Father Koch: Two New Saints Show Us How to Navigate From this world to the next
September 5, 2025 at 1:12 p.m.
Gospel Reflection for Sunday, September 7, Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Intentionally or not, we spend a great deal of our lives accumulating stuff. This sense of collecting and possessing things begins very young. We choose toys and then have to learn how to share that toy with a sibling or, even worse, a cousin who is visiting for the day.
We grow into collecting other things. As a typical family in the 1960s I collected baseball cards, and a series of boys mystery novels, and my sister was all things Barbie. We grow into other things -- clothes, books, jewelry, cars, or whatever, that offers us something. Some people seem to collect people -- building ever-expanding circles of friends and partners.
Everything carries a value – mostly sentimental perhaps – but little intrinsic value in itself. Yet, most of these things were not all that easy to dispose of. At what point in our lives are we in fact not owners but owned?
People pray at the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis in the Shrine of the Renunciation in Assisi, Italy, Aug. 21, 2025. Acutis, who died in 2006 at age 15, will be canonized Sept. 7 at the Vatican by Pope Leo XIV. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)This is the challenge Jesus places before us. We must renounce everything and everyone if we truly want to be his disciple. Everything and everyone!
To highlight this point, Jesus instructs his disciples that no matter what they are doing – building a tower or going into battle – they must carefully strategize in order to be successful. Any one of us who has ever decided to do a serious home remodel or expansion knows the fine points of detail that go into the process. It is not easy to do.
We see intense training of professional athletes in order to achieve success, knowing that at the same time they risk ending their career on virtually every play. We know the intense planning it takes to perform many of the ordinary tasks to be successful in our jobs, caring for our families, and even planning a vacation. We prepare, sacrifice time with family and friends, give up our freedom and whatever is necessary to be successful.
Why then do we neglect our more distant – yet somehow very proximate – future? Why do we not put the same focus into the demands of our eternal salvation? Of course the immediate goals are just that – immediate. We can see the benefit of success and know the penalties of failure.
All of the energy that we put into our lives can draw us away from our relationship with God. For some, Sunday becomes the only day they can sleep in. We sacrifice time for prayer for more time to work or to do something else to relax. We compromise our moral values to get ahead. We allow others – including our closest family and friends – to inhibit our spiritual lives as well.
Most of us grow quiet in light of hearing the anti-church or atheistic rants of friends and relatives. We fail to put our relationship with God as a focal point. Any of this – anything at all – that gets in the way has to be eliminated.
While those in some of the strict religious orders renounce all possessions and withdraw from the world, including their own families, Jesus is not telling all of us to abandon good human relationships or own that which we need to have in our lives.
This weekend the Church celebrates the canonization of two young men -- Blesseds Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati. These two men, both of whom were born in the last century, stand as a radical example of simple living and dedication of one’s life to the Gospel. For each of them their deepest desire was to live for Jesus Christ and to lead others to salvation.
This stands as a beautiful witness and testimony for us on the power of faith, and the ability to indeed live in this world so as not to become of the world, but of the life to come.
Can we do this? Can we abandon our attachments to this world and all of its allurements? This is an onerous task, as it is very easy to get caught up in the demands placed upon us by the marketplace, social media, and our families.
Let us all take small steps to move away from being possessed by the world and to allow ourselves to be claimed by Jesus Christ.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.
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Gospel Reflection for Sunday, September 7, Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Intentionally or not, we spend a great deal of our lives accumulating stuff. This sense of collecting and possessing things begins very young. We choose toys and then have to learn how to share that toy with a sibling or, even worse, a cousin who is visiting for the day.
We grow into collecting other things. As a typical family in the 1960s I collected baseball cards, and a series of boys mystery novels, and my sister was all things Barbie. We grow into other things -- clothes, books, jewelry, cars, or whatever, that offers us something. Some people seem to collect people -- building ever-expanding circles of friends and partners.
Everything carries a value – mostly sentimental perhaps – but little intrinsic value in itself. Yet, most of these things were not all that easy to dispose of. At what point in our lives are we in fact not owners but owned?
People pray at the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis in the Shrine of the Renunciation in Assisi, Italy, Aug. 21, 2025. Acutis, who died in 2006 at age 15, will be canonized Sept. 7 at the Vatican by Pope Leo XIV. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)This is the challenge Jesus places before us. We must renounce everything and everyone if we truly want to be his disciple. Everything and everyone!
To highlight this point, Jesus instructs his disciples that no matter what they are doing – building a tower or going into battle – they must carefully strategize in order to be successful. Any one of us who has ever decided to do a serious home remodel or expansion knows the fine points of detail that go into the process. It is not easy to do.
We see intense training of professional athletes in order to achieve success, knowing that at the same time they risk ending their career on virtually every play. We know the intense planning it takes to perform many of the ordinary tasks to be successful in our jobs, caring for our families, and even planning a vacation. We prepare, sacrifice time with family and friends, give up our freedom and whatever is necessary to be successful.
Why then do we neglect our more distant – yet somehow very proximate – future? Why do we not put the same focus into the demands of our eternal salvation? Of course the immediate goals are just that – immediate. We can see the benefit of success and know the penalties of failure.
All of the energy that we put into our lives can draw us away from our relationship with God. For some, Sunday becomes the only day they can sleep in. We sacrifice time for prayer for more time to work or to do something else to relax. We compromise our moral values to get ahead. We allow others – including our closest family and friends – to inhibit our spiritual lives as well.
Most of us grow quiet in light of hearing the anti-church or atheistic rants of friends and relatives. We fail to put our relationship with God as a focal point. Any of this – anything at all – that gets in the way has to be eliminated.
While those in some of the strict religious orders renounce all possessions and withdraw from the world, including their own families, Jesus is not telling all of us to abandon good human relationships or own that which we need to have in our lives.
This weekend the Church celebrates the canonization of two young men -- Blesseds Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati. These two men, both of whom were born in the last century, stand as a radical example of simple living and dedication of one’s life to the Gospel. For each of them their deepest desire was to live for Jesus Christ and to lead others to salvation.
This stands as a beautiful witness and testimony for us on the power of faith, and the ability to indeed live in this world so as not to become of the world, but of the life to come.
Can we do this? Can we abandon our attachments to this world and all of its allurements? This is an onerous task, as it is very easy to get caught up in the demands placed upon us by the marketplace, social media, and our families.
Let us all take small steps to move away from being possessed by the world and to allow ourselves to be claimed by Jesus Christ.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.