DAILY READINGS & REFLECTION

Monday of the Thirty-first week in Ordinary Time (November 5)

"You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just"

GOSPEL

Luke 14:12-14

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

The Gospel of the Lord
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REFLECTION

When you give a feast, invite instead the poor. Fortunate are you then, because they can't repay you; you will be repaid at the Resurrection of the upright

Today, the Lord teaches us the true meaning of Christian generosity: to learn how to devote ourselves to others. When you give a lunch or a dinner, don't invite your friends, or your brothers and relatives and wealthy neighbors. For surely they will also invite you in return and you will be repaid (Lk 14:12).

Christians move about in this world as any other person; but the fundamental purpose to deal with our neighbor cannot be either humans rewards or the vainglory; over everything else, we have to seek the Glory of God pretending no other recompense than Heaven. When you give a feast, invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Fortunate are you then, because they can't repay you; you will be repaid at the Resurrection of the upright (Lk 42:13-14).

The Lord invites all of us to give ourselves unconditionally to all men, motivated only by our love to God and to our brothers in the Lord. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have you? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again (Lk 6:34).

Things are like that because the Lord helps us to understand that, if we give ourselves unselfishly, without expecting anything in return, God will repay us with a greater reward and will confirm us as his favorite children. This is why Jesus tells us: But love you your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest (Lk 6:35).

Let us beg from the Mother of God enough generosity so that we can elude any temptation of selfishness, as his Son did. Selfish! You always looking out for yourself. You seem unable to feel the brotherhood of Christ. In others you don't see brothers; you see stepping-stones. (St. Josemaria Escriva).

Fr. Austin Chukwuemeka IHEKWEME (Ikenanzizi, Nigeria)
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FIRST READING

Philippians 2:1-4

2 1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
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RESPONSORIAL PSALM

PSALM 130(131):1, 2, 3

Response: In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.

O LORD, my heart is not proud,
nor are my eyes haughty;
I busy not myself with great things,
nor with things too sublime for me.

R. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.

Nay rather, I have stilled and quieted
my soul like a weaned child.
Like a weaned child on its mother's lap,
so is my soul within me.

R. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.

O Israel, hope in the LORD,
both now and forever.

R. In you, O Lord, I have found my peace.
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Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.