Saturday of the Twenty-sixth week in Ordinary Time

Book of Baruch

Fear not, my people! Remember, Israel,
You were sold to the nations not for your destruction; It was because you angered God that you were handed over to your foes.
For you provoked your Maker with sacrifices to demons, to no-gods;
You forsook the Eternal God who nourished you, and you grieved Jerusalem who fostered you.
She indeed saw coming upon you the anger of God; and she said: "Hear, you neighbors of Zion! God has brought great mourning upon me,
For I have seen the captivity that the Eternal God has brought upon my sons and daughters.
With joy I fostered them; but with mourning and lament I let them go.
Let no one gloat over me, a widow, bereft of many: For the sins of my children I am left desolate, because they turned from the law of God,
Fear not, my children; call out to God! He who brought this upon you will remember you.
As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God, turn now ten times the more to seek him;
For he who has brought disaster upon you will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy."

Psalms

“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
Let the heavens and the earth sing praise,
the seas and whatever moves in them!"
For God will save Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah.
They shall dwell in the land and own it,
and the descendants of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall inhabit it.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke

The seventy-two disciples returned rejoicing and said to Jesus, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name."
Jesus said, "I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.
Behold, I have given you the power 'to tread upon serpents' and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.
Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven."
At that very moment he rejoiced (in) the holy Spirit and said, "I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."
Turning to the disciples in private he said, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."

St. Francis of Assisi(Founder (1182-1226))

SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI (1182-1226)St. Francis of Assisi founded the Franciscans and is one of history's greatest mystics. He left home, riches and family to blaze a trail in serving the poor. In all creation, he saw the work of God. By literally imitating Jesus' life, St. Francis became the founder of evangelical poverty. He was so dead to self and his mind fixed in God that he received the stigmata. St. Francis' father was a cloth merchant. Zealous and thundering, St. Francis became a soldier. However, a vision of God turned him from a spirited youth without military potential into a man of prayer, recollection and profound humility. Praying with devotion to discern the will of God, he began to imitate the poor in order to minister to them. Like Jesus, "He took on our infirmities, and carried our diseases" (Is. 53:4). In what appeared to be an act of madness, St. Francis took his father's cloth and sold it to restore the Church of San Damiano. His father took him to court; and in full view of the bishop, St. Francis stripped off his garments, gave them to his father and declared he had no posessions. Literally imitating Jesus, St. Francis preached to the poor: going barefoot and "(taking) no gold, nor silver, nor money in his belt..." (Mt. 10:9). When he and his brethren founded a new religious order, they encountered opposition from Pope Innocent III. The pope consented only after seeing St. Francis in a vision. In the vision, St. Francis was holding up the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano. Satan retaliated by sending a band of robbers to beat St. Francis: the latter only gave small jumps and yelps of joy "because indignity was his only dignity" (G.K. Chesterton). The poverty and preaching of the Franciscans galvanized the Western world. Noblemen, zealous for the House of the Lord, raised altars where churches lay abandoned. One even donated an entire mountain to St. Francis. The order of Poor Clares and Franciscan lay movements stemmed from St. Francis' apostolate. His rule includes material poverty and self-denial to be with Christ. In 1224, while preparing for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, St. Francis prayed how to best please God. In that moment, St. Francis' biographer and those with him said: a vision filled the world, and a crucified seraph came down from heaven; who had two wings above his head, two outstretched in flight and two covering his body; whose face was beautiful beyond description, and who smiled gently at St. Francis. From the vision, St. Francis saw that he would conform to Christ by heart instead of physical martyrdom. The brilliance of that vision never left St. Francis; and neither did the ensuing stigmata, which lasted for rest of his life. When St. Francis received Christ's stigmata, he was in bodily pain and near the end of his life. He sought to give more when he had reached his limit. Let us not create needs for ourselves, be humbled by others and bear it for Christ, reject hedonism and the near occasions of sin, and conform our will and intellect to the Divine.

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Category: Mass by Year / Catholic Missal 2025 / Catholic Missal of october 2025