NUNTIATORIA

16.11.25 LXXX, Liturgy, Sundays Post Pentecost

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost: Missa “Dicit Dominus”

The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost highlights themes of hope, restoration, and the anticipation of Christ’s return. Through the readings, the Church emphasizes the transformative power of faith over sin and despair. The liturgy guides believers to recognize God’s promises amidst cultural struggles, urging them to seek divine connection for healing and renewal.

The Editor

November 14, 2025

6–10 minutes

Catholic Theology, Christian Duty, Divine Mercy, Eschatology, Gospel of Matthew, Liturgy, Patristics, restoration, Sacred Liturgy, Traditional Latin Mass, Traditional Liturgy, Tridentine Mass, Tridentine Rite, Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

The God Who Restores What Sin Has Wasted: The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

Missa: Dicit Dominus
As the liturgical year approaches its end, the rhythm of the Church’s prayer takes on a new gravity. The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost stands within a cluster of “eschatological Sundays,” in which the Church, like a wise mother, begins to prepare her children for the mysteries of death, judgment, and the consummation of history. The ancient Roman Rite does not treat these themes with dread, but with a mixture of solemnity and radiant hope. The last leaves fall, the nights lengthen, and the Church speaks softly of eternity. In this season, every aspect of the liturgy seems to whisper the same essential truth: Christ is coming; be found faithful.

The Fathers often described the final portion of the liturgical year as an icon of the final age of the world. St Augustine uses the language of twilight: the Church “walks in the evening of the world, awaiting the dawn that shall know no setting.”¹ He means that Christians live between two worlds—the fading light of the present and the approaching brilliance of the Kingdom. St Leo the Great insists that the Christian hope is not aimed toward annihilation, but toward transformation: “not decay but fulfilment, not destruction but transfiguration.”² The liturgy of these Sundays therefore teaches the faithful to interpret the times not with fear, but with supernatural realism.

The Introit and the Divine Promise of Restoration
The Introit of this Mass is one of the most consoling in the entire Missal: “Ego cogito cogitationes pacis, et non afflictionis.” God Himself declares His intention toward His people. It is as if the Lord bends down in the final stretch of the year and reminds the Church that His purposes are benevolent even when His providence is hidden.

St Gregory the Great teaches that the peace promised here is not mere earthly tranquility but the deeper peace born of ordered love: “not the peace of this world, but the peace which comes when disordered desire is subdued beneath the order of charity.”³ True peace, for the Fathers, is the fruit of conversion, correction, and communion with God.

In an age overwhelmed by anxiety, Fulton Sheen’s insight remains acute: “The world grows tired of its promises; God never grows tired of His.”⁴ The liturgy places this divine promise at the very threshold of the Mass, preparing us for the Gospel of healing and the Epistle of hope.

The Epistle: The Renewal of Human Nature and the Promise of Glory
St Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians speaks with unusual fire. His warning against those “whose god is their belly” has an unmistakable contemporary resonance. He condemns a life turned inward, enslaved to appetites, governed by passions rather than reason. St John Chrysostom writes with penetrating clarity: “When a man serves only his passions, he becomes lower than the beasts who have no reason.”⁵

Against this slavery, Paul places the promise of glory: Christ will “reform the body of our lowliness” into the likeness of His own risen Body. St Irenaeus interprets this transformation through the doctrine of recapitulation: Christ restores humanity to the dignity intended in creation, and through His Resurrection elevates human nature to participate in divine life.⁶ St Thomas Aquinas teaches that this bodily transformation is not an appendix to salvation, but its completion: “the final effect of Christ’s grace.”⁷

This Epistle therefore offers not only moral exhortation but eschatological promise. The Christian is not destined for annihilation, nor for a disembodied eternity, but for participation in Christ’s own glorified life. As St Augustine beautifully says: “What you desire is coming; live as one who desires it.”⁸ Faith becomes anticipation, and anticipation forms character.

