August 27, 2026
Memorial of Saint Monica
Lectionary: 428
Reading 1
Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of
God,
and Sosthenes our brother,
to the Church of God that is in Corinth,
to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy,
with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
their Lord and ours.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always on your account
for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,
that in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,
as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,
so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift
as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He will keep you firm to the end,
irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful,
and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1) I will praise your name for ever, Lord.
Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.
R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.
Generation after generation praises your works
and proclaims your might.
They speak of the splendor of your glorious majesty
and tell of your wondrous works.
R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.
They discourse of the power of your terrible deeds
and declare your greatness.
They publish the fame of your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your justice.
R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Stay awake!
For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this:
if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.
“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant,
whom the master has put in charge of his household
to distribute to them their food at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.
Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.
But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’
and begins to beat his fellow servants,
and eat and drink with drunkards,
the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day
and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely
and assign him a place with the hypocrites,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082726.cfm
Commentary on 1
Corinthians 1:1-9
Today we begin reading from the First Letter of Paul to the
Christians in the southern Greek city of Corinth. Paul had gone there after his
dismal failure with the sophisticated citizens of Athens. Here, in a city of
very mixed population and with not a terribly good reputation for its morals,
he did very much better. This letter is one of the most important documents of
the New Testament and contains some of Paul’s most central teaching. So we will
be staying with this letter up to the end of Week 24—three and a half weeks
altogether.
As is usual in letters of the period, Paul begins by
identifying himself and numbers himself among the Apostles called by God. In
its original meaning ‘apostle’ means ‘someone who is sent on a mission or with
a message to communicate’. In the New Testament the word can be used in a
general sense about someone who is sent on a mission (Greek verb, apostello).
More particularly, it is used of the Twelve we meet in the Gospels, but was
also applied later to Paul (who calls himself “the least of the Apostles”). The
title is also sometimes given to a wider group including Barnabas, James “the
brother of the Lord” and possibly Andronicus and Junias, whom we meet in the
Letter to the Romans.
Paul uses the title of himself in most of his letters to
affirm his authority as a messenger of Christ, an authority that was sometimes
challenged. He reinforces his claim here by adding “by the will of God”. In
other words, he is not self-appointed.
The greeting also contains the name of Sosthenes, who may
possibly be the synagogue ruler who was attacked by his fellow-Jews in Corinth
when their complaint against Paul was rejected by Gallio, the pro-consul of the
local province of Achaia. (The story occurs in Acts 18 and is part of the First
Reading on Friday of Week 6 of Easter.) If it is the same person, then he must
have become a Christian either while Paul was preaching in Corinth or during
the ministry of Apollos.
Paul addresses his letter to the “church of God that is in
Corinth”. “Church of God” is one of his favourite expressions and used only by
him. It refers to the community of Christians gathered together, often in one
of their homes. Its Old Testament counterpart is “assembly (or community) of
the Lord”. At this stage there is no formal building or institutional
structure.
He also calls them a people “sanctified”, i.e. made holy in
Christ. This refers not so much to their behaviour—for, as Paul will not
hesitate to point out, they had many faults—but because they had been called,
with Christians in other churches, to be a people set apart, distinguished by
their commitment to the Way of Christ. The Greek word hagios,
translated ‘holy’, means ‘set apart’, and the “saints” is a term used of all
Christians in Paul’s letters, and not just those outstanding in virtue.
The opening greeting ends with a blessing and prayer for the
“grace and peace” of God the Father and the Lord Jesus, a greeting we now use
in our Eucharistic liturgy.
“Grace” (in Greek, charis) implies God’s love
being given gratuitously, and not because it is deserved. No matter how good we
are, God is never indebted to us. The first initiative of love always comes
from God, never from us, nor can we ever do anything to earn it. It is always
there first waiting to be accepted by us.
The letter now properly begins with Paul’s uttering words of
thanks for all the testimonies of God’s love, his “grace”, that have been
showered on the Corinthians in Christ Jesus. He is especially thankful for the
gifts of “speech and knowledge”, exemplified in their preachers and teachers.
These are special gifts of the Spirit (mentioned later on among other gifts).
‘Speech’ is the gift of being able to proclaim the gospel effectively.
‘Knowledge’ implies a deep understanding of the gospel message and not just
facts about the message.
