SEPTEMBER 18, 2026 FATHER MICHAEL COUTTS
The Sunday Mass was just over and the Smith family was returning to their homes. And the father complained, “Oh, the sermon was boring. It put me to sleep.” And the daughter complained, “The music was flat.” The wife said, “The ushers were too bossy and pushing us around the place.”
And little Mikey kept them quiet with one remark. He said, “Dad, you put five bucks into the collection plate for the four of us. For a buck 25, what did you expect? Music the same standard as Taylor Swift and preaching like Cardinal Thomas Collins?”
Jesus, when He preached, He went through Galilee, Samaria, Jericho, down to Jerusalem. And people from all over, from the diaspora from the Decapolis came to listen to Him. Because of Jesus’ preaching, many began to praise God. Others turned away from sin. People began to be concerned more about one another. Jesus said, “Love one another, forgive.” They were more open to forgive people.
If Jesus were to come to your parish today, would, like the Smith family, would you find Him boring and repetitive? Or would you Him fascinating and captivating? They spoke about their own Pharisees and scribes and they said Jesus spoke with authority, unlike the scribes and Pharisees.
But Jesus, when He went around to preach, and when He sent His disciples to preach, He didn’t go alone. There were men and women that accompanied Him. These men and women were bothered about the logistics. Simple things like where were they to stay during the night? What were they to eat? What was the closest rivers where they could wash their clothes and have everything clean?
Because Jesus was not concerned about these things, Jesus could carry on with His ministry. Jesus could heal the lame and the blind and the deaf. Jesus could exorcise the demons, which were constantly challenging Him through the scribes and Pharisees. In fact, if you read Mark’s Gospel, the first eight chapters, Jesus seems to be having a constant contest with these people.
And because of the men and women that walked with Jesus, Jesus could do His ministry, teach people how to pray, and the most beautiful prayer that He gave us was the Lord’s prayer. Abba, Father. Call the Father for anything you need in My name and He will answer you.
Jesus also had time for His own self and He would go up the mountains and prayed during the whole night. Before any big event or after any important event, before He chose the apostles, after He had multiplied the loaves and the fish, Jesus would go up to the mountains and, once again, communicate, encounter with the Father exactly about what He was supposed to do and how He was supposed to preach.
But there were women also within this group. As we heard, Joanna, this wife of Herod’s steward. There was Mary Magdalene, there was the undescribed or undistinguishable Susanna. Now, these women, it was very strange that they are actually named because in the Palestinian tradition at the time of Jesus, the women were treated with scorn and contempt. And the fact that they are actually remembered is very strange in a patriarchal society.
In the Old Testament, as we read the ancestry of Jesus, we have five women. Normally, we’d speak about, you know, from Adam and then go down right until David and then Jesus, who was the son of David. But there are five women mentioned. Sarah, if I can remember them. Sarah and Hannah and Rahab and Esther, I mean, Naomi and Ruth. These are mentioned because they have an impact on the ancestry of Jesus.
Similarly, these women had an impact and Jesus said whenever you go to a village, if they welcome you, you stay there. When they scorn you and they throw you out, shake the dust from your feet and Jesus would do precisely that. And these women and men, kept on following Jesus and we find that they continue even until today.
Now, Jesus was a Jew. He acted as a Jew, He kept the tradition, He kept the Torah, He kept the Sabbath. And when He chose the twelve disciples, He was acting as a Jew. Namely, He chose the men not to replace twelve men to, in the name of the twelve tribes. Not to replace the Jewish tradition, but to renew His own brothers and sisters within the Jewish tradition.
But that did not mean that He excluded the women and those women set a pattern for women even today. We saw that during the time of the COVID, when everything was shut down. It was the women that kept the Church going. The CWL, the St. Vincent de Paul.
They took care of the fact that there were many older people who could not come to church and the priest could not go out to meet them and visit them and to make sure that they were not forgotten. These were the women who continued to live holy lives and what was a holy life according to them? The holy life was not just saying prayers and attending church, but living out the fifth chapter of the Letter to the Galatians. Love, joy, peace, consolation, forgiveness, care.
They showed this in their everyday life and the most important thing was they did not care, to be recognized and to be acknowledged. They just wanted to take care of the faith as the men and women today, and especially women, who are concerned about the faith of their children and their grandchildren, and they’re constantly calling, “Pray for my children and grandchildren. They don’t go to church, they don’t have their children baptized. They’re not married within the church. I really don’t know what to do.”
I simply tell them, “Continue doing what you have to do. You don’t have to go out and preach like the way I’m preaching in front of an audience, but the way you unfold your lives will challenge His people to make them realize that what is important is the fact that we live out the life of Jesus Christ with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and Salome, as we hear in Matthew’s gospel.”
They stood at the foot of the Cross and therefore, Jesus would choose these very people to go out and proclaim the Good News. And Mary Magdalene became what was St. Thomas Aquinas called “apostola apostolorum.” The apostle to the apostles. “Go and tell Peter and My disciples that I have risen and I will meet them in Galilee.”
Women today continue to bring this news to us. Jesus will meet us in Galilee and the Galilee is our local parish church. God bless you all.
