Friday, September 11, 2026
Friday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time
Luke 6:39-42
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-27
For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about; for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me, if I don’t preach the Good News. For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. What then is my reward? That, when I preach the Good News, I may present the Good News of Christ without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News. For though I was free from all, I brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more. To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. Now I do this for the sake of the Good News, that I may be a joint partaker of it. Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win. Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore run like that, not aimlessly. I fight like that, not beating the air, but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 84:2,3,4-5,11
My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Yes, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, near your altars, the Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are always praising you. Selah. Blessed are those whose strength is in you; who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
Gospel
Luke 6:39-42
He spoke a parable to them. “Can the blind guide the blind? Won’t they both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck of chaff that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye? Or how can you tell your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck of chaff that is in your eye,’ when you yourself don’t see the beam that is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck of chaff that is in your brother’s eye.
Lectio
Paul and the Gospel both circle around the same quiet danger: that we might spend our lives correcting others while remaining strangers to ourselves. Paul, who has preached to thousands, admits his real fear — that after all his teaching, he himself might be found wanting. So he disciplines his own body, keeps watch over his own soul, runs his own race. He does not assume that helping others toward salvation guarantees his own. There is something bracingly honest in this. The apostle who became all things to all men still knew he could lose the thread of his own life.
The Gospel sharpens the point with that unforgettable image of the beam and the speck. Notice Jesus does not forbid us from helping our brother see clearly — he assumes we will, eventually. But he insists on the order: first the beam, then the speck. The trouble is not that we notice our brother's fault; it is that noticing his fault is so much easier, so much more flattering, than turning that same lamp on ourselves. The blind cannot guide the blind. Before we can guide anyone, we must let ourselves be led — into the honest, unflattering light where we see what is actually in us.
And under both readings runs the ache of the psalm: *my soul longs, even faints, for the courts of the Lord.* Perhaps this is the deepest cure for our habit of fault-finding. When the heart is genuinely homesick for God, it grows too tender toward its own need to spend its energy cataloguing the failings of others. The sparrow that has found its nest near the altar is not out hunting for specks.
Whose speck have you been examining lately — and what beam of your own might that scrutiny be helping you avoid looking at?
Where in your life have you assumed that because you help others toward God, your own soul is already safe — and what part of you have you quietly stopped keeping watch over?
Saint of the day
St. Paphnutius, Bishop (4th century)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora