Monday of the Thirtieth 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 October the twenty-sixth. O God, who through Your Son bent low to lift up our fallen nature, loosen the chains by which Satan binds us. Make us children of light, imitators of Your charity, that we may stand upright and glorify Your name. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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

Brothers and sisters: Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones, no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place, but instead, thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure or greedy person, that is, an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.

Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient. So do not be associated with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.

The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm. Psalm 1.

Behave like God as his very dear children.

Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, but delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.

Behave like God as his very dear children.

He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does prospers.

Behave like God as his very dear children.

Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. For the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.

Behave like God as his very dear children.

Alleluia, alleluia. Your word, O Lord, is truth; consecrate us in the truth. Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.

Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, "Woman, you are set free of your infirmity." He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath, said to the crowd in reply, "There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day." The Lord said to him in reply, "Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering? This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?" When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated; and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Eighteen years she looked at the ground. She could not lift her eyes to heaven, and no one in the synagogue is recorded to have helped her. St. Augustine sees in her the soul bowed down by earthly desire. The body is bent toward the dust because the heart has first been bent toward it. Man was made to look upward, and sin turns him in upon himself and downward. Augustine also reads the number eighteen as ten and eight. Ten is the Law, and eight is the day of the Resurrection. She was under the Law and could not fulfill it, for the Law cannot lift the one it commands. Only the Risen Lord can make a bent creature stand.

Christ does not wait to be asked. "When Jesus saw her, he called to her." Grace always comes first. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that Christ's humanity is the instrument of His divinity. So the Lord speaks, "You are set free," and then He lays on His hands. The Word pronounces, and the flesh conveys what the Word declares. Here the sacramental economy is already at work, with matter and word joined to heal the soul. She stood up straight at once, and her first act was to glorify God. This is the purpose of every healing: a body restored becomes a voice raised in praise.

The ruler of the synagogue cannot rejoice. He is indignant, and he directs his rebuke at the crowd, because he dares not rebuke the Lord. He is enslaved to the letter, and he has made the Sabbath a fence against mercy. Christ answers him with one word, "Hypocrites!" The ox and the ass are loosed and watered on the Sabbath, and shall a daughter of Abraham stay bound? Cornelius a Lapide notes the tenderness of that title. Christ will not let her be defined by her affliction. She is a daughter of the covenant, and Satan has had no right to her. St. Thomas teaches that the Sabbath rest is ordered to the worship of God. Works of mercy therefore do not break the Sabbath but fulfill it, for the Lord of the Sabbath is Himself at work, and nothing glorifies the Father more than a soul set free.

Saint Paul draws out the same truth in the first reading. "You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." Baptism is the laying on of hands that made us stand. The Apostle then names the chains: impurity, greed, obscenity, idle and suggestive talk. St. John Chrysostom observes that Paul places thanksgiving against filthy speech. The mouth that is full of gratitude has no room for corruption, and the heart that counts its gifts will not hoard. Greed is the posture of the bent woman, eyes fixed on the ground and hands closed over earthly things. Gratitude is the posture of the freed woman, face lifted and mouth open in praise.

Paul makes forgiveness the first command: "forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ." This too is a loosing. The unforgiving person is bound as surely as she was, bent over a wound that he will not release. Christ "handed himself over for us as a fragrant offering." The fragrance of the Cross is the only air in which a bent soul can straighten. To imitate God is to stoop as He stooped, to forgive as He forgave, and to bind no one whom mercy could set free.

The Church sings the same promise in the psalm. The just man is a tree planted by running water. He is not a stalk dried by the Law's mere letter, nor chaff blown by the wind, but a tree rooted in the stream of grace, bearing fruit in due season. At the last day the bent shall be made straight forever. The body that bowed beneath its burdens will rise in glory, and the eyes that looked at the dust will look upon the face of God.

Ask where you are still bent, and bring that place to Christ. He is already looking at you and calling you by name.

Before you sleep tonight, examine your conscience for one grudge you still hold and one sin of speech to which you are habituated. Forgive that person from the heart, and offer a sincere prayer of thanksgiving in place of the idle word. Then make a firm resolution, with the help of grace, to stand upright before God.

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: Stand Upright, Daughter of Abraham
IMAGE_PROMPT: A radiant Christ in a synagogue gently laying His hand upon a bent, kneeling woman as she lifts her face toward heaven, shafts of golden light falling across the scene in the style of classical sacred painting.