The “witness to Christ”, which Paul gave to them, has not
been at all in vain; on the contrary, it has clearly been confirmed by the
gifts of the Spirit of Jesus which are evident among them. Those gifts of the
Spirit enable them to serve the body of Christ, which is the Church, until the
time when the Lord Jesus will be revealed at the end of time—the time of his
final coming. Paul will speak at greater length about these gifts in chapters
12-14.
According to those chapters, a spiritual gift is a
manifestation of the Holy Spirit enabling one to minister to the needs of
Christ’s body, the Church. The gifts are not intended for oneself, but to
enable one to respond to the community’s needs. There are different gifts for
different needs. (Notice that Jesus’ final coming is no longer seen as
imminent, as in the Letter we read earlier in the week.)
The Corinthians will need these gifts as they wait for the
full revelation of Jesus Christ, when the hidden plans of God are to be made known.
Then Christ will reveal himself at the end of time, the time of his parousia (Greek,
‘final coming’) and his Appearing. Before this, “the lawless one” will have
‘revealed’ himself, only to be destroyed by Christ (2 Thess 2:3-8).
And it is God who will give them the help they need to
remain “steady and without blame” until “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ”,
when he will return to take all his own to himself. By God’s calling them, they
are united in a special way with Jesus Christ. (The ‘day of the Lord’ in its
various forms was mentioned in this past Tuesday’s reading.)
And, Paul says in conclusion, “God is faithful”. He is a God
who always keeps his promises. His love is unchanging no matter what we may do.
And he is the One who has called us into fellowship with him through Jesus
Christ, his Son and our Lord.
Paul will have many criticisms to make of the Corinthians in
the course of his letter, but for now he begins with words of thanks for all
the genuine good that he sees among them.
We can so easily be aware of the shortcomings of individuals
and groups inside and outside the Church, and we are not slow to express our
views when we get together with others to gossip. But it is important for us to
be able to see the good in every person, in groups of people and even in
ourselves.
Let us always begin by being thankful for our blessings, for
all the good things that we see in ourselves and all those around us. It is sad
when we are not able to give genuine words of praise and appreciation.
And let us especially today reflect on the graces that God
has poured into our own lives. Let us, on the one hand, thank him sincerely for
them and, on the other, ask ourselves how we have used them for his love and
service and the love and service of our brothers and sisters. After all, that
is why they were given to us in the first place (we will hear more about that
later in this letter).
Commentary on
Matthew 24:42-51
We enter the final phase of our readings from Matthew, which
will conclude on Saturday of this week. We will see selected readings from
chapters 24 and 25 which form what is called the “Eschatological Discourse”.
This is the fifth and final discourse, each of which is a collection of the
teachings of Jesus and which are a feature of Matthew’s Gospel. This discourse
is concerned with the end of all things, and the second and final coming of
Christ to bring all things together.
The earlier part of chapter 24 includes the foretelling of
the destruction of Jerusalem, an event which for the Jews of the time
(including those who had converted to Christianity) must have seemed like the
end of the world (just as, later on, the collapse of the Roman Empire seemed to
be the end of the world for St Augustine and his contemporaries).
The early Christians had expected to see the Second Coming
in their lifetime and the sacking of Jerusalem and the sacrilegious destruction
of the Temple must have seemed the certain signs of the eschaton (Greek,
meaning “last thing”). But by the time Matthew’s Gospel came into circulation,
that was already at least 15 years in the past. The end, although certain to
happen, did not seem any more quite so imminent.
Matthew includes as part of the discourse a number of Parousia (Final
Coming) parables. Following a pattern we have seen in other parts of this
Gospel, they are seven in number. We have two short ones in today’s reading.
Both consist of an exhortation for readiness to welcome the final coming of the
Lord.
In the first we should be as alert in watching for the
coming of the Lord as a householder would be to prevent his house being broken
into and robbed. Like a thief, Jesus will come when we least expect him.
In the second parable, Jesus compares us to a servant who
has been put in charge of the house while the master is away. This may refer to
the community leaders in Matthew’s church and, by extension, to leaders of
communities everywhere. It will be well for that servant when the master
unexpectedly returns and finds his servant diligently doing his job. Readiness
is measured by people’s consistency in carrying out their responsibilities. On
the other hand, the servant may think that there is no sign of the master (who
had been expected to come earlier) and goes about beating up the other servants
and leading a debauched life. It will be too bad for that servant when the
master does suddenly appear on the scene.
The lesson is clear. Many of the Christians, who had
expected the Lord to come soon, now see no sign of him and begin to backslide
in the living of their Christian faith. We can be tempted to do the same thing.
“Let’s have a good (i.e. morally bad) time now and we can convert later.” It is
not a very wise policy. In the long run, the really good life, that is, a life
based on truth and integrity, on love and compassion and sharing, will always
be better than one based on phoniness, on selfishness, greed, hedonism and
immediate gratification of every pleasure.
And the “Final Coming” may never come for some of us (in our
lifetime), along with the chance to turn back to him who is the Way, Truth and
Life—but our individual lives will come to an end. The wisest
people are those who consistently try to seek and serve their Lord at every
moment of every day. They both experience happiness now, and also find that
Jesus will not be a stranger when he comes to call them to himself. They are
the ones who are both faithful and prudent.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary
Thursday,
August 27, 2026
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Father, help us to seek the
values that will bring us enduring joy in this changing world.
In our desire for what you promise make us one in mind and
heart.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Matthew 24: 42-51
Jesus said to his disciples: 'So
stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may
be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time of the
night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have
allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must
stand ready because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
'Who, then, is
the wise and trustworthy servant whom the master placed over his household to
give them their food at the proper time? Blessed that servant if his master's
arrival finds him doing exactly that. In truth I tell you, he will put him in
charge of everything he owns. But if the servant is dishonest and says to
himself, "My master is taking his time," and sets about beating his
fellowservants and eating and drinking with drunkards, his master will come on
a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. The master will cut
him off and send him to the same fate as the hypocrites, where there will be
weeping and grinding of teeth.'
Reflection
The Gospel today speaks about the
coming of the Lord at the end of time and exhorts us to be watchful, to watch.
At the time of the first Christians, many persons thought that the end of this
world was close at hand and that Jesus would have returned afterwards. Today
many persons think that the end of the world is close at hand. And therefore,
it is well to reflect on the meaning of vigilance, of watching.
•
Matthew 24: 42: Watch. “So stay awake! Watch,
because you do not know the day when your master is coming”. Concerning the day
and the hour of the end of the world, Jesus had said: “But as for that day or
hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, no one but
the Father!" (Mk 13: 32). Today, many people live concerned thinking about
the end of the world. Have you seen when walking through the streets of the
city that it is written on the walls: “Jesus will return!” And how will this
coming be? After the year 1000, basing themselves on the Gospel of John, people
began to say (Rev 20: 7): “1000 years have gone by, but 2000 will not pass by!”
This is why, as the year 2000 approached, many were worried. There were even
some people who were anguished because of the proximity of the end of the
world, so much so that they committed suicide. Others, reading the Apocalypse
of John, even were able to foretell the exact hour of the end. But the year
2000 came and nothing happened. The end of the world does not arrive! Many
times, the affirmation “Jesus will return” is used to frighten people and
oblige them to belong to a given church! Others, because they have waited so
long and have speculated so much concerning the coming of Jesus, are not aware
of his presence among us, in the most common things of life, in the facts of
every day.
•
The same problems existed in the Christian
communities of the first centuries. Many persons of the communities said that
the end of this world was close at hand and that Jesus would have returned.
Some of the community of Thessalonica in Greece, basing themselves on the
preaching of Paul said: “Jesus will return!” (1 Th 4: 13-18; 2 Th 2: 2). And
this is why, there were even persons who no longer worked because they thought
that the coming of the end was so close at hand, within a few days or a few
weeks so, “Why work, if Jesus will return afterwards?” (cf. 2 Th 3: 11). Paul
responds that it was not so simple as they imagined. And to those who had
stopped working he would say: “Anyone who does not want to work, has no right
to eat!” Others remained looking up at the sky, waiting for the return of Jesus
in the clouds (cf. Ac 1: 11). Others rebelled because he delayed coming back (2
P 3: 4-9). In general, the Christians lived with the expectation of the imminent
coming of Jesus. Jesus was coming to realize or carry out the Final Judgement
to end with the unjust history of this world and to inaugurate the new phase of
history, the definitive phase of the New Heaven and the New Earth. They
believed that this would have taken place within one or two generations. Many
persons would still be alive when Jesus would have appeared again, glorious in
Heaven (1 Th 4: 16-17; Mc 9: 1). Others, tired of waiting would say: “He will
never come back!” (2 P 3).
