Tuesday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 3, 2026

Luke 14, 15-24

One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves. The first said to him, ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ The servant reported, ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ The master then ordered the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled. For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’”

“Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”  Jesus takes up this exclamation, which seems self-evident, to teach the assembled scribes and Pharisees about the people who will in fact dine in the Kingdom of God.  The speaker thinks that the kingdom of God will be filled with people like himself.  Jesus says otherwise.

“A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many.”  That is to say, he did not invite the whole town, or even most of its population.  He invited “many”.  It is safe to assume that he invited the people most important to him.  Now, we are told explicitly that this was a “great dinner” — it was not a wedding feast or a birthday or something of the kind.  As we are not told the cause of the feast, we take it for granted that it was an expression of the man’s generosity.  “When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’ ”  The day-long work of slaughtering, preparing, and roasting goats or cattle would be nearly completed, bread would have been made, and wine purchased.  All that was needed was the guests.

“But one by one, they all began to excuse themselves.”  The invitation would have been issued days, if not weeks beforehand.  The date would have been carefully chosen so as not to come during religious holy days or times of planting or harvesting.  If an invited guest could not attend the dinner, the time for excusing himself was at the time the invitation was received.  Declining such an invitation would be a serious matter in those days.  An invitation entailed a virtual obligation to attend.  The excusing here amounted to a very serious breach of social custom.

“ ‘I have purchased a field and must go to examine it; I ask you, consider me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have purchased five yoke of oxen and am on my way to evaluate them; I ask you, consider me excused.’ ”  The fact that these excuses are insincere is plainly shown by the fact that these transactions were foreseen — these are not emergencies that occurred suddenly.  The obvious insincerity is a sign of contempt for the man hosting the dinner.  “And another said, ‘I have just married a woman, and therefore I cannot come.’ ”  This might seem a more plausible excuse, but, again, it is not.  The invited guest did not suddenly run off with a woman.  This too would have been foreseen at the time the invitation was accepted.  Besides this, the man hosting the dinner would almost certainly have gone to this guest’s recent wedding feast and would have known he could not come.  It is possible that he had not married after all, then, and was openly lying.  It is this recognition of the contempt that explains the next line: “The servant went and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house in a rage commanded his servant.”  If the excuses had at all seemed valid, there would have been no occasion for the rage.  Meanwhile, time was passing and the feast needed to be eaten or the food and all the work of the feast would be wasted.

“ ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in here the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ ”  That is, bring in people who are hungry, people who otherwise would not eat that day.  They would eat and be thankful.  Their joy at having good things to eat would exceed any joy and gratitude the original guests would have shown, and the host would bask in this.

“ ‘Sir, your orders have been carried out and still there is room.’ ”  The servant does not merely carry out his master’s orders, but intercedes for other hungry people of whom he knows, pointing out that more people could be accommodated.  The master is pleased to know this and orders as many needy people as possible be brought to his house: “ ‘Go out to the highways and hedgerows and make people come in that my home may be filled.’ ”  These people lived, as it were, on the edges of the world.  They were the rejects of society, those not good enough to dwell in the town itself.  “ ‘For, I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ”  There seems a causation between this line and the one previous to it: even if those invited originally changed their minds and came anyway, they would take one look at those who were feasting and they would have departed in a huff.  But the main idea here is that those who were hungry were fed, and those who expressed no hunger were allowed to stay away.

This “hunger”, of course, is the hunger for the company of Almighty God, and for the feast of love that only he could provide.  The invited guests were the very people whose appetites should have been cultivated by their study of God’s law and words.  Their study, however, left them feeling self-sufficient, maybe even “autonomous” to use a term that has become fashionable among those who are truly blind.  Those who hunger for God’s feast are the ones who should have been “fed” by these teachers of the law.  They are in fact starving.  Unable to work because of their infirmities, they sit in the streets and beg.  They might buy a crust of bread with what it takes them a day to earn in this way.  The servant who goes in search of the beggars and the rejects is the zealous priest or religious or layperson who teaches the Gospel to these folks and brings them into the Church where they feast on the Holy Eucharist.

We can see the Lord Jesus as this man’s servant, toiling away at his Father’s command to bring all people to the feast, going to the furthest corners of the world in order to do so.  His is perfect, uncomplaining obedience.  And the only ones who did not eat that day were the ones who refused the meal offered to them.

