September 2, 2026
Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 433
Reading 1
Brothers and sisters,
I could not talk to you as spiritual people,
but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ.
I fed you milk, not solid food,
because you were unable to take it.
Indeed, you are still not able, even now,
for you are still of the flesh.
While there is jealousy and rivalry among you,
are you not of the flesh, and walking
according to the manner of man?
Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another,
“I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely men?
What is Apollos, after all, and what is Paul?
Ministers through whom you became believers,
just as the Lord assigned each one.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.
Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything,
but only God, who causes the growth.
He who plants and he who waters are one,
and each will receive wages in proportion to his labor.
For we are God’s co-workers;
you are God’s field, God’s building.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (12) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be
his own.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
From heaven the LORD looks down;
he sees all mankind.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
From his fixed throne he beholds
all who dwell on the earth,
He who fashioned the heart of each,
he who knows all their works.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield,
For in him our hearts rejoice;
in his holy name we trust.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor
and to proclaim liberty to captives.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of
Simon.
Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever,
and they interceded with him about her.
He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her.
She got up immediately and waited on them.
At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases
brought them to him.
He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.
And demons also came out from many, shouting, “You are the Son of God.”
But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak
because they knew that he was the Christ.
At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.
The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him,
they tried to prevent him from leaving them.
But he said to them, “To the other towns also
I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God,
because for this purpose I have been sent.”
And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090226.cfm
Commentary on 1
Corinthians 3:1-9
In today’s First Reading, Paul continues his thoughts on the
nature of the truly spiritual person. With regret, he cannot call the
Corinthian Christians “spiritual people”. They are still sensual, governed by
their bodily desires and still “infants in Christ”. They are still “fleshly”,
like worldly people rather than people of God. They are living by purely human
standards. And so, up to this time, he has treated them like infants, giving
them milk rather than solid food. They are not ready yet to hear the gospel in
its fullness because they are still so un-spiritual.
On what does he base this evaluation? It is clear there is
“jealousy and quarreling” that divide them so badly, and which make them in no
way different from their non-Christian neighbours. They are divided into
factions, one rooting for Paul and another for Apollos.
To Paul this makes no sense at all. Paul and Apollos were
merely the agents by which the faith message was brought to them. And the
different ways in which they did that were based, not on a preferred style of
operating, but on the different roles that they had been given by the Lord.
Their different roles could not be compared with each other.
As Paul puts it, his role was to do the planting while
Apollos did the watering. In other words, it was Paul’s role to found and to
set up from scratch the Christian community in Corinth, starting something
which had never existed before. Apollos, on the other hand, was working in a
church already begun and building on the foundation that had been laid by Paul.
But the actual growth of the community is the work of God alone and of no one
else. Without God, the sower and the waterer are nothing.
So it does not matter who plants or who waters. Each one
will be rewarded accordingly as he is doing the task assigned to him. Paul sums
up by saying that he and Apollos:
…are God’s coworkers, working together…
They are partners, each one contributing something special
to the whole work.
The people, for their part, are God’s farm, the soil in
which he works, and all growth is attributable to him alone. And they are God’s
building, the place where he takes up his abode; he lives in them. That is what
makes them ‘holy’ (hagioi), a people set apart from those around them.
Later in the letter Paul will speak of the Christian community as a ‘temple’,
the place where the Lord is to be found in a real way.
And so they belong to God and not to Paul or Apollos. They
are God’s people and not Paul’s or Apollos’. So, for people to say they belong
to Paul or to Apollos makes no sense.
It is certainly not for us to point an accusing finger at
the Christians of Corinth. We see the same kind of factionalism at many levels
dividing Christians today, both inter-denominational and intra-denominational.
The divisions among the Christian churches, which are often
expressed in the most regrettable and un-Christian forms, must be a matter of
shame for all of us, not to mention a source of scandal and confusion among
non-Christians. This observation is especially salient when we read Jesus’
prayer for unity in John’s Gospel (John 17:20-23).
There are also divisions in our own Catholic Church at many
levels from high up to low down. We should especially take cognisance of
divisions in the communities to which we personally belong, especially our
parishes, organisations and groups within parishes—and certainly our families
as well.
Instead, we should be making sure that we do not say or do
anything which contributes to such divisions and, where we can do so, let us
try to be agents of healing and reconciliation, because:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if
you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
Commentary on Luke
4:38-44
After the scene in the synagogue where Jesus healed a man
possessed by an evil spirit, he goes straight to Peter’s house. It was a
Sabbath day, so Jesus could not move around or do any major activity. He seems
to have used this house as his base when in Capernaum and that part of Galilee.
Jesus had “nowhere to lay his head”, no dwelling of his own, but it seems clear
that he was not homeless. There were always people ready to offer him
hospitality—a custom of the Middle East and a model for Christians of every age
and place.
Peter’s mother-in-law was in the grip of a fever and the
disciples begged Jesus to do something for her. Jesus stood over her and, with
a word, cured her. Immediately she got up and began to serve Jesus and his
group.
There is a lesson here. Health and healing are not just for
the individual. Her healing immediately restored her to the community and the
duty of serving that community. And not just because she was a woman! If it had
been the father-in-law, the same would have applied. As long as we are in
health, our energies are meant to be directed to the building up of the
community and not simply for our personal enjoyment.
The rest of the Gospel story takes place “as the sun was
setting”, and we need to remember it was a Sabbath. The Sabbath went from
sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday (so Jesus could not be properly buried
on the Friday evening when he died). According to the traditions, Jews could
not travel more than two-thirds of a mile or carry any load. Only after sunset
could the sick be brought to Jesus.