•
Up until now the coming of Jesus has not
arrived! How can this delay be understood? It is because they are not aware
that Jesus has already returned and lives in our midst: “I am with you always,
till the end of time.” (Mt 28: 20). He is already at our side, in the struggle
for justice, for peace, for life. The fullness has not as yet been attained,
but a guarantee of the Kingdom is already in our midst. This is why, we expect
with a firm hope the full liberation of humanity and of nature (Rm 8: 22-25).
And while we wait and struggle, we say with certainty: “He is already in our
midst” (Mt 25: 40).
•
Matthew 24: 43-51: The example of the
householder and of his servants. “Consider this: if the householder had known
at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake
and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house.”
Jesus says this very clearly. Nobody knows anything regarding the hour:
"Concerning this day and this hour, nobody knows anything, neither the
angels, or the Son, but only the Father What is important is not to know the
hour of the end of this world, but rather to be capable to perceive the coming
of Jesus who is already present in our midst in the person of the poor (cf. Mt
25: 40) and in so many other ways and events of our daily life. What is
important is to open the eyes and to keep in mind the commitment of the good
servant of whom Jesus speaks about in the parable.
Personal Questions
•
On which signs do people base themselves to say
that the end of the world is close at hand? Do you believe that the end of the
world is close at hand?
•
What can we respond to those who say that the
end of the world is close at hand? Which is the force which impels you to
resist and to have hope?
Concluding Prayer
Day after day I shall bless you, Lord,
I shall praise your name for ever
and ever. Great is Yahweh and worthy of all praise, his greatness beyond all
reckoning. (Ps 145: 2-3)
Saint Monica
Monica was of Berber descent. She was born in 332 AD at Tagaste
(located in modern-day Souk Ahras, Algeria). Her parents brought her up as
Christian and married her to an older, pagan man named Patricius. He was a man
of great energy, but also had a violent temper and was sexually promiscuous.
However, their son Augustine reports that, although domestic abuse was common
at the time, because of Monica’s submission to her husband, he never beat her.
Her almsgiving and habit of prayer irritated him yet led him to respect her. It
was said that by her sweetness and patience, she was able to exercise a good
influence among other abused wives and mothers. They knew she suffered as they
did and so were moved by her example.
Monica was very devout and attended church daily, which
helped her cultivate the virtue of patience. She would say to other women who
had difficult marriages:
“If you can master your tongue, not only do you run less
risk of being beaten, but perhaps you may even, one day, make your husband
better.”
And in fact, she won over her mother-in-law in a short time.
She also converted her pagan husband to Christianity and calmed his violent
tendencies.
Monica and Patricius bore three children: Augustine the
eldest, Navigius the second, and a daughter, Perpetua. Augustine made her happy
because of his successes as a scholar and teacher, but she was also ashamed of
his debauched lifestyle. Augustine lived for 10 years with his mistress and
also became a Manichaean. Although Monica asked a bishop to convince Augustine
of his errors, he was not able to change the young man. He told the mother to
keep praying for her son. He told her, “It is impossible that the son of so
many tears should perish.”
When Patricius died, Monica went to Italy to join her son.
He had been in Rome, but when she arrived he had already gone to Milan so she
followed him there. Through St Ambrose, bishop of Milan, she had the joy of
seeing Augustine, aged 28, converted after 17 years of her prayers. Mother and
son spent six months at Cassiacum, after which Augustine was baptised in the
church of St John the Baptist in Milan. They then decided to return to Africa,
stopping at Civita Vecchia and Ostia. It was here that Monica died. The year
was 387 and she was 56 years old. Her last words to her son were:
“There was indeed one thing for which I wished to tarry a
little in this life and that was that I might see you a Christian before I
died. My God hath answered this more than abundantly, so that I see you now his
servant spurning all earthly happiness. What more have I to do here?”
After her death, her son wrote extensively of her virtues
and his life with her in his Confessions. Her relics were later removed from
Ostia to the Church of Sant’Agostino in Rome.
As part of the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic calendar
of saints, Monica’s feast was moved to August 27, the day before the feast of
her son Saint Augustine. Saint Monica is the Patron Saint of patience, wives,
mothers, and victims of abuse.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary/f0827s/
Deus caritas est!
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