Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth week in Ordinary Time
Luke 8:19-21
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Proverbs 21:1-6,10-13
The king’s heart is in the Lord’s hand like the watercourses. He turns it wherever he desires. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. A high look, and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin. The plans of the diligent surely lead to profit; and everyone who is hasty surely rushes to poverty. Getting treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor for those who seek death. The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes. When the mocker is punished, the simple gains wisdom. When the wise is instructed, he receives knowledge. The Righteous One considers the house of the wicked, and brings the wicked to ruin. Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he will also cry out, but shall not be heard.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 119:1,27,30,34,35,44
Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the Lord’s law. Let me understand the teaching of your precepts! Then I will meditate on your wondrous works. I have chosen the way of truth. I have set your ordinances before me. Give me understanding, and I will keep your law. Yes, I will obey it with my whole heart. Direct me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in them. So I will obey your law continually, forever and ever.
Gospel
Luke 8:19-21
His mother and brothers came to him, and they could not come near him for the crowd. Some people told him, “Your mother and your brothers stand outside, desiring to see you.” But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God, and do it.”
Lectio
There is a quiet insistence running through today's readings that gets underneath our comfortable self-assessments. "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes," Proverbs observes, "but the Lord weighs the hearts." We are all skilled advocates for our own conduct. We can justify almost anything to ourselves — the harsh word, the averted gaze, the small dishonesty that "doesn't really hurt anyone." But there is a scale we do not hold, weighed by a hand not our own, and it measures not our explanations but what we actually did with the poor man at our door.
This is why the Gospel lands the way it does. Jesus does not disown his mother and brothers when he says his true family are "those who hear the word of God and do it." He is telling us that belonging to him is not a matter of blood, of belonging to the right group, of being close enough in the crowd to be recognized. It is a matter of doing. Mary, of course, is the first and greatest of those who heard and did — her whole life was one long yes. The word must move from the ear into the hands and feet. Proverbs says the same thing more bluntly: "To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice."
And so the Psalmist's prayer becomes the honest thing to pray: not "let me know your law" as an idea to admire, but "give me understanding, and I will keep it, I will obey it with my whole heart." Hearing is where it begins; doing is where it becomes love.
Who is the poor person crying out at the edge of your life right now — someone you have quietly learned to stop your ears against — and what would it cost you to actually hear them this week?
Where in your life are you most certain you are in the right, and could you let God weigh that heart today rather than trusting your own eyes?
Saint of the day
The Theban Legion, Martyrs (c.287)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora