Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament

September 16, 2026

I have been to several weddings where young couples choose today’s first reading to be proclaimed at their Wedding Mass. They have gathered their family and friends for what is surely one of the most joyous and meaningful celebrations of their lives. If they are listening, they hear some of the most positive effects of love. I hope that at least some of that reading impacts their lives as they move forward.

Paul’s description of the all-encompassing demands of charity is a challenge for all of us who seek to live a life in congruence with this love. What a different world we would live in if the “charity” that Paul speaks of so poetically existed.

We, and the newlyweds spoken of above, live in a world in which patience and kindness are often seen as weakness. Rather, rudeness, selfishness, and resentment are “the way things work.” It is not easy to live in a world where violence in our streets and in our nation is so pervasive, where the poor, the refugee, the handicapped, the homeless, and those who live on the periphery are ignored or demonized. Paul encourages us to “delight in the truth and to be always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes.”

How are we able “to endure whatever comes” and to make this a reality in our own lives when we are challenged to adopt that which is contrary in our world?

First, we are not alone. We know that the Lord promised to be with us. Jesus is with us in the Scriptures, the community of Faith, and profoundly in the Eucharist. We are fed, nourished by grace and by Jesus’s Body and Blood. We are sustained in our mission and our ministry by the Alpha and the Omega.

Let Us Pray:

God of all creation, we pray for all young married couples and for your whole community; may an abundance of your grace sustain us in all that motivates us to cooperate in building your Kingdom here in our own time and place. Amen.