Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin [In the
Dioceses of the United States]
Lectionary: 495
Reading 1
[Chosen Lady:]
I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth
just as we were commanded by the Father.
But now, Lady, I ask you,
not as though I were writing a new commandment
but the one we have had from the beginning:
let us love one another.
For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments;
this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning,
in which you should walk.
Many deceivers have gone out into the world,
those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh;
such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.
Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for
but may receive a full recompense.
Anyone who is so “progressive”
as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God;
whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 119:1,
2, 10, 11, 17, 18
R. (1b) Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Blessed are they whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the LORD.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Blessed are they who observe his decrees,
who seek him with all their heart.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
With all my heart I seek you;
let me not stray from your commands.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Within my heart I treasure your promise,
that I may not sin against you.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Be good to your servant, that I may live
and keep your words.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Open my eyes, that I may consider
the wonders of your law.
R. Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Stand erect and raise your heads
because your redemption is at hand.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be in the days of the Son of Man;
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage up to the day
that Noah entered the ark,
and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot:
they were eating, drinking, buying,
selling, planting, building;
on the day when Lot left Sodom,
fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.
So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
On that day, someone who is on the housetop
and whose belongings are in the house
must not go down to get them,
and likewise one in the field
must not return to what was left behind.
Remember the wife of Lot.
Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it,
but whoever loses it will save it.
I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed;
one will be taken, the other left.
And there will be two women grinding meal together;
one will be taken, the other left.”
They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?”
He said to them, “Where the body is,
there also the vultures will gather.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111326.cfm
Commentary on 2 John
4-9
The three Letters of John all seem to have been written
about the same time, by the same person who was probably from Ephesus. The
dates suggested vary from 85-100 AD. Today we have a reading of just six verses
from the Second Letter, which is actually the shortest ‘book’ in the whole of
the New Testament, not even taking up one page in most Bibles.
In the book’s first verse (not in today’s passage), the
author calls himself “the Elder”, which indicates a level of authority over the
community to which he is writing. Whether he is to be identified with John the
Apostle is not certain, but also not very likely.
The Second Letter was written to a church under the
jurisdiction of “the Elder”, which was referred to in the reading as “the elect
Lady”—’elect’ meaning chosen. This was in reply to people there who were
publicly denying the truth of the Incarnation—that Jesus was truly God and Man.
Today’s reading is in two parts. In the first part, the
author congratulates the church (now referred to as “dear lady”) for following
the true teaching:
…walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded by
the Father.
He is writing to them, not with a new commandment, but with
one they have had since the beginning, that is, since the time of their
conversion—namely, that they should love one another. Loving God and loving
one’s neighbour was not a new commandment.
In the gospel they had been taught, they were given love of
God and love of neighbor as the most important of Jewish laws (as quoted in
Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18). But at the Last Supper, Jesus gave a “new commandment”
which was:
…as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
(John 13:34)
Jesus will spell that out by saying:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life
for one’s friends. (John 15:13)
Jesus called his disciples his “friends” and he gave his
life for them. That is now to be the paradigm for our relationship with those
around us.
In the Letter today, this commandment is simply being
reemphasised. To love, says the Elder, is to live according to Jesus’
commandments, which can all be summed up in the one commandment:
And this is love…this is the commandment just as you have
heard it from the beginning—you must walk in it.
Love, however, should not blind them to the truth. And that
brings us to the second part of the reading. The author warns his church about
those who are denying:
…that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh…
In other words, they are denying the true humanity of Jesus.
The Gnostics taught that the Son of God did not become a human being, but that
he temporarily came down upon the man Jesus between his baptism and his
crucifixion.
They held this belief under the conviction that all material
things were evil, and the good person should withdraw as far as possible from
the material world. In this thinking, God could not have taken on a material
body. He only had the temporary appearance of being linked to a human.
The teachers of this doctrine are called here the
“Antichrist” because they deny the very essence of what we believe Jesus Christ
to be. The Christians are warned that to follow this teaching could jeopardise
their faith and their ultimate salvation.
The author assumed his readers knew that a great enemy of
God and his people was expected to appear before Christ’s final return. That
person is called “antichrist”, “the deceiver”, and in Revelation (13:1-10),
“the beast”. But prior to him, there will be many other antichrists.
In the Letters of John, the antichrists have the following
characteristics:
- they
deny the incarnation and that Jesus is the divine Christ;
- they
deny the Father;
- they
do not have the Father;
- they
are liars and deceivers;
- they
are many;
- in
John’s day, they left the church because they had nothing in common with
believers.
The ‘antichrists’ referred to in John’s letter were the
early Gnostics. The Elder warns that those who do not keep to the Church’s
teaching about Christ, but go beyond it as the Gnostics claimed to do, cannot
be with God. They went beyond the apostolic teaching by indulging in pure
speculation and presenting that as the teaching and belief of the Church.
However, says the Elder, only those who remain faithful to
the original teaching are in union with both the Father and the Son. Because,
as Jesus had said:
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)
The passage highlights two contrasting attitudes we need to
have as Christians. On the one hand, our lives are to be governed entirely by
the law of love—loving each other to the same degree that Christ has loved and
continues to love us. It must be the touchstone of all our living.
But loving does not mean turning a blind eye to what is
against the true or the good. It does not mean absolute tolerance for any idea
or any action. We do not love people by turning a blind eye to the harm they
may do to themselves or others, by ideas they hold, or the behaviour they
indulge in.
In another part of this letter, the Christians are told to
avoid giving to false teachers the hospitality traditionally extended to
travelling teachers. The letter speaks of expelling people from the community
when their behaviour is quite out of keeping with the standards that the Church
wishes to maintain to be a credible witness to the gospel.
Yet, love remains the criterion. Expulsion lasts only as
long as there has been no repentance or reconciliation. The Church, like its Master,
wishes that people be saved and not condemned.
Commentary on Luke
17:26-37
Jesus is coming to the end of his public life. His passion
and death are going to be traumatic experiences for his followers, which will
take them by surprise and fill them with shock and alarm.
Later still, but before Luke had put his Gospel together, a
cataclysm had overtaken Jerusalem when the city was laid siege to and utterly
destroyed—the magnificent Temple along with it. The disaster is commemorated in
the arch in Rome erected to honour the Emperor Titus’ victory, where one can
see bas reliefs of the treasures of the Temple being carried off as loot.
Last of all, there is the end of all things, when our world
will be no more. The what or the how of that end is something we know nothing
about. In a sense, all three endings are included in Jesus’ warning today. His
main lesson is for us to be ready and not to think that we can postpone our
preparations. When the end strikes, it will be already too late.
Jesus gives the example of the time of the Flood, when
people ate and drank right up to the moment of disaster (and we know from our
own media how unprepared people can be when sudden floods and other sudden
disasters strike). Similarly in the days of Lot, people were leading their
ordinary lives when fire and brimstone (perhaps an earthquake?) rained down on
the wicked city of Sodom. Only Lot and his family, who had been previously
warned, escaped. In our time, almost every day we see something in our own
media of similar cataclysms.
When “the day that the Son of Man is revealed” arrives, that
is, when he comes at the end of time, it will be too late to take emergency
measures. One will either be ready or not. If one is resting on the roof of
one’s house (as was common at that time), don’t think of going down to save
something. One person will be taken away and a companion left behind. The words
seem to echo what happened at the fall of Jerusalem, and are similar to all
natural disasters where some are swept away and those next to them survive. In
context, the implication is that one goes to God and one does not.
These texts are not intended to fill us with fear and
foreboding of a capricious God. They are timely advice not to be caught
napping, but to remain alert to meet the Lord. It is good advice, not just for
the end of our lives, but for every day and every moment of every day. If I am
always ready now, I will be ready then.
By living continuously and consciously in the presence of
God, in that ‘divine milieu’ of the Kingdom mentioned above—in the ever-present
now—we are not going to be caught by surprise. Far from being afraid, we will
look forward to the day with anticipation, leaving totally in God’s hands the
hour of his call. In practice, too, that final call will not coincide with the
end of our planet, but with the moment when our individual life on this earth
will come to its end. Of the inevitability of that end, there is no doubt.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary
Friday,
November 13, 2026
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
God of power and mercy, protect us from all harm. Give us
freedom of spirit and health in mind and body to do your work on earth.
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 17: 26-37
Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in
Noah's day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of man. People were
eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went
into the ark, and the Flood came and destroyed them all.
It will be the same as it was in Lot's day: people were
eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot
left Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and it destroyed them
all. It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of man to be revealed.
When that Day comes, no one on the housetop,
with his possessions in the house, must come down to collect them, nor must
anyone in the fields turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Anyone who tries to
preserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe.
I tell you, on that night, when two are in
one bed, one will be taken, the other left; when two women are grinding corn
together, one will be taken, the other left.”
The disciples spoke up and
asked, “Where, Lord?” He said, “Where the body is, there too will the vultures
gather.”