The Gospel: The Healing of the Ages in a Single Narrative
The Gospel presents a double miracle, but the tradition never reads them separately. The healing of the woman and the raising of Jairus’ daughter are understood as one unfolding revelation of the Saviour’s identity. The Fathers saw in their juxtaposition the mystery of salvation history itself.

The hemorrhaging woman, suffering for twelve years, represents fallen humanity exhausted by sin. St Ambrose identifies her with the soul wounded by vice: “the image of the soul wounded by the twelve vices, exhausted by its own blood.”⁹ Bede sees in her affliction a symbol of humanity groaning under the Law, unable to heal itself.¹⁰ She approaches Christ not with entitlement but with poverty of spirit. St Cyril of Alexandria remarks: “She touched with her hand what she held in her heart.”¹¹ Faith is not passive; it stretches, reaches, presses through the crowd. St John Damascene adds the mystical dimension: “She touched the hem, and the whole Body of Christ felt it.”¹² In other words, Christ’s compassion is total; He responds to the slightest movement of the soul toward Him.

Jairus’ daughter introduces another dimension of the mystery. Whereas the woman suffers long, the girl suffers suddenly. Her death is abrupt, premature, unjust. St Jerome sees in her the figure of Israel—beloved yet apparently dead—while the woman signifies the Gentile world healed first.¹³ St Augustine notes the apparent delay of Christ and interprets it spiritually: “The Lord delays, but He does not abandon.”¹⁴ Christ’s delay is pedagogical; He draws greater faith from those who seek Him.

St Gregory of Nyssa comments that Christ’s words—“The girl is not dead, but sleeps”—reveal the redefinition of death wrought by the Incarnation: “In the presence of the Resurrection, death is but a sleep.”¹⁵ Death remains an enemy, yet a conquered one.

The two miracles together form a theological symphony. St Peter Chrysologus summarises the unity: “Christ comes to restore both the living and the dead, the long-wounded and the suddenly struck.”¹⁶ And St Hilary of Poitiers concludes: “Whether we bleed or lie still in death, He alone can save.”¹⁷ The liturgy thus places before the faithful not only narrative miracles but the very structure of divine mercy.

The Liturgy’s Arc: From the Depths to Restoration
The Offertory, De profundis clamavi, expresses a cry from the depths of human misery. Yet the Communion antiphon answers with supernatural certainty: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you shall receive.” Dom Guéranger notes that the liturgy intentionally links these texts to demonstrate the passage from supplication to assurance: “the cry of the afflicted becomes the confidence of the redeemed.”¹⁸ The entire Mass becomes a movement from woundedness to restoration.

A Word to the Present Age
The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost addresses our own cultural moment with prophetic force. The West bleeds spiritually. It suffers from unbelief, fractured relationships, identity crises, and ecclesial wounds. As the Fathers once described the state of mankind before Christ, so can we speak of our present condition: dying slowly, unaware of our sickness.

Yet the Gospel assures us that Christ is not distant. St Bernard of Clairvaux writes: “He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.”¹⁹ Christ still allows Himself to be touched by faith. He still enters the rooms where death has come. He still speaks into the despair of nations, families, and souls: “She is not dead, but sleeps.”

The message is both consoling and demanding. Christ restores the faith of nations—if they repent. He restores families—if they return to His commandments. He restores the Church’s identity—if the faithful embrace tradition with courage. He restores souls—if they reach for the hem of His garment.

Conclusion: Hope at the Threshold of the End
The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost calls Christians to supernatural hope. It teaches us to see not only decay but the God who overcomes it, not only wounds but the hands that heal. The woman in the Gospel teaches us to reach for Christ; Jairus teaches us to trust even when hope appears lost.

Fulton Sheen summarises the spirit of this Sunday: “The world is not drifting into chaos; it is being brought to its knees that it may once more touch the hem of His garment.”²⁰ Christ does not leave the world to perish; He comes to restore what sin has wasted. And so the voice of the Introit echoes through the waning year: Cogitationes pacis, et non afflictionis. Thoughts of peace, and not of affliction.