Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Wednesday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time
Luke 6:20-26
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
1 Corinthians 7:25-31
Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be trustworthy. Therefore I think that because of the distress that is on us, that it’s good for a man to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Don’t seek to be freed. Are you free from a wife? Don’t seek a wife. But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you. But I say this, brothers: the time is short, that from now on, both those who have wives may be as though they had none; and those who weep, as though they didn’t weep; and those who rejoice, as though they didn’t rejoice; and those who buy, as though they didn’t possess; and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 45:10-11,13-14,15-16
Listen, daughter, consider, and turn your ear. Forget your own people, and also your father’s house. So the king will desire your beauty, honor him, for he is your lord. The princess inside is all glorious. Her clothing is interwoven with gold. She shall be led to the king in embroidered work. The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to you. With gladness and rejoicing they shall be led. They shall enter into the king’s palace. Your sons will take the place of your fathers. You shall make them princes in all the earth.
Gospel
Luke 6:20-26
He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, God’s Kingdom is yours. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets. “But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation. Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe, when men speak well of you, for their fathers did the same thing to the false prophets.
Lectio
There is a strange freedom running through today's readings, one that the world would call loss. Paul writes to people who feel the ground shifting beneath them — "the time is short," "the mode of this world passes away" — and rather than clutching harder at what they have, he invites them to hold everything with an open hand. Married as though not married, weeping as though not weeping, buying as though not possessing. This is not detachment out of coldness. It is the loosening of grip that comes when you finally understand that nothing here is meant to be your final resting place. He is teaching us how to travel light.
And then Jesus lifts his eyes to his disciples and blesses precisely the people the world pities — the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the excluded. Notice he does not say these things are good in themselves. He says God's Kingdom belongs to those who have nothing left to lose, because their hands are already empty enough to receive it. The "woes" are not curses so much as warnings to those who have already collected their reward, who are so full and so comfortable and so well-spoken-of that there is no room left in them for God. Fullness can be its own kind of poverty; emptiness can be its own kind of wealth.
The psalm quietly shows us where all this loosening leads: "Forget your own people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty." What we release, we release *toward* someone. The letting go is not the point — the King who waits at the end of it is.
What is the one thing you are gripping most tightly right now — a relationship, a security, a good reputation — that you are afraid to hold "as though you had none"?
Where in your life have you quietly received your consolation already, settling for being full and well-spoken-of, and what hunger has that comfort been covering over?
Saint of the day
St. Peter Claver, Priest (1580-1654) - Memorial
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora