Thursday, August 27, 2026

Thursday of the Twenty-first week in Ordinary Time

Matthew 24:42-51

Listen to the whole reading — MP3

First reading

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth; those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus; that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ; who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Responsorial psalm

Psalms 145:2-3,4-5,6-7

Every day I will praise you. I will extol your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable. One generation will commend your works to another, and will declare your mighty acts. Of the glorious majesty of your honor, of your wondrous works, I will meditate. Men will speak of the might of your awesome acts. I will declare your greatness. They will utter the memory of your great goodness, and will sing of your righteousness.

Gospel

Matthew 24:42-51

Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his lord finds doing so when he comes. Most certainly I tell you that he will set him over all that he has. But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunkards, the lord of that servant will come in a day when he doesn’t expect it, and in an hour when he doesn’t know it, and will cut him in pieces, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.

Lectio

Notice how Paul begins with gratitude, not correction. Before he addresses a single one of the divisions that will fill his letter to the Corinthians, he tells them they lack no spiritual gift, that God is faithful and will keep them firm to the end. He sees them not as they are on their worst day but as they are held in God's steady purpose. There is a tenderness in this — the way a good teacher names what is best in a struggling student before naming anything else.

The Gospel takes that same faithfulness and turns it toward us. "Watch, for you do not know the hour." Jesus is not trying to frighten us with the master's sudden return; he is inviting us into a certain kind of ordinary faithfulness. The wise servant is not doing anything dramatic when the master arrives. He is simply "giving them their food in due season" — feeding the household, tending to the small daily duties that are his. Readiness, it turns out, is not a matte of anxious vigil-keeping but of being found doing the humble work already entrusted to us, day after unremarkable day.

The trouble begins the moment the servant says in his heart, "My master is delayed." That inner sentence is where everything shifts — where the food meant for others becomes something withheld, where the fellow servant becomes someone to strike. Watchfulness, then, is really about the state of the heart when we think no one is looking, when the coming of the Lord feels abstract and far off.

Where in your daily life have you started to act as though the Master is delayed — some duty or person you've quietly stopped tending because no one seems to be watching?

Who is one "fellow servant" you've grown harsh with lately, and what would it look like to feed rather than strike them today?

Saint of the day

St. Monica, Layperson (332-387)

Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora