Gospel: August 28, 2025
August 28, 2025 (Thursday)
21st Week in Ordinary Time
Psalter: Week 1 / (White)
St. Augustine, bishop and doctor
Ps 90:3-5a, 12-13, 14 & 17
Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!
1st Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:7-13
Gospel: Matthew 24:42-51
Stay awake then, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Obviously, if the owner of the house knew at what time the thief was coming, he would certainly stay up and not allow his house to be broken into. So be alert, for the Son of Man will come at the hour you least expect. Imagine a faithful and prudent servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give them food at the proper time.
Fortunate, indeed, is that servant, whom his master will find at work when he comes. Truly I say to you, his lord will entrust him with everything he has. Not so with the bad servant, who thinks, ‘My master is delayed.’ And he begins to ill-treat his fellow servants, while eating and drinking with drunkards. But his master will come on the day he does not know, and at the hour he least expects. He will punish that servant severely; and place with him with the hypocrites. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Reflection:
“True servants of God accept God’s will.”
Today we celebrate the feast of Monica’s son, Augustine, who came to recognize that Christ was Truth in Person, and that real happiness was to be found only in a life lived in union with him. In his Confessions, Augustine realizes that although he was always God’s servant by his very creation, he had failed to live up to that calling, and had been living a confused life of selfish pleasure. Now he understood that true servants of God accept God’s will rather than try to force God to command what we will.
He was like the bad servant of the parable, who thinks he has the freedom to ill-treat others, just because the Master is not at home. Augustine sees this now as a distorted form of freedom, where our powers and capacities are misused for selfish motives. Many of his peers had considered this way of life to be wisdom. He now saw it as folly dressed up in grandiose language. How we use our freedom is as important today as it was in the time of Augustine. May we use our freedom wisely by consenting to be faithful servants of the Lord.
