Today, October 26
Feast of the Day
No feast of the day
Saint of the Day
Readings of the Day
Letter to the Ephesians 4,32.5,1-8.
Brothers and sisters: Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones, no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place, but instead, thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure or greedy person, that is, an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty arguments, for because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient. So do not be associated with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.
Psalms 1,1-2.3.4.6.
Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked Nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, But delights in the law of the LORD and meditates on his law day and night. He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does, prospers. Not so, the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. For the LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 13,10-17.
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, "Woman, you are set free of your infirmity." He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath, said to the crowd in reply, "There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day." The Lord said to him in reply, "Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering? This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?" When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated; and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.
Daily Reflection
“Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spiri” ... “She was bent over and was quite unable to look upwards.” Every sinner who thinks about the things of earth and fails to seek those of heavenly things is unable to look upwards. When he follows his lower desires his heart is bent double and he is always looking at what he is continually thinking about. Turn into your hearts, dearly beloved. Look at what you are turning over in your thoughts at all hours. One person thinks about public honors, another about money, another about the acquisition of property. All these are inferior things. When your heart is involved with such things it is bent out of its upright condition. Since it is not rising toward heavenly desires, it resembles the woman who was bent over and unable to look upwards... The psalmist spoke figuratively of the human race m regard to our bent condition: “I was bent over and humbled all sides” (Ps 38[37]:7. Contemplative man was indeed created to behold the heavenly light. Because his sins deserved it, he was cast out to endure the darkness of his heart. Because he had no desire for things on high, he stretched out to things below... If a human being who had lost his heavenly contemplation were to think only of his physical necessities he would be bent over and humbled, but not on all sides. When it is not only necessity that casts him down... but forbidden pleasures bring him low as well, he is not just bent over but “bent over on all sides”.