Here is my homily for this weekend. God bless all of you!
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C
Wisdom 9:13-18b; Philemon 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14:25-33
September 6/7, 2025
We have to let go, my friends; we simply must let go, and how difficult this is for all of us.
St Therese of Lisieux, in her simple yet profound way, summed it up by saying she chose only one thing in life and she let go of everything else: Only the will of God for her in the smallest of matters was of importance. She let go of everything else. She sought nothing more. She was attached only to God’s will.
Yes, we must let go, my friends, of all our attachments to things of this world. Eventually, we must let go of even our families. We must let go and accept the Cross. There is no other way. There is no other path. Only letting go of what seems important in this life and accepting what will bring us into eternal life — and the Cross is what brings us there.
Jesus is telling us in the Gospel that letting go is vital if we are to survive and thrive in this world and in the next. Jesus is saying that in this life we will be confronted with daunting challenges – building towers or facing formidable armies, so to speak – and in these challenges, we must renounce our selfish plans – building foolish monuments to ourselves we cannot finish and our senseless wars with each other and within ourselves, and instead of all that, we must be willing to let it go and put it in the hands of God, and give all we have to Him. We must, as the king did in the Gospel, surrender to the real king, God, who is far more powerful and wise than us.
We have to let go, my friends, of our egos, our selfishness, our self-made empires, our sins, everything, if we are to be his disciples and enter the kingdom of heaven. There is no other way. And we must do it now. We must not fall into the trap of presumption, assuming we have untold months and years to let go and stop sinning, to ignore God’s plan for us. We must let go now, and surrender to God now. As the responsorial psalm said, “For a thousand years in God’s sight are as yesterday or as a watch in the night.” Now is the time. If we don’t do it now, we ultimately risk being very much alone with the world we have hung on to.
The first reading from the Book of Wisdom reminds us that our corruptible bodies burden our minds and our earthly worries burden our souls. I can attest to that. I am sure you can also. We have to let go of those worries and burdens.
Letting go will mean we are ready at all times for the Lord to come. Not tomorrow, not in ten years, but now. Can we detach from worldly things that burden us? Why do we hang on to such things? Can we accept whatever God asks of us, even if it is always carrying his Cross? Why do we refuse? Can we let go and let God? Can we let go of our sins? Why are we so addicted to them? Will we begin by confessing our sins? O, if only we would accept God’s will!
I talked about the Cross in a recent homily. I described it as walking with Jesus on the way to Calvary, seeing what He saw, hearing what He heard, touching what He touched that day as He carried His Cross for us. I described it as becoming like Jesus. That is what we must hang on to in this life, namely, being like Jesus. We must let go of all else.
What I am talking about today is what we call conversion. It’s all about letting go of our attachments to things of this world, and hanging on to Jesus, clinging to Him, choosing Him.
My prayer for all of us is that we more and more, starting today, let go of our pride, our ego, our selfishness, our foolishness, and our sins, and grab on to Jesus, to the Eucharist, and to the Church.
Let go and let God. Surrender to His will for you, and do it now. Grab on to Jesus Christ, found in the sacraments, found in the Church, found in prayer and in the Cross.
