Catholic Homily for September 27, 2025
Hello Dear Friend,
When We’re Too Successful to See
Father James was having the best year of his priesthood. Church attendance was up, donations were flowing, and his new youth program was being copied by parishes across the diocese. The local newspaper had even featured him in their “Community Leaders” section. Standing at the altar that Sunday morning, looking out at the packed pews, he felt deeply satisfied with God’s blessings.
After Mass, while greeting parishioners in the bright sunshine, he noticed old Mrs. Chen sitting alone on a bench in the parking lot. She’d been coming to church for months, always sitting in the back, always leaving quickly. Father James had nodded to her politely but never really engaged—he was usually surrounded by enthusiastic families wanting to chat about the thriving parish programs.
Today something was different. Mrs. Chen wasn’t moving toward her car. She sat hunched over, shoulders shaking. Father James approached cautiously.
“Mrs. Chen, are you alright?”
Through tears, she explained in halting English that her son had died by suicide three months ago. She’d been coming to church hoping someone would notice her pain, but everyone seemed so happy, so blessed. She felt invisible in her grief, like God had forgotten her while blessing everyone else.
Father James felt his heart break. In the midst of all his successful ministry, he’d completely missed the crucifixion happening right in his own parking lot. Mrs. Chen’s suffering had been “hidden from him” by his focus on the crowd’s amazement at his mighty works.
Today’s Gospel presents us with one of the most revealing moments in Jesus’ ministry. The scene opens with everyone “amazed at all that Jesus did.” The crowds are still buzzing from His latest miracle—the healing of a boy with an unclean spirit. The disciples are basking in their association with this wonder-worker.
Into this atmosphere of triumph and celebration, Jesus speaks words that shatter the mood: “The Son of Man is to be handed over to human hands.” Luke tells us that the disciples “did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.”
This isn’t simply about intellectual confusion. The disciples’ inability to understand reveals something profound about human nature: when we’re caught up in success and popularity, we become blind to suffering—both Christ’s and our neighbor’s.
The phrase “handed over” (paradidomi in Greek) is loaded with meaning. It’s the same word used for betrayal, abandonment, and sacrifice. Jesus is announcing His passion, but the disciples are still thinking about the ovation from the crowd.
Their fear of asking shows they sensed something disturbing in His words but preferred to remain in comfortable ignorance rather than face an inconvenient truth.
This theme of hidden or misunderstood suffering runs throughout Scripture like a golden thread. When Jacob blessed Joseph’s sons, he crossed his hands, giving the greater blessing to the younger Ephraim rather than the firstborn Manasseh. “Not so, my father,” Joseph protested, unable to see God’s deeper plan (Genesis 48:18).
The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Suffering Servant who would be “despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity” (Isaiah 53:3). Even God’s chosen people would struggle to recognize salvation wrapped in suffering.
In the Book of Job, his friends couldn’t comprehend that his suffering wasn’t punishment but part of a cosmic drama they couldn’t see. They offered easy answers to incomprehensible pain, much like the disciples offered easy expectations of earthly glory.
The Psalms repeatedly voice this tension: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1)—words Jesus would echo from the cross. Even David, the man after God’s own heart, experienced seasons when God’s presence seemed hidden in plain sight.
Today we celebrate Saint Vincent de Paul, a priest who perfectly understood what the disciples missed in today’s Gospel. Vincent began his ministry seeking advancement and comfort for himself. But God had other plans.
When Vincent was captured by pirates and sold into slavery, he discovered Christ in his own suffering and in the suffering of others. He famously said, “Let us love God, but let it be through the labor of our hands and the sweat of our brow.” Vincent learned to see Christ not in the crowd’s amazement but in the hidden crucifixions of the poor.
Vincent de Paul revolutionized charity by insisting that the poor were not objects of pity but sacraments of Christ’s presence. “The poor are our masters,” he taught his followers. “They are our lords and we must love and honor them as such.” He found Jesus precisely where the disciples couldn’t see Him—in suffering handed over to human hands.
Saint John Chrysostom, said this truth centuries earlier: “If you cannot remember everything, instead of everything I beg you, remember this without fail: that not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life.”
Living the Gospel in Daily Life
In our daily lives, we face the same blindness that afflicted the disciples. When things are going well—when we’re healthy, successful, appreciated—we can become deaf to suffering around us. We get so caught up in God’s blessings that we miss God’s presence in disguise.
At work, do we notice the colleague struggling with depression while we celebrate our promotion? At family gatherings, do we see the relative sitting alone while we’re surrounded by laughter? In our neighborhoods, do we recognize the single mother working three jobs while we complain about being too busy?
The grocery store checkout clerk with tired eyes, the elderly neighbor whose family never visits, the teenager acting out because their parents are divorcing—these are modern sites of Christ being “handed over to human hands.” But we’re often too amazed by our own lives to notice.
Even in our parishes, we can become like Father James, so focused on successful programs that we miss the Mrs. Chens sitting in our back pews, invisible in their grief. Church can become a place where we celebrate our blessings while remaining blind to others’ crosses.
Challenge for the day
Jesus’ warning to His disciples is also His warning to us: popularity and success can be spiritual cataracts, blinding us to the very presence we claim to seek. When we’re riding high, we need to ask ourselves: What suffering am I not seeing? Whose cry for help am I not hearing? Where is Christ being crucified right in front of me while I’m distracted by lesser things?
The disciples were afraid to ask Jesus what He meant because they sensed it would disrupt their comfortable assumptions. We face the same fear. It’s easier to stay in our bubble of blessings than to risk seeing pain we might be called to address.
But Christ calls us to the courage of Saint Vincent de Paul—to find Him not just in our successes but especially in the places where He’s being handed over, betrayed, forgotten, and crucified anew.
The challenge isn’t to stop celebrating God’s goodness, but to develop eyes that see His presence everywhere, especially in the hidden sufferings we’d rather ignore.
Today’s Prayer
Lord Jesus, open our eyes to see You in the suffering we’ve been too blessed to notice. Give us the courage to ask the questions we’re afraid to hear answered. Help us find You not just in our successes, but especially in the hidden places where You’re being handed over to human hands. Amen.
❤️ Thank You dear friend, hope this reflections touched you. 🙏 Please do not forget to share with your loved ones this september 27 homily.
If you like Catholic Homily for september 27, 2025, do not forget to give your comment below. And please 🫂 join our whatsapp channel for everyday 🔔 update 👇👇👇
Leave a Comment