Daily Gospel Reflection
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September 5, 2025
The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
“The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers,
and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same;
but yours eat and drink.”
Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast
while the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
then they will fast in those days.”
And he also told them a parable.
“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.
Otherwise, he will tear the new
and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins,
and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.
Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.
And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new,
for he says, ‘The old is good.'”
Reflection
I recently heard a college student who just completed a summer internship teaching soon-to-be seventh graders reflect upon her students by quoting Mother Teresa: “They were Jesus in disguise.”
In the busyness of any work, in this case with children, it can be easy to begin to see the tasks to be accomplished rather than the beloved child entrusted to our care. In her reflection, I was brought back to my time as a Dean of Students at a Catholic high school. An office often associated with drama, sticky consequences, or being in trouble, it was challenging to explain to others that there was a special grace that came with walking alongside a student or family on the worst day of their school year.
In facing the challenge of the Pharisees regarding his disciples’ lack of fasting, Jesus invites his questioners, in the midst of busyness, of Roman occupation, of the challenges in their lives, to see him more fully. Of course, his disciples rejoice, he’s here! And, of course, they will fast and mourn when their friend leaves. In this response, Jesus invites us into so much more than fasting and feasting. While in Isaiah we are told “so are my ways higher than your ways,” Jesus here offers us an opportunity to see as God sees.
When we have cause to celebrate, do we see the countless blessings God works in our lives? When we suffer, mourn, or fast, do we pray to see God’s work even in the mess? When someone comes, head down, after the worst decision they have ever made, one that really hurts, do we see a child of God who is simply “Jesus in disguise”?
Prayer
Jesus, we know that you are always with us, leading and guiding us through your Spirit. At the same time, we long for that time when we will experience the fullness of your presence in the wedding feast of heaven. We ask that you send your Spirit to strengthen us through the difficulties of this life so that we may be prepared even now for life eternal. We ask this in your most holy name. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Next to Pope St. John Paul II, Mother Teresa is perhaps the most famous holy person of modern times. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the two were friends and often visited one another.
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born 1910 to Albanian parents living in Macedonia. Her father, a businessman, died when she was eight, and his absence cast the family into poverty. She found solace in her faith, and was very active in her Jesuit parish as a young girl.
When she turned 18, she followed a call to enter religious life and entered a community of sisters in Ireland, taking the name Sister Mary Teresa after St. Therese of Lisieux. A year later, she was on her way to India, where her work with the outcast would inspire the world.
She was assigned to a community in Calcutta where she taught at a school for girls. In time, she was named the principal of the school, and became known for her charity, unselfishness, and courage. She had a reputation for diligence and working hard, and she had a natural mind for organization and administration.
She experienced a profound encounter with Christ in 1946 while she was on her way to her annual retreat. She was riding on a train when she received some source of inspiration, a “call within a call,” as she put it. She was consumed with Jesus’ love for every person, and the desire to offer that love to others became a motivating force in her life from that moment on.
She left her community and established her own religious community of sisters, known as the Sisters of Charity. She understood Jesus to be calling her and others to offer his love to the poor and neglected.
She entered the slums of Calcutta and began to visit families, where she washed the wounds of children, cared for those who were abandoned and sick, and nursed those who were dying. She began each day by receiving Communion and then went out to the streets with a rosary to encounter “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for.”
By the 1950s other women had begun to join her in this work, and she started to send some to other parts of India. Eventually, the order would expand to include brothers and priests and would come to serve people on every continent. Today, some 4,500 members participate in her work in more than 130 countries.
With the emergence of global media technology, her story was shared with the world and many were drawn to her compassion. She received many honors for her work, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, which she humbly accepted “for the glory of God and in the name of the poor.”
After her death, it came to light that Mother Teresa was troubled by a long experience of dryness in prayer. About the time that she started the Sisters of Charity, she sought God in prayer and longed to feel the presence of Jesus in her spiritual life, but only found emptiness. She felt abandoned, and this feeling of separation led her to a more profound union with God—she was united with Jesus in his suffering and in his desire for love, and with the abandonment experienced by the poor people she served.
Mother Teresa died on this date in 1997, and is buried in the mother house of the Missionaries of Charity—her tomb is a place of pilgrimage and prayer today. She was canonized in 2016.
Mother Teresa made a visit to Notre Dame in 1974 to speak at a meeting of pastoral and social ministry leaders—a photo of her speaking hangs near the side entrance to the Basilica. A stained glass image of her stands in the chapel in Geddes Hall, and she is also depicted in a statue that stands in Visitation Hall, which houses the Institute for Educational Initiatives. She is also pictured here with Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of the University.
Notre Dame students have the opportunity to join in Mother Teresa’s work through the Institute for Social Concerns, which sponsors International Summer Service Learning Programs around the world, including Calcutta. Students serve at a center for the destitute and dying, a school for children with developmental disabilities, and centers for female prisoners and orphans.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, you gave your life to radiating the love of Jesus to the abandoned—pray for us!
To learn even more about Saint Teresa of Calcutta, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.