Daily Mass Readings Reflection October 24, 2025

DAILY ROMAN CATHOLIC READINGS AND SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS Friday, 24th October 2025 ------------------------------------------------ FRIDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Rom 7: 18-25 Ps 119:66,68,76-77,93-94 Lk 12: 54-59 ------------------------------------------------ SIN, STRUGGLE AND FREEDOM Paul’s helplessness becomes our own, when we really enter deep into ourselves. Due to the fallen nature, a person is often unable to do good. There is a constant struggle between what one ought to do and what one actually does. The force of sin causes to misuse the freewill in sinful and selfish ways. Sin manifests itself as an unremitting desire for pleasure, power and possessions. Christ came to this world to redeem us from the slavery of sin. It is Christ alone, who can save us. Paul shares his own experience, that the sin, which lives inside the body, makes him a prisoner. This means that believers will continue to struggle with sin throughout their lives and thus there is an ongoing need for confession and forgiveness. A saint of our own recent times, Carlo Acutis, went to confession every week. According to him when you make a sincere confession, like a balloon flying in the air, the soul too rises up to heaven freed from the burden of sin. The first reading is connected to the gospel of today. Jesus praises the people for knowing how to interpret the weather but criticizes them for not knowing themselves. It may be the same case with us today. We go around being very careful about the exterior matters like studies, duties, responsibilities or careers. These exteriors must be taken care of without neglecting the interior life of the spirit. When we see in ourselves little disputes arising against others, we need to settle it immediately before it becomes a mountain and we know not how to level it. It is better to be reconciled with others in this life rather than to expiate them later in purgatory. St Catherine of Genoa says, “He who purifies himself of his faults in this present life satisfies with a penny a debt of thousand ducats; and he who waits until the other life to discharge his debts, consents to pay a thousand ducats for that which he might before have paid with a penny.” Let us thus empower ourselves to root out evil, one thing at a time. Response: Teach me your statutes, O Lord