As soon as the Sabbath was over, large numbers brought their
sick to him:
…and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them.
As Jesus had announced in the synagogue at Nazareth, the
Kingdom of God had arrived and was entering the lives of people, bringing them
health and wholeness.
Many were also liberated from the power of evil spirits.
These spirits shouted at Jesus:
You are the Son of God!
As we have said before, by using Jesus’ title they hoped to
exert control over him. That did not work, of course. Whether these were actual
cases of possession or were psychological or mental disorders which made people
behave in abnormal ways, and perhaps ways harmful to themselves and others, is
not clear. What is clear is that the presence of the Kingdom is being felt.
Then at daybreak—Jesus had been working the whole night for
the people—he went off to a quiet place. The desert is the place where God is
to be found and very likely, as Mark tells us, Jesus went there to pray and to
be alone.
The people, who had seen what he did for them, wanted him to
stay with them (their attitude is in marked contrast to the people of
Nazareth), but he could not and would not:
I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to
the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.
And so we are told that he was now preaching in the
synagogues of Judea—in the south of the country, although the term may simply
refer to the whole of Jewish territory. No place could have a monopoly on his
attentions.
We need to attach ourselves to Jesus and keep close to him,
but we cannot cling to him in a way that prevents others from experiencing his
healing touch. On the contrary, it is our task as his disciples to see that as
many as possible come to know and experience his love, his compassion and his
healing.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary
Wednesday,
September 2, 2026
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Almighty God,
every good thing comes from You.
Fill our hearts with love for You, increase our faith, and by Your constant
care protect the good You have given us.
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 - Luke 4: 38-44
After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon.
Simon's motherin-law was afflicted with a severe fever, and they interceded
with him about her. He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. She
got up immediately and waited on them. At sunset, all who had people sick with
various diseases brought them to him. He laid his hands on each of them and
cured them. And demons also came out from many, shouting, "You are the Son
of God." But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak because they
knew that he was the Christ. At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted
place. The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him, they tried
to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, "To the other towns
also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this
purpose I have been sent." And he was preaching in the synagogues of
Judea.
Reflection
The Gospel today narrates four
different events: the cure of Peter’s mother-in-law (Lk 4: 38-39),
the cure of many sick people at night, after Saturday (Lk 4: 40-41), the prayer
of Jesus in a deserted place (Lk 4: 42) and His insistence on the mission (Lk
4: 43-44). With small differences Luke follows and adapts the information taken
from the Gospel of Mark.
•
Luke 4: 38-39: Jesus restores life for service.
After having participated in the celebration of Saturday in the synagogue,
Jesus goes to Peter’s house and cures his mother-in-law. The cure causes
her to render service immediately. Having recovered her health and dignity, she
places herself at the service of the people. Jesus not only cures, but He cures
in such a way that the person places herself at the service of life.
•
Luke 4: 40-41: Jesus accepts and cures the
marginalized. At night, when the first stars appear in the sky, after Saturday
is over, Jesus accepts and cures the sick and those possessed whom the people
bring to Him. The sick and the possessed were the most marginalized people at
that time. They had no one to whom to go. They were at the mercy of public
charity; besides, religion considered them impure. They could not participate
in the community. It was as if God rejected and excluded them. Jesus accepts
and cures them, placing His hands on each one of them. Thus, it is clear in
what the Good News of God consists and what He wants to do in people’s lives: to accept the
marginalized and the excluded and to integrate them into the community,
to live with others.
“Devils came out of many people shouting: “You are the Son of God!”
But He warned them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew
that He was the Christ.” At that time the title Son of God did not have as
yet the density and depth that it has for us today. Jesus did not allow
the devils to speak. He did not want an easy propaganda based on spectacular
expulsions.
•
Luke 4: 42a: To remain united to the Father by means
of prayer. “When daylight came, He left the house and made His way to a
lonely place. The crowds went to look for Him, and when they had caught up with
Him they wanted to prevent Him from leaving them.” Here we see Jesus praying. He has to
make an enormous effort to have time available and a place suitable for prayer.
He goes to a deserted place to be able to stay alone with God. Many times
the Gospels speak about Jesus’ prayer, in silence (Lk 3: 21-22; 4: 1-2,
3-12; 5: 15-16; 6: 12; 9: 18; 10:21; 11: 1; 23: 34; Mt 14: 22-23; 26: 38; Jn
11: 41-42; 17: 1-26; Mk 1: 35;). Through prayer, He maintains His consciousness
of His mission.
•
Luke 4: 42b-44: To maintain consciousness of one’s own
mission and not think about the result. Jesus becomes known. People
follow Him and they do not want Him to leave them. Jesus does not
grant this petition and says, “I must proclaim the Good News of the
Kingdom of God to the other towns too, because that is what I was sent to do.”
Jesus was very clear about His mission. He does not stop at the result
that He has already obtained, but He wishes to sustain His awareness of His
mission. It is the mission received from the Father which directs Him when He has to make a
decision. “I have been sent for this!” And here in this text this
consciousness which is so alive springs up as the fruit of His prayer.
Personal Questions
•
Jesus spent much time in prayer and being alone
with the Father, and He looked for this time. Do I dedicate time for prayer and
solitude with God?
•
Jesus had a clear awareness of His mission. As a
Christian, am I conscious that I have a mission, or do I live without a
mission?
Concluding Prayer
We are waiting for Yahweh; he is our help and our shield, for
in Him our heart rejoices; in His holy name we trust. (Ps 33: 20-21)