The Feast of All Souls, Monday, November 2, 2026

John 5:25-29

At that time, Jesus said to the multitudes of the Jews, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live. For as the Father has life in Himself, even so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He has granted Him power to render judgment, because he is Son of Man. Do not wonder at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but they who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment.”

On this feast we commemorate the souls of the just whose love is being perfected in purgatory as they are stripped from all longings that are not for God, for only the perfect may look upon the face of God.  Thus, we see the necessity of doing this work now ourselves with the help of the grace of God, and we have our lifetimes in which to do this.  It is easier to do this now than in the world to come.  At that time, the intensity of our love for God will increase, making every moment apart from his vision almost unbearable.  For this reason, we speak of the “flames” of purgatory.  The souls there live in hope, for one day they will most certainly see the Lord and rejoice in his presence into eternity. 

The Gospel reading which is the source of this reflection is from the 1962 Missal.  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God.”  It is easy to see why the crowds remarked about how differently Jesus spoke than their scribes and Pharisees — that he spoke “with authority”.  He speaks definitively here of how the dead shall shortly hear his voice.  Jesus speaks here of the souls in the limbo they inhabited before the Lord’s Death and Resurrection.  After his Death, he preached to the souls and led those who believed in him to eternal life — “those who hear him shall live” — while those who rejected him in their pride they descended into hell.  The souls in purgatory now hear the words of Jesus in their memories and console themselves with his promises.

“For as the Father has life in Himself, even so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself.”   The Lord speaks of his Father as the Source of all life, human and divine, and by his will his only begotten Son joined himself to a human nature and became the “Son of Man”.  Because the Son has become one of us, he is entitled to judge us.  And he who judges us is the very one who died for us on the Cross.  We can know, then, that he will be most strict on those who reject the salvation he won for us by such awful suffering, and most compassionate with those who strove for it on earth, though they fell just short of the perfection of love needed to receive it immediately after death.  Purgatory exists as a result of this compassion.

“The hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God.”  How long these souls have waited to hear this voice!  Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and all the just souls through all the long ages.  Thousands of years passed between the creation of the First Adam and the birth of the Second Adam, as St. Paul designates the Lord Jesus.  “And they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but they who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment.”  At the sound of his voice, in answer to his preaching, the righteous rose up into heaven on Easter Sunday.  One day, each soul in purgatory now will hear the Lord calling and shall then rise into the jubilation of heaven, with choirs of angels crying out in welcome.

We are able to assist these souls with our prayers, sacrifices, and our attendance at Mass on this feast.  Let us especially help them with the recitation of the Holy Rosary as we meditate on the mysteries by which we are saved.

The Feast of All Saints, Sunday, November 1, 2026

Revelation 7:2–4, 9–14

I, John, saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the children if Israel.  After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.”  All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped God, and exclaimed:  “Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”  Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Feast days in honor of all the saints of God have been celebrated since ancient times.  In 837,  Pope Gtegory IV .vordered its general observance on November 1. 

The Book of Revelation offers various descriptions of the crowd of saints.  In chapter seven, used here as the First Reading for today’s Feast, John the Apostle, who received the seven visions recorded in this book, tells how he saw an angel that had “come up from the East”.  The Venerable Bede explains that this “angel” is the Son of God, the Angel of Great Counsel.  At the end of the final persecution, he holds back with a command the four angels who have fought against the wicked nations of the world.  He orders them, “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”  That is, now that the terrible persecution is over — “There shall be then great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be” (Matthew 24, 21) — the Faithful, who have hidden, will be revealed to all.  The “seal” on their foreheads is the Sign of the Cross, the sign of Christ’s victory.  There are two bodies of the Faithful united in their belief and perseverance in the Lord.  The first group is that of the “children of Israel”, the Jewish Christians, of which there are many, but which are still a small part of the whole, for the second group, that of the Gentile Christians, is said to be “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.”  All “stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.”  That is, they stood before the throne of God the Father and before his Son, who appears as the Lamb that was slain.  The Lamb stands between the saints and the Father in intercession for them, and also as though introducing them into the Kingdom of heaven.  They wear their baptismal robes, which they have washed white in the Blood of the Lamb through their perseverance in the Faith.  The “palm branches” signify their victories in Christ through martyrdom and against the temptations of this world.

“Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb!”  The saints cry out in exultation that they have been saved by God and that they could not have been saved due to their own efforts alone.  It is a cry of great gladness and of thanksgiving after their sufferings on the earth.  “All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped God, and exclaimed.”  The court of heaven — the angels and the Church already present in heaven (the elders and the four living creatures), throw themselves before the throne at the sight of their brothers and sisters who are brought safely home.  They exclaim: “Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”  Almighty God, in his marvelous Providence and with his great wisdom and power has brought honor and glory upon himself in the salvation of the saints.  

“Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, ‘Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?’ ”  The elders are the Prophets and Apostles.  John is perhaps seeing a vision of himself in the future, at the end of time.  The elder seeks an answer to his question, but John is too overwhelmed to offer one.  This foretells the awe which will fill us when we look upon the choirs of the saints at that time.  “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  Of that great distress at the end, the Lord says, “And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24, 22).  The present time and, indeed, all of time since the first coming of the Lord, has been one of great tribulation, for the devil knows his time is short.  Each day of our life we are washing our robes and making them white in the Blood of the Lamb through our constant faith and our good works.  One day, we shall put on those robes, and they will shine as no fuller on earth could make them (cf. Mark 9, 2).  At that time, we will join the saints in heaven, whose prayers assisted us during our earthly lives.

Saturday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 31, 2026

Luke 14:1, 7-11

On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Our model par excellence of humility is the Lord Jesus Christ, for, as St. Paul says, he “who was in the form of God, did not think it a prize to be grasped to be equal to God, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, born in the likeness of men, and was found in the likeness of a man.  He humbled himself, being born unto death, the death of the cross” (Philippians 2, 6-8).  The verb I have translated from the Greek as “emptied” can also mean “to deprive of content”.  To begin to understand the Lord’s humility, which is all we can humanly do, we have to think in terms of similes and metaphors.  In today’s Gospel reading, the Lord himself presents what he has done, taking “the lowest place”.  Verse 10 in this reading, which speaks of this, might be translated, literally, “But when you are called, traveling, recline at the last place.” The verb I have translated as “traveling” has this customary meaning, rather than “go”.  The adjective I have translated here as “last” is the Greek eschaton, which does not mean “lowest”, as in the lectionary translation, but “last”, “final”, “at the last”.  The Lord uses this word to describe himself in Revelation 22, 13: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Applying this verse to the Lord, it means that he “emptied himself” in order to “travel” the great distance between heaven and earth, where he reclined first in the womb of the Virgin Mother, then in a dirty manger, on the “bed” of the Cross, as the Fathers called it, and in a stranger’s tomb, taking the furthest place from heaven possible in the human world.

The Lord shows how we might imitate him in his humility through the parable in this reading.  “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor.”  The seating at a banquet or feast was determined by the host.  The guest of honor, or the guest whom the host considered of highest importance would be given a place of marked significance — at the head of the table, for instance.  The other guests would be seated by the host in the order of importance in which he viewed them.  (The fact that the Lord and his Mother were with the servants at the Wedding at Cana tells us that they were seated at places furthest from the head).  The order was determined entirely by the host.  Thus, a guest who chose for himself the place of honor showed himself rude and a fool.  “A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him.”  This is the more likely the greater the number of guests who have been invited.  In addition, the seating of a guest in the place of honor by the host was itself a conspicuous honor.  In seating himself, the foolish guest would be passing this up.  But because a fool seldom realizes that he is a fool, the Lord urges that no one consider himself the guest of honor.  Otherwise, “you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.”  A better translation would be: “You will be led in shame to the last place.”  

Rather, the Lord says, “traveling, recline at the last place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ ”  We note that the Lord did not say to take one of the last places, but the very last place.  The host, recognizing the true value of the guest in the last place at the table, seats him higher up, perhaps displacing another person to do this.  The Almighty Father who sees his Son in the last place, says to him, My Son, come up higher, and so from his tomb he raises him to glory.  “Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.”  Those at the table will praise the one who is raised up, seeing the favor bestowed upon him by their host.  The guest thus receives greater honor than if he had been seated by the host there right at the start.

“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  We should note here that the one who “exalts himself” will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself “will be exalted” by another, by the host.  When we exalt ourselves we show our own foolish pride.  When someone of actual importance exalts us, it is a different matter.  When the Lord exalts us after we have taken the last place with him on earth, we shall be glorified in the eyes of the angels.

Friday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 30, 2026

Luke 14, 1-6

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy. Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?” But they kept silent; so he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him. Then he said to them “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?” But they were unable to answer his question.

From a remark by some Pharisees a few verses before those that are used for the Gospel reading for today’s Mass (“Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you”), it seems that Jesus has not yet left Galilee for Judea.  Thus, “the home of one of the leading Pharisees” where Jesus eats in this reading is in Galilee.  He is invited to eat dinner there after he has attended the synagogue in the town to which he has come and where he would have also taught.  The host and those who also had been invited to the dinner “were observing him closely”, noticing that he did not join in the ritual washings in preparation for eating, and expectant for any other behavior or words they deemed out of place.

Among the gathering sat a man “suffering from dropsy”.  This condition is marked by a swelling in the feet, ankles, or legs caused by fluid buildup due to heart, kidney or liver disease.  The afflicted man would have struggled to walk and suffered much pain.  He must have been one of the leading Pharisees as well since Luke characterized those present as “the scholars of the law and Pharisees”.  The Lord asks them, “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not?”  The Lord applies a different strategy than when he cured the woman in the synagogue on the Sabbath in Luke 13, 10-17.  That is, he asks before he acts.  In this way he also announces what he intends to do.  Now, this situation differs from that with the infirm woman in that this man was one of their own.  He was a friend, a colleague.  By posing his question first, he puts the present company over a barrel.  If they object in order to protect their doctrine, they show the man that they are not his friends.  They could not answer: “They kept silent.”  Their silence does not save them, though.  It reveals plainly that they cannot defend their own doctrine, but it also reveals that they do not regard the man with the dropsy as their friend, or they would have urged the Lord to heal him, Sabbath or not.  The Lord has already shown his inclination to do just that.

“He took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him.”  The Greek verb tells us that the Lord “took hold” of the man.  This could mean that he raised him up and lay his hands on him.  Luke does not describe the healing itself, only writing, “when he had healed him”, as though even Luke was so overwhelmed by the succession of miracles that they had become familiar.  Luke does tells us that after the Lord healed him, he dismissed him: he sent him home.  In this way the Lord saves him from ensuing awkwardness.  After the man is safely out of the house, with the gathering strangely silent, the Lord confronts them with a question similar to what he had said to the Pharisees after he healed the infirm woman: “Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?”  In other words, is a human worth more than an animal or not?  But the group lacked the humility and the honesty to respond.  Failing to give any answer shows their bad faith and their disrespect.  We might wonder how they dared to face the healed man in public afterwards.

At the heart of this account is the healing by Jesus of this man.  He revealed the mercy of God to him through it.  Since he was included among the Pharisees at this dinner, we can wonder whether he had begun with a hostile opinion of the Lord, or whether he harbored curiosity instead.  It seems likely that the host considered him in accord with the views of the majority of their kind that Jesus was a false teacher.  Yet the Lord did not let whatever the afflicted man think of him prevent him from showing God’s loving kindness to him.  Almighty God does not love only those who love him, after all, but all whom he has created.  Nothing we can do can stop him from loving us.  We ought not to be prevented by anything from loving him.

Thursday in the 30th Week of Ordinary Time, October 29, 2026

Luke 13, 31-35

Some Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you.” He replied, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose. Yet I must continue on my way today, tomorrow, and the following day, for it is impossible that a prophet should die outside of Jerusalem.’   Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned. But I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

“Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you.”  These Pharisees present that they have information that Herod wanted to kill the Lord Jesus.  They come to him as though doing him a favor.  However, evidence makes it unlikely that they speak the truth. In Luke 23, 8 we read that Herod “was desirous for a long time of seeing him, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to see some sign wrought by him.”  It seems, then, that the Pharisees were merely trying to get him to leave their area.  Thus the darkness hates the light (cf. John 1, 5).  According to St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), in the Lord’s response, “Go and tell that fox”, the fox” is the Pharisee who gave him the false warning.  In fact, the Greek word translated here as “that” actually means “this”.  “That” refers to someone over there; “this” refers to someone close at hand.  In addition, by calling the Pharisee a “fox” the Lord intimates that he knows very well that he is trying to trick him.  The Lord’s treatment of the Pharisee is like that of his treatment of the Nazarenes who tried to kill him: he did not speak to them but went his way.  

“Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose.”  Here the Lord tell the Pharisees to give a message to their lying colleague, but the message is meant for them as well.  The Lord is telling them that he will continue to work where and when he wants until he “accomplishes his purpose”.  The Greek for this last phrase means “I am perfected” or “I am completed”.  That is, until the Sacrifice of his life on the Cross.

“I must continue on my way today, tomorrow, and the following day, for it is impossible that a prophet should die outside of Jerusalem.”  The Lord’s “way” is his journey towards his Passion, a journey that began at the moment of his Incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin.  He makes it clear that he shall face the unjust hatred of the authorities suffered by the Old Testament Prophets, especially Jeremiah, and will die at Jerusalem.  We should note that the Lord refers to himself as a “prophet”.  The primary work of the old Prophets was to warn the people to repent from their sins or that they would be destroyed.  This was at the heart of the Lord’s preaching:  “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1, 15).

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the Prophets and stone those sent to you.”  This brings to mind the lament over Jerusalem of the Prophet Jeremiah: “Your ways and your doings have brought this upon you.  This is your doom, and it is bitter; it has reached your very heart. My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!” (Jeremiah 4, 18-19).  “How many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!”  That is, how many times, as a hen gathers her chicks, he would have gathered — saved — his people from “foxes” like the lying Pharisee.  Yet the people were unwilling to reject their false gods and to adhere to the Law.  “Your house will be abandoned.”  They will be offered the way to eternal life but they will reject it and live without it.  Their house will be abandoned not because the Lord has left them, but because they will leave him.  “But I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  St. Cyril teaches that this time will come at the end of the world, when the Son of God returns for judgment.  It cannot mean the time when Jesus enters Jerusalem the Sunday before he dies on the Cross because he is still in the world then and can be seen by anyone who looks.

The wicked attempt to scare away the faithful so that they may not give witness to Christ through the example of their lives.  They also seek to entice us with the distractions and pleasures of this passing world.  Let us hold fast to our mission of witnessing to Christ so that we will be among those who celebrate when he returns.

The Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Thursday, October 28, 2021

Ephesians 2, 19-22

You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Today’s reflection is on the First Reading for the Mass of this feast.

“You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God.”  Roman citizenship was much prized in the ancient world.  A person could have it through birth, through purchase, or through service.  Paul himself could boast of his citizenship, which allowed him to appeal his legal case to Caesar.  Citizenship conferred a number of privileges on the holder, making him very different before the law from non-citizens.  To be a fellow citizen “with the holy ones” meant to have the same access to the Father as the holy prophets, apostles, and martyrs.

“Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself as the capstone.  Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord.”  The Benedictine Walafrid (d. 849) comments in his Gloss: “There is no one so perfect that he is not able to grow”, meaning that our growth into the temple of God ought to be continuous.

“In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”  Paul seems to contrast this temple with the great temple to Artemis in the city's center. Magnificent, rich, and renowned though it was, it remained a dead building. The Church, on the other hand, was constructed of living stones, the cornerstone of which was the Christ who had redeemed mankind and pleaded for it before the Father.  The very foundations consisted of the prophets and apostles, more solid and dependable than any cement or stone.  This reminds of the saying of Jesus that: “He who hears my words and does them is like a wise man who builds his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7, 24).  Nor is it an empty structure, with these foundations and walls, for God himself dwells in it.

So much of the work of the Apostles and their disciples is hidden from history, and yet we can gaze upon the solidity of the Church that has withstood the worst storms which fallen human nature and the scheming of the demons could devise, and marvel at how powerful their work must have been.  From a careful examination of a lofty tower  we can imagine the greatness of its foundations.

There is very little in the Tradition about St. Simon. He is sometimes called, anachronistically, the “Canaanean” from the Greek text of the Gospels, or, “the Zealot”, which might also translate the text, but this is not certain. He is said to have preached the Gospel in and around the land of Israel and to have been crucified.

A rich tradition exists concerning St. Jude, also known as Thaddeus. Armenian Christians have a

Ways claimed that he came into their land and preached the Gospel there, eventually converting their king.