Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to discover that the electricity has gone out. You reach for your flashlight, press the switch, and nothing happens. The batteries are dead. You search for replacements, but there are none. Now imagine that a severe storm warning had been issued several hours earlier. You heard the warning but paid little attention. You assumed everything would be fine. Suddenly, the storm arrives, the lights go out, and you find yourself strugglin

Imagine standing before God and looking at an enormous crowd of people from every nation, race, language, and generation. Among these are the great saints familiar to us—Peter, Paul, Augustine, Monica, Francis, Teresa, and countless others. But then you recognize someone familiar: perhaps your grandmother, a devoted parent, a humble neighbor, a helper from your church, or someone whose quiet faith touched your life. That is the beautiful image we see in today's first reading.

Have you ever asked someone for an opinion not because you wanted to know the truth, but because you wanted that person to agree with a decision you had already made? Sometimes, we ask questions not to learn but to justify ourselves. We seek advice, not necessarily to discover what is right, but to find someone who will tell us what we want to hear. That is precisely the situation Jesus encounters in today’s Gospel. Matthew tells us that the Pharisees went off and plotted how