Reflecting on Luke 18: 1-8

One of the great delights of having lifelong friends is that, if we’re paying attention, they will surprise us. Just when we think we know them through and through, they say or do something that makes us look at them with brand new eyes.

The parables are like that. The widow and the judge are in our DNA. We know the hard-hearted judge (and may even have some people in our lives who remind us of him), and, of course, the widow is us, begging God every day for the things that we need, and begging God for peace on earth.

But a song, The Widow and the Judge, by Colleen Fullmer, (animated by Sr. Martha Ann Kirk, CCVI), shocked me into a new way of looking at this iconic story, and I’ve never seen it the same since. What if the needy widow isn’t us, begging God to give us what we need, but God? What if God is the widow, knocking on the doors of OUR hearts, and we’re the judge, withholding the good things needed for true peace on earth?

What if WE’RE not the ones seeking justice, but God, begging US to do justice? That then begs the question: if we hear the widow (God) knocking, do we finally give in and do real justice? Justice, justice shall you seek, says Deuteronomy 16:20

And let’s not domesticate that widow. Abraham Heschel writes that “God is raging in the prophets’ words.” It’s impossible not to hear her.

And that last line of today’s gospel section really hits home. WILL God find faith on earth when Christ returns? There are reports of an invigorated younger generation of Catholics. May it ever be so. 

Kathy McGovern ©2025 

Reflecting on Luke 17: 11-19

What must that have been like, to have met Jesus, and beg him for healing, and then, lo and behold, to be healed! These ten lepers set off to show themselves to the priests, and on the way to see them, one of them realized he was healed. Can you imagine his joy?

Healing almost never happens like that. It’s slow, it’s painful, and sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. But for this man suffering the pain and loneliness of leprosy, the healing occurred not when he arrived at the Temple, but on his way.

In fact, this man never even made it to the Temple; halfway there, he realized that the true Physician was Jesus, and he rushed back to find him and thank him.

Think of the last bad cold you had. How long after it was gone did you finally realize you were better? We hardly ever realize  healing when it happens. Or think of a prayer that was answered. Did it occur to you to recognize at the time that this was, in fact, answered prayer? The best example is the healings that occur in our hearts over time. One day, if we’re paying attention, we sit up and say, “Wait. When did I stop being resentful? I can’t even remember why I was.” Healing works in us when we don’t even notice.

That’s why this man who noticed he was healed on the road is so exceptional.  We, too, should pay closer attention. And, for us, too, it’s never too late to notice that we’ve been healed, and to turn back to find Jesus, to thank him.

What have you forgotten to thank God for lately?

Kathy McGovern ©2025 

Reflecting on Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2: 2-4

That Habakkuk reading today is too close to home. The prophet writes, “How long, O LORD?  I cry for help, but you do not listen!”

I heard the cry of those brave Evergreen High School students who said, “My whole life, my whole childhood, was devoted to keeping me safe from a school shooter. And he came for us anyway.” And, of course, the horrific shooting during the first school Mass of the year at Annunciation grade school in Minneapolis is too terrible to recount, too tragic to remember.

How many of us, though, as we watched in horror, silently said to God, “I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’  but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin;  why must I look at misery?”

Habakkuk has a front row seat to the impending misery about to be visited upon Israel. He can see the Babylonian army marching towards Israel. He dreads the violence, the bloodshed, the loss of life that surely marches into Israel with King Nebuchadnezzar.

He demands that God give him an answer. WHY do you allow such violence, especially at the hands of evildoers? In fact, a third of the population died by the sword, a third by fire, and the last third was taken into exile. God tells Habakkuk to wait, that the vision written on the tablet will surely come. Seventy years later, long after Habakkuk’s death, the vision was realized. The captives came home.

But will it take seventy years for the vision of a nation where schools are havens of safety and learning to be realized? We can do better. That, I think, is what’s written on the tablet.

In what ways are you advocating for gun safety?

Kathy McGovern ©2025

Reflecting on Luke 16:19-31

Has there ever been a time in our lifetimes when the words of today’s gospel were more desperately needed, or more thoughtlessly unheeded? The Church has written so many encyclicals about the right use of wealth, and today those words are about as popular as the Ten Commandments, of Amos’ railing against the corrupt rich in his day, or of the story of Lazarus and Dives.

We all have our theories of how bitter lies are somehow taken for truths, especially lies about those who are poor, and how they got that way.

When St. John Paul II defended the primacy of labor in his encyclical “Laborem Exercens” (1981), he was derided by a columnist in Fortune magazine for being “wedded to socialist economics and increasingly a sucker for Third World anti-imperialist rhetoric.”

