Monday, 16 November 2026
Monday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time
or Saint Gertrude | or Saint Margaret of Scotland
Gospel: Lk 18:35–43

Today is Monday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time. According to the General Roman Calendar, the Church today celebrates the optional memorials of Saint Gertrude and Saint Margaret of Scotland.

The Missal published by the Catholic Truth Society tells us:

Saint Gertrude (1256–c. 1302) was born in Eisleben, Germany, and joined the Benedictine convent at Helfta. She showed great talent in her philosophical and literary studies, but she is best known for her mystical writings. She had a marked devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This devotion to the Sacred Heart later developed into its modern form through the visions of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Saint Margaret of Scotland (1046–1093) was the granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside of England but was born while in exile in Hungary. In 1070 she married King Malcolm III of Scotland and had eight children, three of whom reigned as Kings of Scotland, including Saint David I. Remarkable for her piety and works of charity, Saint Margaret co-founded Dunfermline Abbey and organized ferries at North and South Queensferry for pilgrims crossing the Firth of Forth on the way to Saint Andrews. She is the secondary patron saint of Scotland.

Today, the passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke tells the story of how, as Jesus was approaching Jericho, He mercifully healed a blind man who approached Him with faith, seeking healing. Let us reflect on this.

We often see people sitting by the roadside begging at transport hubs and in crowded places. Among those who beg by the roadside are the blind, the lame, the deaf, the mute, those with physical deformities, and those unable to care for themselves. They long to receive some comfort and alms from those who pass by, so that they might temporarily escape their present predicament. Among those who pass by, some are willing to give them what they consider to be surplus; others regard them as professional beggars and therefore refuse to lend them a helping hand. Still others, when they see someone giving alms, act like the crowd in the Gospel who tried to prevent the blind man from approaching the Lord (cf. Lk 18:35–39), hindering those in difficulty from escaping their predicament through the alms of others. In their eyes, they seem to have done a good deed, yet all they have done is out of selfishness.

In fact, before we came to know Christ, we too were like that blind man. The eyes of our soul were blinded by sin, so that in our eyes there was only everything belonging to this world, and no trace of God. For at that time, “through the disobedience of the one man” we were made sinners (cf. Rom 5:19A). But God, rich in mercy, did not abandon us. He made “Him who did not know sin to be sin for our sake, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (cf. 2 Cor 5:21). When we receive the Baptism of Christ, we are crucified with Him, putting to death the old self marked by sin, so that the sinful self may perish and we may no longer be slaves to sin. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we become children of God, sharing in the infinite grace that Christ bestows upon each of us.

May the Holy Spirit continually enlighten us and open the eyes of our faith, so that we may see all the goodness of God’s creation in our daily lives and introduce this beautiful world to all who understand the Word of God from a worldly perspective, so that they too, like us, may live forever in the beautiful world God has created. Amen.

©Totus Tuus 2026
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica