Indifference – The Enemy of Faith:
The Twenty-Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2026
October 11, 2026
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Isaiah 25:6-10; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:12-20; Matthew 22:1-14
Scripture today begins with this enticing invitation to engage in God’s banquet of rich foods and tasty drinks and to gather with loved ones free from harm of death, fear, and suffering. The message is that God is going to abundantly care for you and make sure all your needs are met. Saint Paul and the Psalmist remind us that God will supply whatever we need. In the Gospel, God invites us, through a parable, to a banquet, and we are told how people respond. We are invited to respond personally now. We hear the responses from people in the parable, and they are responses that we also hear now.
The first responses show us that the invited guests do not care enough to accept the offer. They have other things to do. Their farms, businesses, and family life are more compelling to them than an invitation to the wedding feast. They do not think they are rejecting the king with hostility. They say, “I have other things to do,” or “I’m too busy.” We, too, become preoccupied with work, possessions, entertainment, ambitions, and responsibilities, and a consequence is that God can gradually become less important. The danger is that good things can become substitutes for God. We become indifferent, as though God’s presence makes little difference to the way I live. God is no longer important enough to interrupt my life. We cannot see what is being offered: joy, celebration, and communion.
Indifference is a progression that can become resistance, and this resistance can become hostility. Our hearts gradually become accustomed to not listening and to being closed. When we repeatedly say “no,” we stop noticing, then we stop valuing, and then we reject. When we do this in our relationship with God, we become less receptive to God’s presence and less prone to even hear the invitation. Indifference becomes the enemy of the faith.
So how do we make certain we do not become indifferent? We develop a habit of attentiveness. We might not hear God’s explicit voice, but it is present when we ask ourselves these questions? What is God doing in my life today? What is God asking of me now? Who did God place before me and why? Where do I need to be open to change? We may not realize we are being invited to a banquet or that God is trying to tend to one of our needs because these invitations may not be explicit and they may not come dramatically. They may come through an encounter, an insight while reading a Scripture passage, a chance conversation, a moment of discomfort, a sudden awakening, a request by someone in need. The question is whether we are woke enough, aware enough, to recognize the invitation.
Notice that God’s invitation is wider than we think. The king tells his servants to “invite to the feast whomever you find.” The good and the bad alike are invited. So, this is not about worthiness to accept the invitation because someone unworthy might see it for what it is worth. This is not about goodness or badness. A good person may miss the invitation while a bad person accepts it. A person can be imperfect and still be deeply open to God, while an outwardly religious person may be inwardly closed. God’s generosity is extraordinary. It is about a proper disposition before God. The disposition is willingness to say “yes.” There are already people at the feast, not because they have achieved perfection, but because they have said “yes.”
God only asks for a receptive heart. We must be woke. We must be open to listen to receive, to change, and to respond. Missing the invitation to this feast would be a tragedy. Am I willing to recognize the invitation or am I too busy with other things that my heart and mind have become closed? What would it take for me to recognize that I am invited here and now? Remember the king’s words: Everything is ready; come to the feast.
Scripture for Daily Mass
Monday: (Galatians 4) It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the freeborn woman. The son of the slave woman was born naturally, the son of the freeborn through a promise. Now this is an allegory. These women represent two covenants.
Tuesday: (Galatians 5) For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. It is I, Paul, who am telling you that if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
Wednesday: (Galatians 5) If you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry,
sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.
Thursday (Ephesians 1) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.
Friday (Ephesians 1) In Christ we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ.
Saturday (Ephesians 1) Hearing of your faith in the Lord Jesus and of your love for all the holy ones, I do not cease giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.
Gospel:
Monday: (Luke 11) “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
Tuesday: (Luke 11) After Jesus had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
Wednesday (Luke 11) Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.”
Thursday (Luke 11) Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed. Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building.
Friday (Luke 12) So many people were crowding together that they were trampling one another underfoot. Jesus began to speak, first to his disciples, “Beware of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees.
Saturday (Luke 12) I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others
will be denied before the angels of God.
Saints of the Week
October 12: John Beyzym, S.J., priest (1850-1912), was Ukranian-born, entered the Jesuits, and petitioned to work among the people of Madagascar who had Hansen’s disease (leprosy.) Since the lepers lived in remote shanty buildings with no windows or facilities, Beyzym worked hard to improve their living conditions, build a hospital, and a church. He died after contracting the disease.
October 14: Callistus I, pope and martyr (d. 222) was a slave of a Christian who put him in charge of a bank that failed. He was jailed and upon his release became a deacon and counselor to Pope Zephyrinus. He became the first overseer of the official Christian cemetery that was eventually named after him. When he was elected Pope he introduced humanitarian reforms. He died during an uprising against Christians.
October 15: Teresa of Avila, doctor (1515-1582), entered the Carmelites in Avila and became disenchanted with the laxity of the order. She progressed in prayer and had mystical visions. She introduced stricter reforms through her guidance of John of the Cross and Peter Alcantara. They founded the Discalced Carmelites for men and women.
October 16: Hedwig, religious, at age 12 married Henry, a prince who would become king of Silesia. As a monarch, they built a Cistercian monastery for women. They soon built many other religious houses and hospitals. She chose to live in austere poverty to be in solidarity with the poor.
October 16: Margaret Mary Alocoque entered the Visitation Order at Paray-le-Monial in 1671. She received visions of Christ's love and told her Jesuit spiritual director, Claude la Colombiere, who asked her to write about her experiences. They developed the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Her community resisted her promotion of the devotion at first, but later came to see the power of the prayers.
October 17: Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr (d. 107) was born around 33 A.D. and became a leading figure in the new church at Antioch. He served as bishop for 38 years before he was persecuted and killed under Emperor Trajan for being a Christian leader. He wrote seven letters about church life in the early second century and is the first-mentioned martyr of Roman heroes in the first Eucharistic Prayer.
This Week in Jesuit History
- October 11, 1688: King Louis XIV forbade all correspondence and interchange between the French Jesuits and Fr. Thyrsus Gonzalez, the Spanish General Superior of the Society.
- October 12, 1976: The murder in rural Brazil of Joao Bosco Burnier, SJ, who was shot and killed by soldiers for protesting the torture of two poor women.
- October 13, 1537: At Venice the Papal Nuncio published his written verdict declaring that Ignatius Loyola was innocent of all charges which had been leveled against him by his detractors.
- October 14, 1774: A French Jesuit in China wrote an epitaph to the Jesuit mission in China after the suppression of the Society. It concludes: "Go, traveler, continue on your way. Felicitate the dead; weep for the living; pray for all. Wonder, and be silent."
- October 15, 1582: St Teresa of Avila died on this day -- the first day of the new Gregorian calendar. She always wished to have a Jesuit as a confessor.
- October 16, 1873: About two weeks after Victor Emmanuel's visit to Berlin, where he had long conferences with Bismark, rumors reached the Society in Rome that all of their houses in Rome were threatened.
- October 17, 1578: St Robert Bellarmine entered the Jesuit novitiate of San Andrea in Rome at the age of 16.
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