8 November 2025 - homily for Saturday of the 31st week in Ordinary Time - Romans 16:3-9 and 16 and 22-27

Today, in our first reading, we hear the last of our readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul greets many of the Christians in the Roman community in this passage and provides a blessings to them in this very last part of the letter. From these greetings, we get a strong sense of fellowship and solidarity that existed amongst the Christians in the early Church. In the individualism that characterizes our modern world, we can certainly learn a lot from the sense of community in the early Church. The sense of community and the salvation we receive from God as a community are at the heart of the strength and richness of the Catholic faith, something that is not emphasized in the Protestant tradition. Especially in the very Protestant environment here in Mississippi, we can get a very distorted view of what Catholic is about. I was at the prison yesterday evening for Mass, in which we had about 60 men attend. There is a very big sense of community in our Catholic community at the prison. We have men who are not Catholic who attend our Masses regularly who appreciate this sense of community and the way we reach out to them and welcome them. May we appreciate this wonderful aspect of our Catholic faith.