Homily: September 20, 2025, Saturday of the Twenty-Fourth week in Ordinary Time (Commandments)

 “Keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In this month’s Catholic Mirror, Fr. Ron Rolheiser shared a story about a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. At the celebration, the husband said: “When we got married 50 years ago, we didn’t have much. But we had an unconscious trust that if we lived by the Ten Commandments and the laws of the Church, then things would turn out all right, and I think, they did.”

Fifty years of marriage is not just “all right”, many of you who are married would know, it is hard work. And truly, very often God’s grace is at work harder than the couple. So fifty years of marriage is a testimony to a life of faith and full of God’s grace. The Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses and the Israelites thousands of years ago are still relevant for us today, guiding us every step of our faith life.

The challenge is that human nature resists compliance and obedience to commands. We don’t like rules. The Ten Commandments are simple in words, but very difficult to live out fully in practice. Yet they are not optional, they are God’s blueprint for holiness.

When the rich young man asked Jesus, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus’ first response was: “Follow the commandments.” This is the foundation. If we keep the commandments faithfully, we will reach eternal life.

All it requires is our willingness, our deep acceptance of first, that God is God, the Almighty, the Judge of Life, the One to whom we must be united with, because if not God, it will be the evil one. There is no middle ground.

And second, a clear realization that ‘if not eternal life, it will be eternal death’. This too, there is no other world midway.

Following the ten commandments is our way to being in the same boat with Jesus, in the direction towards eternal life. Hop onboard and stay on course.

Amen.


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