05 October 2025

05 October 2025 - 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Transcript

Reading:  

Habakkuk 1:3, 2:3

Write:  

“Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?”

The Lord answered: “For the vision still has its time,
  presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint;
  if it delays, wait for it,
  it will surely come, it will not be late.”

Reflect:   

Where do I begin this weekend? It does not take a lot of looking around our world today to see the problems, the ruin, the misery. Yes, there is reason to be hopeful – but honestly, I am becoming more pessimistic about our society – and even our church. I know God is in control, but I look at the things that are going on, and I have to make questions. Is our nation going to see peace inside of itself again? What about peace on the world scale? What about consistency in church teaching?

We have not been abandoned. God walks with his people. There was a song produced in the year two thousand five by Twila Paris. Twenty years ago, and it is still as relevant today as it was then. The first verse and the refrain are: 

God Is In Control - by Twila Paris

This is no time for fear

This is the time for faith and determination

Don't lose the vision here – carried away by the motion

Hold on to all that you hide in your heart

There is one thing that has always been true

It holds the world together

God is in control

We believe that His children will not be forsaken

God is in control

We will choose to remember and never be shaken

There is no power above or beside Him, we know

Oh, God is in control, oh God is in control!

Apply:   

This is what God was trying to teach Habakkuk. He saw things falling apart around him and was starting to despair. But God spoke to him clearly. It is… unfortunately… far too easy to have an attitude of despair in our world today. It does not matter which side of the political or theological spectrum you are on. There are reasons to look at our world, our country, our church and wonder: “does God even know what’s going on? Why hasn’t he intervened?”

It would be a terrible mistake on my part to assume that everybody in our parishes is on the same page as I am. To be honest, sometimes I’m not sure what page I’m on. I look at the things around me and I see strife, contention, confusion and my only prayer comes back to the cry of Habakkuk: “How long, O LORD?  I cry for help but you do not listen!” 

I am sure some of the help I would want is… different from what some of you would want.

The second stanza from our Responsorial Psalm this weekend is a call to a unity in faith that I wish we all had:

Come, let us bow down in worship;

let us kneel before the LORD who made us.

For he is our God,

and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.

It would be a mistake to try to reduce how the faith is taught to the least common denominator. But that is what some people would want when they read this Psalm. However, there are some things that are proper to the faith and some things that are not compatible at all. At the same time, there is room for differing opinions and approaches to difficult issues. It might seem terribly facile to quote a song like I did from Twila. Some songs like this have a “feel good” quality about them that makes it too easy to hide the contentiousness in the hearts that exist between factions in the church – let alone in our country – let alone anyone who thinks things through seriously.

I am reticent to wade into the controversy caused by the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago – who is a native of Omaha – but… I do not understand what he was thinking. He was planning to give a pro-abortion US Senator a lifetime achievement award for his work with immigration – totally ignoring his position on abortion. Those are the facts. Because of the controversy, the senator chose not to accept the award.

Turning to our nation, how do you describe all of the death that has been happening in recent weeks? From a seventeen-year-old stalker who ran over his ex-girlfriend and her friend; to shooting up government facilities and killing immigrants who have been arrested, then killing himself; to shooting children at a school Mass; to executing a national speaker; to running a truck into a church, then shooting people who came out of the church trying to help then torching the church; to the ongoing wars around the world – what are we then to think – what are we then to do?

What is it Paul said to Timothy today?

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice

but rather of power and love and self-control.

So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord,

This is no time for fear

This is the time for faith and determination…

God is in control

We believe that His children will not be forsaken

God is in control

We will choose to remember and never be shaken

There is no power above or beside Him, we know

Oh, God is in control, oh God is in control!

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