As John McKenzie, SJ wrote, reflecting on St. John Paul II’s prophetic voice, “They saw him as a benighted Pole who failed to understand the sanctifying grace of consumerism.”

Are we guilty of the crimes that Amos attributed to his own people: self-indulgence, frivolous distraction, willful ignorance, and cruel neglect of the poor?

Paul’s first letter to Timothy—that beautiful second reading today—reveals the kind of persons we might be: people of integrity, kindness, piety, steadfastness, and love, people who fight the good fight of faith, people of true nobility.

Conservative commentator and Orthodox Jew Ben Shapiro asked atheist Bill Maher this question: “Why do you and I agree on morality like 87.5%? We both grew up in Western society, which has thousands of years of Biblical morality behind it.”

We are the inheritors of this morality. Dives is not the hero of this story.

In what ways are you taking care of Lazarus at your door?

Kathy McGovern ©2025 

Reflecting on Luke 16:1-13

Ah, football season. Is there anything more exciting? Is there any assembly more joyous than the community of believers who gather at the altar of football, wearing the liturgical robes bearing their team’s logos?

Did you hear the fight song the nearly 70,000 Philadelphia Eagles fans sang, somehow all on pitch, (thanks to the recording playing to keep everyone together) at the season opener? The unity and fervor of that huge audience shook the stadium. Now THIS is the shared faith, almost worth dying for, that unites all believers..

Huh. How is it that the singing at Sunday Mass isn’t as robust, as heartfelt, as joyous as the cheers and songs routinely chanted at NFL games? Why does a text like Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim! not inspire the same ear-piercing singing as Hit ‘em low, hit’em high, and watch our Eagles fight!—which, by the way, is pitched five notes higher than the average hymn?

I think the answer lies in today’s curious parable. The secular world has found delightful ways to build community, and Jesus applauds the unjust steward for recognizing what works out there in the world, and using it to his advantage.

This wily servant bets on the (corrupt) financial savvy of the Master’s debtors.  They know he’s cooking the books in their favor, and, by siding with them, he’s betting that they will be good to him after the Master dismisses him. Now that’s using your talent to ensure your retirement plan!

Like so many, my heart soars when I hear huge crowds singing and chanting for their team. How can we capture that joy when singing the texts of our faith?

What successful secular strategies can you adapt for growing your spiritual life?

Kathy McGovern ©2025 

Reflecting on John 3:13-17

This feast is especially precious to me because Denver’s radiant and godly Bishop George Evans died on the vigil of the Triumph of the Cross forty years ago. As the years have passed, the warm memories of this great man have become stronger, and his mission of reconciliation comes into even sharper relief.

I knew him because he lived in the rectory of the parish where I worked. In those heady days of the 1970s and 1980s, it wasn’t uncommon to walk into the rectory, where the parish offices also resided, and see the governor, the mayor, and many of the most prominent people from the Justice and Peace offices gathered at Bishop Evans’ dining room table. I recall that numerous maps were displayed on the walls. Downtown Denver, and, in particular, the university catering primarily to working adults, was undergoing a makeover, and Bishop Evans was committed to ensuring that the university would be accessible to all.

One day, when Bishop Evans was a young, overworked monsignor, he visited a low-income housing project with a friend who would become his great partner in housing, Sr. Lucy Downey, SCL.  He was utterly stunned at the poverty and lack of resources in the projects. When he returned to the Cathedral that night, he had an announcement. “For the rest of my life,” he said, “housing will be my #1 priority.”

What a huge dream that was, to provide housing for Denver’s low-income residents in seven apartment buildings around town. Today, Archdiocesan Housing, Inc. manages thirty properties that house up to three thousand residents. And that’s just a drop in the bucket of housing needs today.   

Lift high the cross today.  Bishop George Evans processes with us.

What people have you known who continue to inspire you?

Kathy McGovern ©2025

Reflecting on Luke 14: 25-33

What charisma did Jesus possess that he was able to draw The Twelve, as well as many dozens of unnamed disciples, into mission with him? I imagine him as this young, warm, kind rabbi, whose very presence compelled James and John to drop their nets (and thus to evaporate the family business) and follow him.

But at what cost! They would have to love their families “less”—the proper translation of “hate” — than they loved him. They would have to love their own lives less than they loved him! They would have to be willing to “take up the cross”— surely the most dreaded image for anyone living in an occupied country–and follow him.

What kind of recruitment poster is that? Leave your families and vital love them less than you love this highly controversial man whose promises are sacrifice, privation, death, and eternal life?  Apparently, those who chose a life of hardship with him did it with great joy. They were utterly devoted to him.

It’s good to be cautious when you make a commitment, of course. You need to make a list of pros and cons. You need to determine whether you can succeed before taking on a new project or job. But the cost of this discipleship? To be a faithful follower of Jesus, you must renounce all your possessions!

What an impossible call this is. The Catholic tradition reserves this particular sacrifice for those who embrace poverty in Religious life. But all of us are called to love Jesus more than possessions, family, or even our own lives.

Do I do this? The answer is: sometimes. And those times have brought me my greatest joys.

When have you found deep joy in following Jesus?

Kathy McGovern ©2025 

Reflecting on Luke 14: 1, 7-14

It’s shocking, the number of life lessons I’m still learning. Aren’t we supposed to reach a point where we know enough to get through the day without making huge, embarrassing mistakes?

My most recent revelation is that I must always assume that every person in the room knows at least as much, if not much more, than I do. I’m noticing this about the great friends I’m making in my Senior Exercise Class at the gym.

We’re all around the same age, with the same aches and pains. But ask just any random person how she completes a particular exercise so effortlessly, and chances are she’ll share about her award-winning college career in soccer, or softball, or where she ranks in the neighborhood pickleball league.

I have a little job, speaking to medical students about how to diagnose ovarian cancer. This disease strikes women of every background, yet every woman I’ve ever been on a panel with is as comfortable speaking in front of large audiences as I am. It’s a huge mistake to think that we are more important, more experienced, more knowledgeable about anything than anyone in the room.

Jesus was swaddled in humility from the day of his birth. Though he was in the form of God, even when confronted by the terrifying Roman soldiers, he did not deem equality something to be grasped at, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (Phil. 2: 6-11).

How embarrassing to take a place of honor at a banquet and find out that other, more accomplished people were meant to sit there. If we’re honest, we admit that being humble isn’t a virtue; it’s just acknowledging the obvious.

How is humility the most valuable trait in your spouse or friends?

Kathy McGovern ©2025

Reflecting on Luke 13: 22-30 

My cheeks burn with embarrassment when I think about those who knocked on the Master’s door to ask admittance, only to have him say, “I don’t know you or where you come from.” It always reminds me of a conversation I had with an elderly parishioner many years ago. I knew his name, and several things about him because others who had taken the time to be his actual friends had told me about his fascinating life.

I approached him one day, acting as if we knew each other, and his response was, “I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before.” It was so embarrassing to be called out on my presumptuousness, that just because I knew OF him, that meant that I was privy to a friendship with him I’d never earned.

I’ve written once before about the MOST mortifying moment of my life, when, during COVID, I failed to recognize my oldest friend at an event, just because she was wearing a mask. And,  yesterday, I asked my friend, whose retirement party we were celebrating, who that VERY warm and sweet woman was who greeted me at the door when I arrived. “Um,” she said, “that was me. I was the one who greeted you.”

It had been a few years since I’d seen her, and her hair was different, but shouldn’t I have recognized her voice, or known her immediately by her warmth? Will things about us have changed so much through the years—our thoughtlessness,  our outreach to strangers, our faith itself— that the Master will say, “Who are you? I don’t know where you come from”?

Recognize us, Jesus. Help us recognize you more.

Have you changed so much that Jesus might not recognize you?

Kathy McGovern ©2025

Reflecting on Jeremiah 38:4 6. 8-10

King Zedekiah is the hero of the story this weekend, although things could definitely have gone the other way. He seemed to be passively, rather than actively, evil.  He was a reed shaken with the wind, listening to whoever had his ear at the moment. Unfortunately, the princes came from the palace and convinced this weak king that Jeremiah, the prophet who had told him the frightening truth about the devastation of the Babylonian army, had demoralized the people so much that he needed to be killed.

What an awful death that would have been. Jeremiah was lowered into the empty cistern with ropes, and as he descended, he was thigh-deep in mud. Imagine the dark, and the terror. Thank God a valiant court official took his life in his hands (for coming into the king’s presence without being summoned was a capital offense), and pleaded for Jeremiah’s life.

The weak king then saw the other side of the story, and quickly called for Jeremiah to be brought up from the cistern. How terrifying for Jeremiah to be at the whim of this vacillating king. Jeremiah had, at times, been the king’s confidante. In fact, shortly after this terrible episode, he summoned him and, asking him to hold their conversation in strict confidence, revealed his own fear of the future.

It’s strange to us, reading it at the distance of these 2,500 years, that a king could be influenced so easily by one group, and swayed again by just one member. How many innocent people are held in terrible prisons today because no one stepped up for them? This story shows that it takes just one courageous person. Is it I, Lord?

What small thing can you do to advocate for peace?

Kathy McGovern ©2025