Saturday 8 November 2025

Today’s readings bring us to the final words of St Paul’s Letter to the Romans — and they’re not lofty theology or moral exhortation.
They’re thank-yous.
Paul takes time to name real people — Priscilla and Aquila, Andronicus and Junia, Urban, Rufus, and so on.

It’s a long list, and at first it sounds like a roll call of strangers.
But behind every name is a story of fidelity, service, and love.
It’s the Church in miniature — men and women, families and workers, quietly holding the faith together.

Paul was the great apostle, the missionary, the theologian.
But he knew he didn’t do it alone.
He remembers the couples who opened their homes,
the believers who risked their lives,
the scribes who copied his letters,
the ones who cooked the meals and kept the faith.

This is the Church as communion — a living network of grace.
It’s not built on headlines, but on hidden holiness.

Every parish is like that.
Behind every Mass there are people who prepare, clean, read, sing, serve, visit, pray.
Most never get a mention — but God knows their names as surely as Paul did.
Heaven is full of those unrecorded names.

The saints in heaven once looked like the volunteers at the back of church.

In the Gospel, Jesus gives a puzzling line:

“Use the money of this world to win friends,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

He’s not telling us to buy friendship.
He’s telling us to use passing things for eternal purposes.

Money, time, possessions — they’re all tools.
You can use them to build your ego, or to build the Kingdom.
You can cling to them, or consecrate them.

When you share your wealth, your time, or your talents for God’s work,
you’re turning earthly goods into heavenly currency.
Every act of generosity becomes an investment in eternity.

That’s why Jesus adds:

“If you are faithful in small things,
you will be faithful in great ones.”

Holiness doesn’t start with grand gestures;
it starts with small fidelity —
faithfulness in prayer, in honesty, in service,
in doing the right thing when no one notices.

The world measures greatness by what we get.
God measures greatness by what we give.

You can’t take anything with you —
but you can send it ahead through love, mercy, and service.
That’s the point of the Gospel:
the dishonest steward used money for self-preservation;
the disciple uses it for salvation.

You can’t serve both God and money, Jesus says.
Money makes a good servant but a terrible master.
If it rules you, it will ruin you.
But if you use it with gratitude and generosity, it becomes grace in motion.

The whole of Christian life comes down to one phrase: faithful in little.

Faithful in prayer when it feels dry.
Faithful in relationships when they’re difficult.
Faithful in your duties even when no one sees.
That’s where sanctity grows — not in the spotlight but in the shadows.

That’s what made the saints saints, and it’s what made Paul’s friends holy.
They weren’t spectacular — just faithful.
And that’s what God asks of us too.

The small things — a kind word, a hidden sacrifice, a visit to someone lonely —
those are the stones the Kingdom is built with.

Paul ends his letter with a doxology — a burst of praise:

“To the only wise God, through Jesus Christ,
be glory for ever and ever.”

That’s how every act of service should end — not in our glory, but in His.
The goal of all Christian living is that God may be glorified in us,
and that one day, when all the small acts of faithfulness are gathered up,
they’ll shine like stars before His throne.

So today, remember:
faithfulness in little things is not little to God.
Heaven is built from daily “yeses.”
The Church grows through quiet fidelity.
And the treasure that matters most is not what we keep,
but what we give away for love.

“If you are faithful in small things,
you will be faithful in great ones.”

May we, like Paul’s hidden friends,
serve the Lord quietly, generously, and well —
until the day when He calls our own names,
and welcomes us into the eternal dwelling prepared for His faithful servants.