By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
The Scripture readings today are the ones found in the Lectionary for this Wednesday of this 28th week of Ordinary Time. But some might think that they were chosen with you in mind. Both St. Paul and Jesus in tonight’s reading had some harsh words to say about judges and scholars of the law.
Some might argue the St. Paul’s in today’s first reading is a commentary on the lawfare that has infected our jurisprudence in recent years. But let’s just say these scriptures are a warning to all of us, but also to you in the legal profession, against a certain worldliness that can harden our hearts, that can anesthetize our souls. If we cannot feel in our hearts, we will not see with our eyes the image and likeness of God in those that appear before us.
Some people refer to the means through which they make their livelihood as “jobs”; you, however, are not just working at a job, you are responding to a calling, a vocation. The legal profession is a noble calling – one that calls for continual courage, vigilance and a dedicated commitment to the people you serve and to our system of justice.
Your craft as lawyers and as officers of the court has as its foundation, its reason for being, the principle emblazoned on the façade of the Supreme Court building, “Equal justice under the law.”
The great achievement of the American people has been the attainment of liberty for its citizens through the rule of law. At its best, in our system of justice, the rights of the individual and proper respect for property ownership are protected from the grasp of the powerful and wealthy.
You know that old joke, a good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer knows the judge.
We all come to this Red Mass to encounter through Word and Sacrament the one who is Lord and Judge of History – Jesus Christ. Knowing that judge – and seeking that in all that we do, we do under his sight and in view of his perfect law of love – will help you not only to be good at what you do, but to be great at it, as officers of the court, as lawyers and judges.
A good lawyer, of course, will honor his oath and serve his client diligently; but a great lawyer will not be afraid to challenge injustice when he/she finds it and will not refuse to help those most vulnerable.
So, let me illustrate what I am trying to say with a story, a true story about a famous mayor of New York. You might have heard of him — there’s an airport named after him.
He would often serve as a judge at night court — and one night during the depths of the Great Depression, he presided over the court in one of the poorest precincts of the city. A poor old lady was brought before the court charged with stealing a loaf of bread. “Did you steal the bread,” he asked her. She admitted she had but explained that she lived with her daughter and her two grandkids, her son-in-law had deserted the family, and they had no money and nothing to eat. The mayor looked at the shopkeeper and asked him, given the circumstances, did he really wanted to press charges. The shopkeeper said that he felt sorry for her but it’s a bad neighborhood and the woman needed to be punished to set an example for everyone.
Homily by Archbishop Thomas Wenski at the Red Mass held at Saint Anthony Catholic Parish in Fort Lauderdale on Oct. 15, 2025.
LaGuardia was in a dilemma — the law was the law but to punish this old woman would be a miscarriage of justice.
What would you do? The penalty was $10 or 10 days in jail. What did LaGuardia do? He took ten dollars out of his wallet and gave it to a bailiff to pay the fine.
Then he looked out at the crowded courtroom and fined everyone there 50 cents for living in a city in which a grandmother had to steal a loaf of bread to feed her grandchildren. He directed the bailiff to collect the fines and hand the money to the defendant. The total collected came to $47.50 including the 50 cents willingly paid by the shopkeeper.
Often, justice is taken to be something cold and calculating. When we think about the “justice system”, it implies a certain impersonal objectivity.
But justice is first and foremost a virtue. The catechism describes the virtue of justice as “the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor (CCC 1807). In other words, justice is the virtue by which we turn outward toward to God and other people, to affirm their fundamental dignity, and we strive to act in accord with their true good. To be a just man – or woman – is to be a person who turns outward to other people seeing them as God sees them, which is of course with perfect and unwavering charity.
Jesus criticizes the scribes and Pharisees for their legalism: they pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb but pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. by which they pay tithes on mint and dill and cumin but neglect the more important matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. “These you should to have done”, Jesus tells them, “Without overlooking the others”
