Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

What is Daily Mass Readings with Homily and Saint of the Day?

Hear the Mass readings of the day, followed by a homily grounded in the writings of the Church Fathers, Doctors, and master theologians. Every episode concludes with a brief reflection on the heroic virtue of the Saint of the Day and a practical spiritual resolution to carry into your daily life.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is September the eighteenth, Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time. Grant us, O Lord, hearts unshaken by doubt and eyes fixed upon the glory of the resurrection, that the great hope planted within us by Baptism may bear fruit in lives poured out, like those holy women, in total service to the Kingdom.

A reading from the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians.

Brothers and sisters: If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also false witnesses to God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

The Word of the Lord.

The Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 17.

Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.

Hear, O LORD, a just suit; attend to my outcry; hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit.

Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.

I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my word. Show your wondrous mercies, O savior of those who flee from their foes to refuge at your right hand.

Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.

Hide me in the shadow of your wings. But I in justice shall behold your face; on waking, I shall be content in your presence.

Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.

Alleluia, alleluia. Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth; you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom. Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Saint Luke.

Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Paul does not argue gently here. He argues with the force of a man whose entire existence depends upon the truth he is defending. The logic is ruthless and deliberate: deny the resurrection of the dead, and you have not merely revised a doctrine — you have dismantled the entire edifice of Christian faith, stone by stone, until nothing remains but rubble and self-deception.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, commenting on this passage in his exposition of the Corinthian letters, notes that Paul proceeds by a method of reductio ad absurdum — not to be clever, but to expose the sheer incoherence of the position. The Corinthian skeptics believed, it seems, in some kind of spiritual survival, a ghostly persistence of the soul, while rejecting the bodily resurrection as unworthy, too material, too Jewish. Paul will have none of it. For Paul, the resurrection of the body is not an embarrassing appendage to the Gospel — it is the Gospel. Christ risen is not a spirit, not a memory, not a symbol. He is the firstfruits, the aparché, the first sheaf of the harvest laid upon the altar, which consecrates and guarantees the entire harvest to come. You are that harvest.

Saint Augustine in the City of God meditates profoundly on this word firstfruits. The resurrection of Christ is not an isolated miracle performed for one man's benefit. It is a cosmic inauguration. History has been bent at its very axis. The grave has been cracked open not merely for Jesus of Nazareth but for every human body that has ever been laid in the earth. Augustine writes that the resurrection of Christ is the cause of our resurrection — not simply a promise or a prophecy, but an efficient cause, a real transmission of risen life from the Head to all the members of the Body.

And this is why the stakes in Paul's argument are so devastating. If Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins. Notice: he does not say merely that you have lost a comfort or a consolation. He says you are still in your sins. The resurrection is not a reward added onto the forgiveness of sins. The resurrection is itself the completion of redemption. Without it, the Cross is a tragedy, not a victory. Atonement without resurrection is a wound without a cure.

Now look at the Gospel. Luke offers us what appears to be a simple logistical note — women accompanied Jesus on his mission and provided for the company out of their own resources. But attend to what has happened to these women. Mary Magdalene: seven demons expelled. The others: cured of evil spirits and infirmities. These are not incidental details. These women follow Jesus precisely because they have been delivered. Their ministry of provision is not merely practical generosity — it is the response of those who have personally experienced the power of the Kingdom Paul is defending.

Cornelius a Lapide sees in this passage a quiet theology of gratitude transformed into mission. These women do not merely receive healing and return home. They attach themselves to the source of healing and pour out what they have received. Their material provision for the Lord and the Twelve is itself a form of proclamation — a bodily enactment of the resurrection principle. Something that was bound has been loosed. Something dead has come to life. And that life overflows outward in service.

The Psalmist's cry — Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full — is the deepest desire of the human heart, spoken across the centuries and only now, in Christ, given its answer. On waking, I shall be content in your presence. This is the anagogical horizon of everything Paul labors to defend. The resurrection is not merely a doctrine to be believed with the intellect. It is a destiny to be inhabited with the whole person — body, soul, and spirit — rising into the unveiled glory of God.

Today, when doubt about eternal life whispers its familiar objections — when grief over a lost loved one, or the sheer weight of ordinary suffering, makes the resurrection feel abstract or remote — return to Paul's bedrock logic. Christ has been raised. That is not mythology. That is the fixed point around which all of history turns. Let that certainty realign your entire interior world. And then, like those women on the road, pour something of yourself out for the Kingdom — your time, your talent, your resources — not to earn salvation, but because you have already been freed.

May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever. Amen.
EPISODE_TITLE: Firstfruits of the Resurrection
IMAGE_PROMPT: A luminous Byzantine-style depiction of the risen Christ standing before an open tomb at dawn, with golden light radiating outward and a group of reverent women kneeling in the foreground, their faces lifted toward the light.