helping them. The persistence of Moses helped his army to persist. Jesus tells a story of the persistent woman petitioning an unjust judge, who relents and gives her the justice she seeks. The moral of the story is that we are to persevere in prayer knowing that we have a just judge who wants to give us all that we need and ask. Jesus reminds us that God will provide justice for those who are faithful.

 

The story is about persevering in prayer, and the same principles can apply to our daily lives, but as Christians, we are to persist in charity, and many times, we are at a loss to do so. We are not prepared for some of the statements that people make, and we have not practiced a charitable response to handle these awkward situations because we get caught at inopportune times. For instance, I was at a wedding recently, and one of the guests of honor approached me to lament how divisive society has become and he longed for the days of peace and civility and a time when people got along better. He wished for peace and charity, and concluded his remarks by saying, “This Pope is awful.” This is a type of situation in which most are caught off guard by someone imposing his viewpoint upon others. It is a type of bullying.  What does one do?

 

I related this story to a friend who said that the priest in his church concluded his service by saying, “Oh that we would have a Pope that would return to his homeland and free us from the grip of socialism and communism.” I asked the friend what he might do, and he asked, “Do you think I ought to invite him into a conversation?” I replied, “Yes, conversations are the catalyst for understanding, and it helps the other person know when he or she has crossed a boundary.” My friend composed an email requesting to sit down with the priest and ask about the appropriateness of his message in the context of a Mass.” 

 

          We persist in charity when we use “the question” as a friend. Asking questions blows open the discussion that most people want to keep closed. Asking questions means that I do not have to respond and that I deliberately shift the responsibility to the person to clarify and elaborate. Asking questions does not make me feel uncomfortable, while answering the question makes the person feel like he is on the hot seat. Asking questions shifts the burden of responsibility from my shoulders back to the person who originated the statement. Asking questions means that I do not allow you to get away with frivolous or unsubstantiated opinions. If you are going to engage with me, give me substance. Asking questions helps the person realize that just because someone has an opinion, there is a proper place and time to express it, and that it should be done when a person wants to hear it. I did not allow that man at the wedding to drop a bombshell statement without engaging him with a series of questions. He did not like being questioned, but since that he made his statement, he needed to defend it. He realized I did not accept his viewpoint at his word, but that I needed to understand his position. 

 

          As Christians, we seek to understand. We want to act in charity, and we are put into situations where people act poorly and transgress boundaries. It is our responsibility to say, “Stop. I do not permit that.” However, the tactic that works well is through our use of questioning. There is an art to questioning that uncovers, seeks to understand, respects, and honors, but through it all, it frees us to seek the just judgment. Persevere in your charitable, kind questions. They are your friends. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

Monday: (Romans 4) Abraham did not doubt God's promise in unbelief; rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God and was fully convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do. That is why it was credited to him as righteousness.

 

Tuesday: (Romans 5) Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death,
and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.

 

Wednesday: (Romans 6) For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not!

 

Thursday: (Romans 6) I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

 

Friday (Romans 7) I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want,
but I do the evil I do not want.

 

Saturday (Romans 8) Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Luke 12) "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" Then he said to the crowd, "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions."

 

Tuesday: (Luke 12) Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.

 

Wednesday (Luke 12) Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

 

Thursday (Luke 12) I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!

 

Friday (Luke 12) When you see a cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain–and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot–and so it is.

 

Saturday (Luke 13) Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!

 

Saints of the Week

 

October 19: North American Jesuit martyrs: Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, priests, and companions (17th century) were killed between 1642 and 1649 in Canada and the United States. Though they knew of harsh conditions among the warring Huron and Mohawk tribes in the New World, these priests and laymen persisted in evangelizing until they were captured, brutally tortured, and barbarically killed. 

 

October 20: Paul of the Cross, priest (1694-1775), founded the Passionists in 1747. He had a boyhood call that propelled him into a life of austerity and prayer. After receiving several visions, he began to preach missions throughout Italy that mostly focused upon the Passion of the Lord. After his death, a congregation for nuns was begun. 

 

October 23: John of Capistrano, priest, had a vision of Francis of Assisi when he was imprisoned during an Italian civil war at which time he was the governor of Perugia. He entered the Franciscan Friars Minor in 1415 after ending his marriage. He preached missions throughout Europe including a mission to Hungary to preach a crusade against the Turks. After the Christian victory at the Battle of Belgrade in 1456, John died. 

 

October 24: Anthony Claret, bishop (1807-1870) adopted his father's weaving career as a young man but continued to study Latin and printing. After entering seminary, he began preaching retreats and giving missions. He published and distributed religious literature and founded the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He was appointed archbishop of Cuba but was called back to Spain to be Queen Isabella II's confessor. He resumed publishing until the revolution of 1868 sent him into exile. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• October 19, 1588: At Munster, in Westphalia, the Society opens a college, in spite of an outcry raised locally by some of the Protestants. 
• October 20, 1763: In a pastoral letter read in all his churches, the Archbishop of Paris expressed his bitter regret at the suppression of the Society in France. He described it as a veritable calamity for his country. 
• October 21, 1568: Fr. Robert Parsons was elected Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He resigned his Fellowship in 1574. 
• October 22, 1870: In France, Garibaldi and his men drove the Jesuits from the Colleges of Dole and Mont Roland. 
• October 23, 1767: The Jesuits who had been kept prisoners in their college in Santiago, Chile, for almost two months were led forth to exile. In all 360 Jesuits of the Chile Province were shipped to Europe as exiles. 
• October 24, 1759: 133 members of the Society, banished from Portugal and put ashore at Civita Vecchia, were most kindly received by Clement XIII and by the religious communities, especially the Dominicans. 
• October 25, 1567. St Stanislaus Kostka arrived in Rome and was admitted into the Society by St Francis Borgia.