Homily | September 9, 2026 | What Lasts When Everything Passes Away (Episode 264)

There's a sentence in today's first reading I think God wants us to pay close attention to.

The world in its present form is passing away.

Everything we can see around us is passing away.

The house we worked so hard to buy, the money we worried about earning, the position we fought to achieve, the reputation we work to protect, even the body we spend so much time trying to preserve, all of it, passing away.

But St.

Paul's not telling us that these things are bad.

He's telling us something much more important.

Do not confuse what is temporary with what is eternal.

And perhaps that's the one of the reasons God gives us pilgrimages.

Yesterday we arrived here in Mejigori.

We've come here with different stories, different worries, different intentions, and already something begins to happen when you just step away for a moment from ordinary life.

We find out real quick that emails can wait, the appointments can wait, the problems back home, many of them, will still be there when we return.

And suddenly we have time to ask a question we spend much of our lives trying to avoid.

What am I actually living for?

Because eventually all of us discover what St.

Paul was right about.

The world in its present age, in present form, is passing away.

And then Jesus takes it even further in the gospel.

Blessed are you who are poor.

Blessed are you who are hungry.

Blessed are you who are weeping.

Those words almost sound backwards.

We spend our whole lives trying not to be poor, not to be hungry, not to weep.

We work very hard to become comfortable, secure, and admired and satisfied.

And Jesus says, be careful.

Because you can have everything the world tells you that you need and still miss the kingdom of God.

That's why he follows the blessings with those frightening words.

Woe to you who are rich.

Woe to you who are filled now.

Woe to you when they speak well of you.

Jesus is not condemning money, food, or happiness.

He's warning us about something far more dangerous.

A life full of everything else, that there's no room left for God.

Maybe that's the grace we should ask for on this second day of the pilgrimage.

Not simply, Our Lady, give me what I came here asking for, but perhaps the deeper prayer is, Mary, show me what I'm holding on to that is keeping me from your Son.

Because whatever one ultimately concludes about all that is being reported here in Majigori over these past 45 years, the spiritual call associated with this place is remarkable and remarkably simple.

Prayer, conversion, reconciliation, fasting, the Eucharist, a return to Christ.

None of it's complicated, but every bit of it costs something.

Conversion will always cost you something.

Today in the United States, the church celebrates the feast of Saint Peter Claver.

He encountered enslaved Africans arriving in Cartagena after horrific journeys across the Atlantic.

While others saw them as cargo, labor, and profit, Peter Claver saw human beings created in the image and likeness of God.

He entered into their suffering, cared for the sick, fed the hungry, defended the dignity, and spent decades serving people a world considered disposable.

Why?

Well, because Peter Claver understood what St.

Paul understood.

This world in its present form is passing away.

The ships are gone, the merchants are gone, the fortunes are gone, the powerful men who believe they owned other human beings, well, they're gone too.

But the love Peter Claver gave in the name of Jesus Christ, well, that remains.

And perhaps that's the question for us this morning.

When everything that is passing away has family passed away, what will be left of my life?

Not how much did I own, not how important was I, not how many people knew my name or whether everybody approved of me, but did I love?

Did I forgive?

Did I serve?

Did I pray?

Did I become holy?

Did I give my life to Jesus?

We're only at day two here in Medjugory.

There's still time for this pilgrimage for God to do something in us.

So do not merely visit this holy place.

Let God enter the place in you that you've kept close.

Do not simply climb these hills.

Let him remove something from your heart that has been weighing you down.

Do not simply bring intentions before our lady.

Ask her to bring you to Jesus.

Because eventually this pilgrimage will end and we'll go back home.

We'll pack our bags, we'll take all the photographs, we'll return to our schedules and responsibilities, and eventually even this life will end.

The world in this present form is passing away.

But there's one thing that will never pass away.

The life we have given to Jesus.

And perhaps that's the greatest grace we could receive in Mejigory.

It's not that we go home having seen something extraordinary, it's that we go home changed and transformed, less attached to what passes away, more hungry for what is eternal, and ultimately completely belonging to Jesus Christ.

Totos tus.

Amen.