Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh week in Ordinary Time
Luke 11:1-4
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Galatians 2:1-2,7-14
Then after a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. I went up by revelation, and I laid before them the Good News which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately before those who were respected, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain. but to the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcised, even as Peter with the Good News for the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter in the apostleship with the circumcised also worked through me with the Gentiles); and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcision. They only asked us to remember the poor—which very thing I was also zealous to do. But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy; so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 117:1,2
Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! For his loving kindness is great toward us. The Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. Hallelujah!
Gospel
Luke 11:1-4
When he finished praying in a certain place, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”
Lectio
There is a quiet courage running beneath these readings, and it wears two very different faces. In Galatians we watch Paul do something almost unthinkable: he confronts Peter, the rock, to his very face, because Peter had begun to shrink. Out of fear of what others might think, Peter drew back from the table, withdrew from the Gentiles he had been eating with, and let fear rewrite the truth of the Gospel. Even Barnabas was carried away. It is a startling reminder that fear is contagious, and that even the holiest among us can be pulled backward by the anxious pull of what others expect.
And then the Gospel gives us the antidote, though it does not look like one at first. The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and he gives them not a technique but a relationship: *Our Father.* The whole prayer is an act of standing before God without shrinking — asking for bread we do not yet have, confessing sins we would rather hide, admitting we cannot face temptation alone. Where Peter drew back at the table out of fear of human faces, this prayer draws us forward to a divine face we can call Father. The person who prays "your will be done" each day is slowly formed into someone who, like Paul, can stand upright in the truth even when it costs them.
Notice that both readings circle the same struggle: whom do we fear? Peter feared the ones who came from James. Paul feared, for a moment, that he had run in vain — but he brought that fear into the open rather than letting it govern him in secret. The Our Father is where we hand our fears to the only One whose opinion finally holds us.
Where in your life right now are you drawing back from a "table" — a person, a truth, a relationship — because you are afraid of what certain people will think of you? When you pray "forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone indebted to us," whose face comes to mind as the one you have not yet forgiven?
Saint of the day
St. Mark, Pope († 336)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora