Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Tuesday of the Thirty-first week in Ordinary Time
Luke 14:15-24
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Philippians 2:5-11
Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 22:25-26,27-29,30-31
Of you comes my praise in the great assembly. I will pay my vows before those who fear him. The humble shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord who seek after him. Let your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. All the relatives of the nations shall worship before you. For the kingdom is the Lord’s. He is the ruler over the nations. All the rich ones of the earth shall eat and worship. All those who go down to the dust shall bow before him, even he who can’t keep his soul alive. Posterity shall serve him. Future generations shall be told about the Lord. They shall come and shall declare his righteousness to a people that shall be born, for he has done it.
Gospel
Luke 14:15-24
When one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is he who will feast in God’s Kingdom!” But he said to him, “A certain man made a great supper, and he invited many people. He sent out his servant at supper time to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, for everything is ready now.’ They all as one began to make excuses. “The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please have me excused.’ “Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go try them out. Please have me excused.’ “Another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I can’t come.’ “That servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor, maimed, blind, and lame.’ “The servant said, ‘Lord, it is done as you commanded, and there is still room.’ “The lord said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste of my supper.’”
Lectio
Notice who finally sits at the great supper. Not the man who bought the field, not the one eager to test his new oxen, not the newlywed — all of them busy, all of them with reasons that sound entirely reasonable. The ones who come are the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame. They come because they have nothing to defend, no acquisition pulling them in another direction, no appointment they consider more urgent than the invitation itself. The psalm had already told us this: *the humble shall eat and be satisfied.* The table belongs to those with empty hands.
And this is exactly the mind Paul begs us to put on — the mind of Christ, who did not clutch at what was His but emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, went all the way down. The guests in the parable grasp; Christ releases. They are too full of their own lives to show up; He pours His out entirely. The strange logic of the Gospel is that the emptying is not the loss of the feast but the way into it. The field, the oxen, the marriage are not evil — they are simply held too tightly, mistaken for the main thing when they were only ever the smaller things. What keeps us from the table is rarely sin in its ugliest dress. It is usually something good that we have let swell past its proper size.
Where is Christ sending you an invitation right now that you keep answering with a polite, reasonable "please have me excused"?
What is the one good thing in your life — the field, the oxen, the relationship — that you are holding so tightly that your hands have no room left to receive Him?
Saint of the day
St. Martin de Porres, Religious (1579-1639)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora