Saturday of the Thirty-first 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 November the seventh. O God, who gave your Son to be poor that we might be made rich, detach our hearts from perishing things and bind them to the treasure that does not fail. Teach us to hold all we have as yours, and to give it back to you in the poor. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

A reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians.

Brothers and sisters: I rejoice greatly in the Lord that now at last you revived your concern for me. You were, of course, concerned about me but lacked an opportunity. Not that I say this because of need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient. I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me. Still, it was kind of you to share in my distress. You Philippians indeed know that at the beginning of the Gospel, when I left Macedonia, not a single church shared with me in an account of giving and receiving, except you alone. For even when I was at Thessalonica you sent me something for my needs, not only once but more than once. It is not that I am eager for the gift; rather, I am eager for the profit that accrues to your account. I have received full payment and I abound. I am very well supplied because of what I received from you through Epaphroditus, "a fragrant aroma," an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 112.

Blessed the man who fears the Lord.

Blessed the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commands. His posterity shall be mighty upon the earth; the upright generation shall be blessed.

Blessed the man who fears the Lord.

Well for the man who is gracious and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice. He shall never be moved; the just one shall be in everlasting remembrance.

Blessed the man who fears the Lord.

His heart is steadfast; he shall not fear. Lavishly he gives to the poor; his generosity shall endure forever; his horn shall be exalted in glory.

Blessed the man who fears the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia. Jesus Christ became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich. Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.

Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, "You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God."

The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul is free, and he is free because he is possessed by Another. He has learned the secret of abundance and of hunger alike, and the secret is a Person: "I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me." St. Thomas Aquinas reads this as the fruit of grace and not of Stoic resolve. Paul does not wrest contentment from himself. He receives it from Christ, who holds the apostle's heart so firmly that neither a full table nor an empty one can loosen the grip.

Yet Paul does not despise the gift. He rejoices in it, and he says why: "I am eager for the profit that accrues to your account." Aquinas notes that the Apostle seeks not the gift but the fruit. The Philippians' alms never come to rest in Paul's hand. They pass through it to God, "a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice." The language is that of the altar. Material mercy, offered in charity, is taken up into the sacrifice of the Church, and the Father breathes it in as he breathed in the offering of Abel and the smoke of Noah's altar.

The Gospel states the principle behind this exchange. "Make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth." Why dishonest? St. Jerome gives the hard saying: the rich man is either unjust himself or the heir of one who was. Riches carry the wound of the Fall, because they are born in a world of grasping and fear. St. Augustine observes that "mammon" is a Punic word for riches, and that the Lord names it as a rival master and not merely a tool. He does not say a man should not have wealth. He says a man cannot be possessed by it and by God together.

The remedy is restitution made to Heaven. St. Gregory the Great teaches that when we give the poor what they need, we do not bestow our own goods but return theirs; we pay a debt of justice more than we perform a work of mercy. St. John Chrysostom is harsher still: to refuse the poor a share in our goods is to steal from them the very goods that are theirs. This is what it means to be "trustworthy with what belongs to another." Everything we hold is held in stewardship, and the stewardship will be audited.

Cornelius a Lapide reads "when it fails" as the hour of death, when every purse is emptied and every account is closed. At that threshold the poor whom we have befriended stand as advocates, and they receive us into "eternal dwellings." The one who gave hidden bread on earth is welcomed into the house of the Father. Here the passage opens upward: the true wealth that cannot fail is the Kingdom, and finally the vision of God himself.

All of this rests on the Alleluia verse. "Jesus Christ became poor although he was rich." He emptied himself of glory and was born in a borrowed stable, preached with no place to lay his head, and died stripped on the Cross. He is the pattern of all righteous giving and the true Mediator of the exchange Paul describes. Every alms given to the least of his brethren is given to him, and he repays it in his own riches.

The Pharisees sneered because they loved money, and their love had made them blind. They sought the esteem of men, and the Lord says that what men esteem, God may abhor. The question is not what our neighbors think of our accounts, but what God sees in our hearts. A heart that is "steadfast," as the Psalmist says, and that gives lavishly, does not fear, because it has already laid up its treasure where no moth or thief can reach.

Today, examine one possession or sum of money that you have been guarding, and give it in secret to someone in need or to a work of mercy. Offer it with a short prayer: "Lord, this is already yours."

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: Trustworthy Stewards of Heaven's True Wealth
IMAGE_PROMPT: A radiant Catholic sacred-art scene of Christ extending open, wounded hands over a kneeling steward who offers coins and bread to the poor, while golden light opens to heavenly dwellings above and a fragrant altar offering rises like incense.