Tria Via

Tria Via: A Catholic Journey of Heart, Mind, and Spirit

This Week’s Post:

  • Solemnity of All Saints – (Year A)

    Jump to: Lens | Reflection Prompts | Weekly Practice

    First Reading: Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
    Psalm 24: 1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6
    Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-3

    Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12a

    When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,
    and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
    He began to teach them, saying:

    “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
    Blessed are they who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
    Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the land.
    Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be satisfied.
    Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
    Blessed are the clean of heart,
    for they will see God.
    Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
    Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
    for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
    Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
    and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
    Rejoice and be glad,
    for your reward will be great in heaven.”

    Anchor Verse

    “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
    — Matthew 5:3

    close up of a bible
    Photo by Nothing Ahead on Pexels.com

    🔎 Lens: They Took Him Seriously

    All Saints isn’t a celebration of extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. Revelation describes the great multitude in heaven as impossible to count, from every nation, every tribe, every language. Not an elite. A crowd too large to number. Pope John Paul II, preaching on this exact feast, widened the lens even further: alongside the saints and blesseds the Church formally honors are mothers and fathers who built the Church simply through their daily devotion to their children, and countless others known only to God.

    So what actually made them saints? Pope John Paul II’s answer is almost disarmingly simple: the saints took these words of Jesus seriously. They believed they would find happiness by putting the Beatitudes into practice in their lives, and they proved it true in ordinary experience: despite trials, moments of darkness, and real failures, they already tasted here below the deep joy of communion with Christ. Not a reward deferred entirely to the next life. A joy available now, to anyone willing to actually live poor in spirit, merciful, pure of heart, a peacemaker, rather than just admiring those qualities from a safe distance.

    This is what 1 John means by saying we are God’s children now. Sainthood isn’t a future achievement. It’s what happens when someone stops treating the Beatitudes as beautiful poetry and starts treating them as instructions.

    Reflection Prompts

    1. Pope John Paul II says the saints “took these words of Jesus seriously.” Which Beatitude have you privately filed under beautiful but impractical?
    2. “They already tasted here below the deep joy of communion with Christ” despite trials and failures. Is there a specific trial in your life right now where you’re waiting for the difficulty to end before you expect any joy?
    3. Most of the saints in that great multitude are anonymous, known only to God. Who is someone in your own life, unrecognized and probably never canonized, who has quietly lived a Beatitude in front of you?
    4. “We are God’s children now,” not someday. Does that feel true to you day to day, or does it feel like a title you’re still waiting to earn?

    Weekly Practice

    At Mass

    As the Gospel is proclaimed, pick one Beatitude and ask honestly: do I actually believe this leads to happiness, or do I just believe it’s a nice thing to say?

    After Mass

    This week, practice that one Beatitude concretely once, not as a feeling but as an action, and notice afterward whether anything like “deep joy” showed up, even briefly, in the middle of whatever difficulty you were also carrying.

    If Tria Via has been meaningful to you: pause after your 8th week or support our work.

  • Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time – (Year A)

    Jump to: Lens | Reflection Prompts | Weekly Practice

    First Reading: Exodus 22:20-26
    Psalm 18: 2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
    Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10

    Gospel: Matthew 22:34-40

    When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
    they gathered together, and one of them,
    a scholar of the law tested him by asking,
    “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
    He said to him,
    “You shall love the Lord, your God,
    with all your heart,
    with all your soul,
    and with all your mind.
    This is the greatest and the first commandment.
    The second is like it:
    You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
    The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

    Anchor Verse

    “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
    — Matthew 22:37, 39

    sacred religious mural depicting jesus christ
    Photo by Alexander Mass on Pexels.com

    🔎 Lens: One Commandment, Not Two

    A scholar of the law asks Jesus to rank the commandments, probably expecting a debate about which rule wins. Jesus gives him two instead, one from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus, and then does something the question didn’t ask for: he welds them together. The second, he says, is like the first. Not beneath it. Like it.

    Pope Benedict XVI opened his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, by taking that fusion seriously rather than treating it as a nice turn of phrase. Love of God and love of neighbor, he wrote, are thus inseparable: they form a single commandment. Not two duties that happen to get along. One reality, approached from two directions. He pushed further still: love of neighbor is a path that leads to the encounter with God, and closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God. You don’t get to keep one and let the other lapse. They rise and fall together, because God loved us first, and that love is the only reason either commandment is possible at all.

    This is where Exodus stops being background noise and becomes the worked example. Don’t oppress the immigrant. Don’t exploit the widow or the orphan. Give back the poor man’s cloak before sunset, because it’s all he has to sleep in. That’s not a separate moral system running alongside the love commandment. That’s what loving God with everything you have actually looks like once it touches a neighbor’s life.

    Reflection Prompts

    1. Pope Benedict says love of God and neighbor “form a single commandment,” not two. Is there an area of your life where you’ve quietly let one stand in for the other?
    2. “Closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.” Where might avoiding someone’s need be dulling something in your own spiritual life, without you noticing the connection?
    3. Exodus names the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the poor debtor as the concrete test cases of love. Who is the specific, unglamorous version of “neighbor” in your actual week, not the abstract one?
    4. The Thessalonians are praised for becoming “a model to all believers” simply by how their faith took visible shape. What would it look like for your love of neighbor this week to be specific enough that someone could actually point to it?

    Weekly Practice

    At Mass

    During the Our Father, when you say “as we forgive those who trespass against us,” let one specific neighbor’s face come to mind rather than praying the line in the abstract.

    After Mass

    This week, do one concrete, unglamorous thing for someone with less power than you in the situation, an employee, a stranger, someone easy to overlook, modeled on Exodus’s specifics rather than a vague good intention.

    If Tria Via has been meaningful to you: pause after your 8th week or support our work.

  • Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time – (Year A)

    Jump to: Lens | Reflection Prompts | Weekly Practice

    First Reading: Isaiah 45:1, 4-6
    Psalm 96: 1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10
    Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b

    Gospel: Matthew 22:15-21

    The Pharisees went off
    and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.
    They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying,
    “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
    and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
    And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion,
    for you do not regard a person’s status.
    Tell us, then, what is your opinion:
    Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”
    Knowing their malice, Jesus said,
    “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?
    Show me the coin that pays the census tax.”
    Then they handed him the Roman coin.
    He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?”
    They replied, “Caesar’s.”
    At that he said to them,
    “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
    and to God what belongs to God.”

    Anchor Verse

    “”Whose image and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
    — Matthew 22:20-21

    stained glass in church
    Photo by Glen Mc Call on Pexels.com

    🔎 Lens: The Master of the Mint

    The Pharisees and Herodians think they’ve built the perfect trap. Say taxes shouldn’t be paid, and Jesus is a rebel against Rome. Say they should, and he’s a collaborator against his own people. Either answer destroys him. Jesus asks for a coin instead, and asks one question: whose image is this? Caesar’s, they admit. Then render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, he says, and to God what is God’s.

    Saint Augustine, preaching directly on this passage, noticed something underneath the cleverness. The trap was never really about taxes. It was about which image people were paying attention to. As St Augustine put it, if Caesar can look for his image on a coin, is God not to look for his image in a man? These men were anxious about a denarius bearing Caesar’s likeness while carrying, unattended, a soul bearing God’s. St Augustine pushed the coin image further still: just as Caesar’s face wears thin on a coin passed hand to hand, worn smooth by careless handling, so does the image of God in us wear down under the friction of sin. But Jesus, he said, is the master of the mint. He has come to strike the coins afresh, to pardon sin and restore what use and neglect have worn away.

    That is the real content of this Gospel. Not a clever political dodge, but a Christ who wants to re-mint something in you that’s gone thin from handling.

    Reflection Prompts

    1. St Augustine says these men were careful about a coin and careless about their souls. Where in your life is your attention going to the “coin” while the thing bearing God’s image goes unattended?
    2. “Just as Caesar’s face wears thin… so does the image of God in us wear down.” What has worn your own sense of belonging to God thin lately — not one dramatic thing, necessarily, but ordinary friction, repetition, neglect?
    3. Jesus is called “the master of the mint,” able to strike the coin afresh. Is there a part of yourself you’ve written off as too worn down to be renewed?
    4. Isaiah calls Cyrus, a pagan king, God’s “anointed” and uses him for God’s purposes without Cyrus even knowing God. Where might God be using circumstances or people outside your control for a purpose you can’t yet see?

    Weekly Practice

    At Mass

    During the Confiteor, picture the “re-minting” St Augustine describes rather than a courtroom. Let it be a restoration, not a verdict.

    After Mass

    This week, notice one place where you give more careful attention to something replaceable (a device, a possession, an image you project) than to something in you that actually bears God’s likeness.

    If Tria Via has been meaningful to you: pause after your 8th week or support our work.