Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth week in Ordinary Time
Luke 11:42-46
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Galatians 5:18-25
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 1:1-2,3,4,6
Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the Lord’s law. On his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper. The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.
Gospel
Luke 11:42-46
But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and God’s love. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues, and the greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.” One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying this you insult us also.” He said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens that are difficult to carry, and you yourselves won’t even lift one finger to help carry those burdens.
Lectio
Paul gives us a list, and Jesus gives us a warning, and between them runs a single quiet question: what is actually growing in you? Paul names the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience—and notice that none of these can be faked for long. Fruit is not something you announce; it is something that ripens whether you are watching or not. The Pharisees Jesus rebukes had mastered the announcing. They tithed the mint and the rue, they counted out their tiny herbs with great precision, and they loved to be greeted in the marketplace. What they had let wither was the thing that could not be measured: justice, and the love of God.
The psalm gives us the image that holds all of this together—the tree planted by streams of water, producing its fruit in its season. That tree is not straining. It is not performing. It is simply rooted somewhere that feeds it, and so, in time, it bears what it was made to bear. The frightening thing about the Pharisees is not that they were evil in some dramatic way. It is that they were busy, careful, religious—and hollow underneath, "like hidden graves" that people walk over without knowing. It is possible to keep every small rule and still be starving at the root.
And so the invitation today is not to try harder at the mint and rue of our lives, but to check where we are planted. Are we drinking from the stream, or are we managing an appearance?
Where in my life am I being very careful about a small, visible thing while quietly neglecting someone who actually needs my love and my justice—can I name that person today? When have I loaded a burden onto someone—a spouse, a child, a coworker—and refused to lift even a finger to help them carry it, and what would lifting one finger look like this week?
Saint of the day
St. Callistus I, Pope and Martyr († c. 222)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora