Gospel for August 24 2025 – Luke 13:22-30
Gospel Reflections for August 24 2025
Gold Medals for everyone?
Our parish school year has started!
Throughout the year we gladly present awards for excellence to our outstanding students. However, can you imagine how a student might feel after studying hard for months and achieving well-earned academic or sports excellence, only to find out that awards were given to everyone in the class, no matter what their grades or sports performance?
Fortunately, that does not happen at St. Bruno!
We certainly value every student and help them achieve excellence, but all students also know who actually deserves awards for good work from those who do not. No student ever feels honored by undeserved awards. In fact, they can even feel insulted when given this devalued recognition. Awards for everyone are really a disservice …to everyone.
Eternal life is the ultimate Gold Medal and in today’s Gospel a crowd asks Jesus about it. He knows that some believe everyone will go to heaven while others think very few will. He answers neither group, but changes their focus.
Instead of asking about the fate of others, Jesus asks them to focus on what they are doing with their own life, and tells them to strive to enter the narrow gate. He affirms that rewards only come to people who, like great students and athletes, receive their teacher’s help …and then use their own talents to face and overcome significant challenges.
John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach with an amazing winning record, never focused on winning at all, but only focused on each player performing at their very best. That is the real reward. Winning in the Kingdom of God is the same for everyone…simply accepting Our Lord’s love and then living your faith the very best you can.
Mother Teresa once said that God does not ask you to be successful …only faithful.
God’s powerful love for you is freely given. God will do His part, but you must also do yours! Your only task is to receive the power of His love and then to try your very best at something worthwhile. God knows that your best efforts will make you feel deeply fulfilled and happy …whether successful or not in the eyes of the world.
God’s powerful grace is freely available for the asking. Begin the next part of your life right here and now and ask for His grace …to go for the Gold!
God Bless!
Fr. Dave
Being Ever Faithful is the Goal. Jesus reminds us that we must Love God with our whole Heart and Mind and Our Neighbor as ourselves. Seems also in forgiving that thr main benefit in those cases rests more with the forgiver than with the forgiven..
Child like Humility is far better than extravagant superiority..
When reaching Heaven and Eternal Salvation, we may be surprised to see who made it, wonder why we don’t see those we thought would.
Many will be amazed to see me there. Judge me not lest ye be judged!
I have no doubt you will be there!
Hi Father,
Great food for thought and a reminder for me that we were all created equal, but different; and our need to focus on how to use the gifts we have been given to help others. This is a great reminder for me also not to judge others and focus on my own actions.
Thanks Father
Well said!
Dear Father Dave,
Thank you for this week’s reflection.
Yes, I believe God’s love is perfect. The faith of that concept is also a gift.
I have loved art from the time I was little and I paint in oil mostly. Every time I face a blank canvas, I ask for God’s help because the blank canvas intimidates me. I’m so unsure if I can “get it right,” meaning the painting I’m about to undertake.
I suppose that’s how it is with our lives, too.
God bless you, always.
Kathleen
Yes, I think that seeing our life as a work of art is a great analogy.
I was with a five-year-old while they were looking at a picture Bible. They were curious about the picture of Joseph in the well after his brothers put him inside it. “Why is he in the well?” they asked. I responded with a question, “Do you know what ”sin” is? They said that they didn’t know. I tried to think how I could explain it to a five-year-old child and answered that we sin when we are not kind and loving. “Joseph’s brothers sinned because they were not kind and loving to him when they put him in the well. But now I’m wondering, was it sin if the brothers felt this was the best they could do?
Great question! However, you can be sure that Joseph’s brother sinned because their motives were very selfish. They resented that their father especially loved Joseph and so they were envious. At first they were going to kill him by throwing him in the well, and then decided to sell him to a passing caravan. Then they lied about the whole event to their father. There is no doubt that all the brothers sinned. However, the story ends happily with the joyful reunion with Joseph and his brothers later on.
Dearest Father Dave!! To live Jesus’ love is the heart of living!! Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee our precious Jesus and we are trying to make the world beautiful by living His loveeeeeeee!!! Our beautiful kathleen Auth is a precious friend and her Art is soooooooooooo lovely and heartwarming!!She and Cecilia Huckestein did the beautiful pictures in my precious book of our loving Blessed Mother!! The loving pictures of Mary that Kathleen and Cecilia did fills my heart with so much of our Mary and Jesus’ loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!They both touch and embrace the world with the beauty of Jesus’s Mother loving her precious Son’s Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and living it so beautifully!!
Loveeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Franca and Dick
Thank you1