Reflection
Today’s Gospel continues the reflection on
the coming of the end of time and presents to us the words of Jesus about how
to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Kingdom. This was an affair which
produced much discussion at that time. God is the one who determines the hour
of the coming of the end of time. But the time of God (kairós) is not measured according to the time of our clock (chronos). For God one day can be equal
to one thousand years, and one thousand years equal to one day (Ps 90: 4; 2 Pt
3: 8). The time of God goes by invisibly in our time, but independently of us
and of our time. We cannot interfere in time, but we have to be prepared for
the moment in which the hour of God becomes present in our time. It could be
today; it could be in one thousand years. What gives us security is not to know
the hour of the end of the world, but the certainty of the presence of the
Words of Jesus present in our life. The world will pass, but the word of God
will never pass (cf. Is 40: 7-8).
•
Luke 17: 26-29: “As it was in the day of Noah
and of Lot. Life goes by normally: eating, drinking, getting married, buying,
selling, sowing, harvesting. Routine can include so much that we do not succeed
to think about anything else. And the consumerism of the neo-liberal system
contributes to increase in many of us that total lack of attention to the more
profound dimensions of life. We allow the moths to enter into the beam of faith
which holds up the more profound dimensions of life. When the storm destroys
the house, many of us blame the carpenter: “It was badly made!” In reality, it
crumbled down due to our continual lack of attention. The reference to the
destruction of Sodom, as a figure of what will happen at the end of time, is a
reference to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the years 70s AD
(cf. Mk 13: 14).
•
Luke 17: 30-32: So, it will also be in the days
of the Son of Man. “So, it will be in the days when the Son of Man will reveal
himself.” It is difficult for us to imagine the suffering and the trauma that
the destruction of Jerusalem caused in the communities, both of the Jews and of
the Christians. In order to help them to understand and to face this suffering
Jesus uses a comparison taken from life: “When that Day comes, no one on the
housetop, with his possessions in the house, must come down to collect them,
nor must anyone in the fields turn back.” The destruction will take place so
rapidly that it is not worthwhile to go down to look for something in the house
(Mk 13: 15-
16). “Remember Lot’s wife” (cf.
Gn 19: 26), that is do not look back, do not lose time, decide and advance, go
ahead: it is a question of life or death.
•
Luke 17: 33: To lose one’s life in order to save
it. “Anyone who tries to preserve his life will lose it, and anyone who loses
it will keep it safe.” Only the person who has been capable of giving
himself/herself completely to others will feel totally fulfilled in life.
Anyone who preserves life for self alone loses it. This advice of Jesus is the
confirmation of the most profound human experience: the source of life is found
in the gift of life. In giving one receives. “In all truth I tell you: unless a
wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain, but
if it dies it yields a rich harvest” (Jn 12: 24). The motivation which Mark’s
Gospel adds is important: “for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel” (Mk 8:
35). Saying that no one is capable of preserving his life by his own efforts,
Jesus recalls the Psalm in which it is said that nobody is capable of paying
the price for the ransom of his life: “No one can redeem himself or pay his own
ransom to God. The price for himself is too high, it can never be that he will
live on forever and avoid the sight of the abyss.” (Ps 49: 8-10).
•
Luke 17: 34-36: Vigilance. “I tell you, on that
night, when two are in one bed, one will be taken, the other left; when two
women are grinding corn together one will be taken, the other left.” This
recalls the parable of the ten Virgins. Five were prudent and five were foolish
(Mt 25: 1-11). What is important is to be prepared. The words “One will be
taken and the other left” recall the words of Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Th
4: 13-17), when he says that with the coming of the Son of Man, we will be
taken to Heaven at the side of Jesus. These words “left behind” furnished the
title of a terrible and dangerous romance of the fundamentalist extreme right
of the United States: “Left Behind! This is a romance which has nothing to do
with the real sense of the words of Jesus.
•
Luke 17: 37: Where and when? “The disciples
asked: Where, Lord?” “And Jesus answered: body is, there too will the vultures
gather.” This is an enigmatic response. Some think that Jesus recalled the
prophecy of Ezekiel, taken up in the Apocalypse, in which the prophet refers to
the final victorious battle against the force of evil. The birds of prey or the
vultures will be invited to eat the flesh of the bodies (Ez 39: 4, 17-20; Rev
19: 17-18). Others think that it is a question of the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
where the final judgment will take place according to the prophecy of Joel (Gal
4: 2-12). Others think that it is simply a question of a popular proverb which
meant more or less what our proverb says: “Where there is smoke, there is also
fire!”
Personal Questions
•
Am I from the time of Noah or from the time of
Lot?
•
A Romance of the extreme right. How do I place
myself before this political manipulation of the faith in Jesus?
Concluding Prayer
How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in
the Law of Yahweh! Blessed are those who observe his instructions, who seek him
with all their hearts. (Ps 119: 1-2)
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