One of the greatest temptations we may get in this life and one of the greatest successes of the demon is to have convinced some of us that we need to focus only on this life here on earth, i.e., we should live thinking only of the success of this present life. Forget about the future life, i.e., eternal life in Heaven or Hell. The Lord in the gospel tries to dispel this shortsighted outlook.

We read about the famous parable of the talents that Jesus speaks to us today in the gospel of the mass. Believe it or not, these talents provide us with certain hope to reach Heaven.

Some of the first will be last and some of the last will be first. This is how today's gospel ends. The Lord gives us a glimpse regarding what is going to happen when the end comes. We will face Jesus who will judge us. The reality is that some who seem first in holiness will actually be judged below par, while there will be some last who will be first. These are those who seem not holy but they actually are. Find out what that means in the podcast homily for today.

The Lord criticizes the hypocrisy of the scribes and pharisees because they were more concerned about demanding from the people great fidelity to God and His injunctions. They, however, let themselves off any responsibility to follow those same demands. So, Jesus, condemns such superficiality in their religious practice. Hence, He tells the people to listen to what their religious leaders teach and not follow their example.

The gospel today tells us about another parable of Jesus where He teaches us about the Last Things, namely, heaven, hell, death, judgment. Jesus portrays heaven as a wedding feast. Our being to go to heaven is shown as the invite the king extends to his guests to attend his son's wedding. The story describes the reception of such an invitation. Find out what that is for we are all invited by God to Heaven. Some reject the invite. Others eliminate the emissaries of the king bringing the invitation. No one turned out to accept the invitation. So the king expands the invitation to anybody. They filled the wedding venue but the king found a guest not properly dressed for the occasion. He commanded his servants to throw that man out. That is hell!

Today, the Lord makes it plain to us that he demands from us everything and that we trust Him absolutely. We cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time. We cannot have our cake and eat it!

We expound today a couple of Virtues needed for another living together with the others, namely, gentleness and Flexibility. We do so in the context of the young man's question to Jesus narrated in today's gospel.

The title to today's homily points out the Lord's words declaring to us that we need to reach peace through struggle to do all the good that we are capable of doing. I emphasize that we are not here in this world simply to fight against temptations to commit sin. We need to do better than that. We are supposed to struggle also to do all the good that we can do. Hence, many of our sins involves sins of omission.

Today, the Church proposes for our consideration Jesus' teachings about becoming like a child in order to belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. This carries certain consequences in how we live our lives as adult Christians. Listen to the homily.

Jesus points out to us today in the gospel of the mass the obligation to mind the lives of the others. A concrete manifestation of this is the duty to show concern for them by giving them fraternal corrections and suggestions.