Thursday, October 8, 2026
Thursday of the Twenty-seventh week in Ordinary Time
Luke 11:5-13
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Galatians 3:1-5
Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified? I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain? He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you, and does miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?
Responsorial psalm
Luke 1:69-70,71-72,73-75
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old), salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; to show mercy towards our fathers, to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to Abraham, our father, to grant to us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, should serve him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
Gospel
Luke 11:5-13
He said to them, “Which of you, if you go to a friend at midnight, and tell him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him,’ and he from within will answer and say, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give it to you’? I tell you, although he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as many as he needs. “I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened. “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
Lectio
Paul asks the Galatians a question that cuts to the bone: did you receive the Spirit by your own straining and rule-keeping, or by simply hearing and trusting? It is the ancient temptation to believe that God's love must be earned, that having "begun in the Spirit" we must now finish the work ourselves through sheer effort. And into that exhaustion the Gospel speaks a different word entirely. Jesus does not describe a God we must impress or wear down. He gives us the strange little parable of the friend at midnight, then turns it inside out — you may have to knock persistently on a neighbor's door, but with your Father it is not like that at all. You are not banging on a shut door. You are a child asking a parent who longs to give.
Notice how tender the images become: a father who would never hand his hungry son a stone dressed up as bread, or a snake where a fish was asked for. Jesus knows we suspect God of exactly this — of offering us stones and scorpions when we ask for what we need. Much of our spiritual weariness comes from that suspicion, from a heart that keeps trying to secure by the flesh what can only be received by trust. And the gift at the end of all this asking is not merely bread or an answered request. It is the Holy Spirit himself — the very life Paul says the Galatians already received freely, and were now trying to complete by their own works.
So the readings meet in one quiet invitation: stop earning, and start asking. Serve God "without fear," as Zechariah sings, because the covenant was never a transaction. It was always a Father wanting to give you himself.
Where in your life right now are you exhausting yourself trying to complete "in the flesh" what God wants to give you freely — and what would it mean to simply ask him for it instead?
Is there a specific request you have stopped bringing to God because, deep down, you suspect he would hand you a stone instead of bread?
Saint of the day
St. Demetrius, Martyr († c. 306)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora