October 10, 2026 Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time Gospel: Lk 11:27-28
Today is Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time. The passage from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke presents to us a dialogue between Jesus and a woman.
In today’s Mass Gospel, we see a woman who cried out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” (cf. Lk 11:27). In what context did she say this? Saint Luke tells us: it was while Jesus was speaking. What was He speaking about? He was teaching the crowd in parables. Who is this woman? This woman is a figure of the Church. For the Church, seeing God’s salvation from the mouth of Jesus and moved by the Holy Spirit, praises the Blessed Virgin Mary who conceived and nursed Jesus.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, from the moment she received the Annunciation from the Angel Gabriel and humbly said “yes” to God’s plan, saying, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” (cf. Lk 1:38) After the birth of the Savior, she fled to Egypt with her spouse, Saint Joseph. After the death of Herod, the Great, she returned with Saint Joseph and lived in hiding with Jesus in Nazareth. She observed the Law of Moses, and on the eighth day after Jesus’ birth, she presented Him to the Lord. Simeon prophesied to her the destiny of both her and the Infant Jesus (cf. Lk 2:21-38). When Jesus was twelve years old, she once lost Him. When she returned to Jerusalem and found Him in the Temple, with a mother’s heart, she expressed her care for Jesus Christ and treasured His words in her heart (cf. Lk 2:41-52). When Jesus and His disciples attended the wedding feast at Cana, she noticed that the wine had run out. With firm faith, she interceded for the wedding guests before her Son, saying, “They have no wine.” This led Jesus to perform His first miracle at Cana, changing water into wine (cf. Jn 2:1-12). While Jesus proclaimed the Gospel to the crowds, the Mother of God accompanied Him (cf. Mt 12:46-50) until He died on the Cross (cf. Jn 19:25-27). After Jesus was taken up into heaven, she accompanied her Son’s Church in prayer (cf. Acts 1:14), thus setting an example for us.
On this Saturday dedicated to the special veneration of the Mother of God, let us unite our hearts and together offer our prayer to God:
Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever
9 October 2026 Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time or Optional Memorial on Saint John Henry Newman, Priest and Doctor of the Church or Optional Memorial of Saint Denis, Bishop and Martyr, and his Companions, Martyrs or Optional Memorial of Saint John Leonardi, Priest Gospel: Luke 11:15 26
Today is Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time. Today the Church celebrates the Optional Memorials of three saints. The recently published Roman Missal tells us:
Saint John Henry Newman (1801 1890) was born in London, baptized on 21 February 1801, and studied at Trinity College, Oxford. As a Fellow of Oriel College and Vicar of the University Church, Newman became a leading figure in the Oxford Movement within the Church of England. His search for truth led to his reception into the Catholic Church by Blessed Dominic Barberi at Littlemore on 9 October 1845. Newman subsequently established the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England and spent most of his Catholic life in Birmingham. After many trials and disappointments, Pope Leo XIII created him a Cardinal in 1879 in recognition of his theological work and personal witness. He died on 11 August 1890 and was canonized by Pope Francis on 13 October 2019. On 9 November 2025, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments added his memorial to the Roman Calendar, to be celebrated as an Optional Memorial.
Saint Dionysius (+ c.258) is venerated as the first Bishop of Paris and patron of France. He is said to have been sent to Gaul by Pope Fabian and to have been beheaded at Montmartre together with Rusticus, a priest, and Eleutherius, a deacon. Some writers wrongly identified him with Dionysius the Areopagite, mentioned in Acts 17:34, who was claimed as the author of a series of works of mystical theology actually written in the fifth century. The great Abbey of Saint Denis in Paris is the burial place of many Kings and Queens of France.
Saint John Leonardi (c. 1542 1609) was born near Lucca (Italy) and, after training as a pharmacist, was ordained a priest. This allowed him to bring to people the medicine of God, Jesus Christ. He founded the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God and also helped establish the College of Propaganda Fide in Rome, which trained missionaries. He died of influenza while ministering to the Roman populace. He was chosen as patron of pharmacists in 2006.
The Scripture passage taken from the Gospel of Saint Luke today tells us of the judgement of the Jews of Jesus’ time upon Him after He drove out a demon, and of Jesus’ response. Let us try to understand.
First, Luke tells us: When Jesus was driving out a demon, some of the crowd said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.” Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven. (cf. Luke 11:15 16)
Today, when we come to church to attend Holy Mass, we often hear some people say: The reason we choose to believe in God and to come here to attend Mass is because we like to watch the priest perform tricks on the altar. Sometimes we also feel that priests are like tools, merely acting by the authority given them by Jesus Christ. At other times, like those who falsely accused Jesus, we demand that the words the priest speaks and the Sacred Word of God he proclaims provide evidence to prove that God truly exists.
Who is the Beelzebul mentioned by Luke? Beelzebul was an idol worshipped by the Philistines on the plain of Sharon; his temple was at Ekron. He was originally a god of healing and deliverance from plague. When some Jews did not receive graces from their God, they would secretly go to Ekron to ask Beelzebul for healing. Therefore, this is clearly a pagan deity; whoever follows the mindset of this false god is one who refuses to accept what Jesus teaches — the law of God’s world.
In the parable Jesus tells, we see the crucial words: “kingdom”, “kingdom of God”. We know that in Jesus’ time, the Jews longed for a powerful Jewish kingdom like that of King David. In that kingdom there would be God, priests, the Sanhedrin, Pharisees, Sadducees, and various political factions. In that nation, social conflicts between classes were acute; people struggled for their own interests and fought among themselves for power. They even wanted to replicate such social systems and state structures in what they thought was the kingdom of God. This is the secular logic followed by the Jews. The kingdom of God spoken of by Jesus — that is, the logic of God which He proclaims — is a world centered always on God. In the kingdom of God as He describes it, there are no longer any political parties or classes; there is only the God who loves mankind and those who are loved by God. We no longer quarrel for our own interests, because all of us, through the grace of Baptism in the Lord Jesus Christ and by the oil of joy given by the Holy Spirit, have been made children of God. They no longer seek to hold power in the kingdom of God as Jesus describes it, but only desire to praise God together in that kingdom.
However, entering the kingdom of heaven that Jesus speaks of is not easy, because our three enemies — the devil, the flesh, and the world — constantly make us weak. Even if we wish to enter the kingdom of heaven that Jesus speaks of, the temptations of the world and the weakness of the flesh render us utterly feeble, making us unable to resist the assaults of the devil. Therefore, we urgently need the help of the Word of God, because we know: wherever the Word of God and His Gospel reach, the devil and his agents can by no means stand firm but must inevitably flee.
On this Optional Memorial of Saint John Henry Newman, Priest, Saint Dionysius, Bishop, and Saint John Leonardi, Priest, let us with one accord offer our prayer to God:
Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever
October 8, 2026 Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time Gospel: Lk 11:5-13
Today is Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time. The passage from the Holy Gospel of Luke presents us with a parable that Jesus told his disciples. Let us try to understand it.
First, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus said to his disciples: “Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he replies from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because of their friendship, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs.” (cf. Lk 11:5-8)
In our daily lives, we often encounter people who, compelled by necessity, seek various forms of help from us. When we meet them, we often arbitrarily assume they are frauds, that they seek help merely to satisfy their own needs, and we even fear that once we give them what they need, they will demand even more. Thus, we become like the master of the house in Jesus’ parable today, who refused to lend the three loaves, and are unwilling to provide for their needs according to our ability. (cf. Lk 11:5-7) For it seems to us that whenever we offer what help we can to those who seek it, we will suffer loss.
What lesson can we learn from Jesus’ words? The answer is obvious. God created us in His own image and entrusted all of His creation to us, so that we might have dominion over the world He created. (cf. Gen 1:26-31) Therefore, everything we currently possess does not belong to us; we are merely its stewards. If someone comes to us at midnight seeking help, even if we are already resting, we must still provide them with whatever they need according to our circumstances and to the best of our ability. In doing so, we are helping Jesus.
Today, let us imitate the Good Jesus and the Merciful Heavenly Father, spreading love through concrete actions—a love that is voluntary, spontaneous, and unforced. May those who urgently need help, through all that we do, see the gracious face of God revealed to them, and thus choose to be like us: through receiving the one Baptism of Christ and the anointing of the one Holy Spirit, becoming children of God; and through receiving the one Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, being united together in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever
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