Br. Ed Van Merrienboer, OP

Jesus told a parable of the unjust judge who finally gave a widow her due because of her persistence. God will also grant what we ask for, but seeks to have an ongoing conversation with us as we would with a friend. Also, as with friends, we cannot make demands of God but must trust that God loves us and will do what is right for us.

On this Feast of St. Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church, we remember how he integrated knowledge from theology, science, and politics, seeing no disparity between faith and reason. All of these realms of knowledge speak of the genius and imagination of God in creation. In the same way, we should let our knowledge of the world bolster our faith rather than setting these things in competition.

In today's reading, Jesus tells his detractors that they will be condemned because they have closed their minds to a greater truth about God that he was teaching. Are we open to learning something new about God, or might Jesus level the same charge at us?

In the Letter to the Hebrews we read that the word of God is able to discern all things. This election season, let us use it as our standard rather than some political ideology or social theory.

In Luke's version of the Beatitudes, we learn that God loves those who are materially poor, and Jesus challenges us to do something to help them here and now and to live with integrity.

When the Christian community began cheating one another and fighting among themselves, Paul called them to remember that they left that quarrelsome life behind when they became justified in the name of Jesus.