Daily Catholic Mass Readings for October 29, 2023
First Reading: Exodus 22.21-27
21You shall not harass the newcomer, nor shall you afflict him. For you yourselves were once newcomers in the land of Egypt22You shall not harm a widow or an orphan23If you hurt them, they will cry out to me, and I will hear their cry24And my fury will be enraged, and I will strike you down with the sword. And your wives will become widows, and your sons will become orphans25If you lend money to the poor of my people who live among you, you shall not coerce them like a collector, nor oppress them with usury26If you take a garment from your neighbor as a pledge, you shall return it to him again before the setting of the sun27For it is all that he has to cover himself, to clothe his body; nor does he have anything else in which to sleep. If he cries out to me, I will hear him, because I am compassionate
Psalm 18
1Unto the end. For David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke the words of this canticle to the Lord, in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said: I will love you, O Lord my strength.2The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my liberator. My God is my helper, and I hope in him: my protector, and the horn of my salvation, and my support3Praising, I will call upon the Lord. And I will be saved from my enemies4The sorrows of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity dismayed me5The sorrows of Hell encompassed me, and the snares of death intercepted me6In my tribulation, I called upon the Lord, and I cried out to my God. And he listened to my voice from his holy temple. And my cry in his presence entered into his ears7The earth was shaken, and it trembled. The foundations of the mountains were disturbed, and they were shaken, because he was angry with them8A smoke ascended by his wrath, and a fire flared up from his face: coals were kindled by it9He bent the heavens, and they descended. And darkness was under his feet10And he ascended upon the cherubim, and he flew: he flew upon the feathers of the winds11And he set darkness as his hiding place, with his tabernacle all around him: dark waters in the clouds of the air12At the brightness that was before his sight, the clouds crossed by, with hail and coals of fire13And the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice: hail and coals of fire14And he sent forth his arrows and scattered them. He multiplied lightnings, and he set them in disarray15Then the fountains of waters appeared, and the foundations of the world were revealed, by your rebuke, O Lord, by the inspiration of the Spirit of your wrath16He sent from on high, and he accepted me. And he took me up, out of many waters17He rescued me from my strongest enemies, and from those who hated me. For they had been too strong for me18They intercepted me in the day of my affliction, and the Lord became my protector19And he led me out, into a wide place. He accomplished my salvation, because he willed me20And the Lord will reward me according to my justice, and he will repay me according to the purity of my hands21For I have preserved the ways of the Lord, and I have not behaved impiously before my God22For all his judgments are in my sight, and his justice, I have not pushed away from me23And I will be immaculate together with him, and I will keep myself from my iniquity24And the Lord will reward me according to my justice and according to the purity of my hands before his eyes25With the holy, you will be holy, and with the innocent, you will be innocent26and with the elect, you will be elect, and with the perverse, you will be perverse27For you will save the humble people, but you will bring down the eyes of the arrogant28For you illuminate my lamp, O Lord. My God, enlighten my darkness29For in you, I will be delivered from temptation; and with my God, I will climb over a wall30As for my God, his way is undefiled. The eloquence of the Lord has been examined by fire. He is the protector of all who hope in him31For who is God, except the Lord? And who is God, except our God32It is God who has wrapped me with virtue and made my way immaculate33It is he who has perfected my feet, like the feet of deer, and who stations me upon the heights34It is he who trains my hands for battle. And you have set my arms like a bow of brass35And you have given me the protection of your salvation. And your right hand sustains me. And your discipline has corrected me unto the end. And your discipline itself will teach me36You have expanded my footsteps under me, and my tracks have not been weakened37I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them. And I will not turn back until they have failed38I will break them, and they will not be able to stand. They will fall under my feet39And you have wrapped me with virtue for the battle. And those rising up against me, you have subdued under me40And you have given the back of my enemies to me, and you have destroyed those who hated me41They cried out, but there was none to save them, to the Lord, but he did not heed them42And I will crush them into dust before the face of the wind, so that I will obliterate them like the mud in the streets43You will rescue me from the contradictions of the people. You will set me at the head of the Gentiles44A people I did not know has served me. As soon as their ears heard, they were obedient to me45The sons of foreigners have been deceitful to me, the sons of foreigners have grown weak with time, and they have wavered from their paths46The Lord lives, and blessed is my God, and may the God of my salvation be exalted47O God, who vindicates me and who subdues the people under me, my liberator from my enraged enemies48And you will exalt me above those who rise up against me. From the iniquitous man, you will rescue me49Because of this, O Lord, I will confess to you among the nations, and I will compose a psalm to your name50magnifying the salvation of his king, and showing mercy to David, his Christ, and to his offspring, even for all time
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1.5c-10
5For our Gospel has not been among you in word alone, but also in virtue, and in the Holy Spirit, and with a great fullness, in the same manner as you know we have acted among you for your sake6And so, you became imitators of us and of the Lord, accepting the Word in the midst of great tribulation, but with the joy of the Holy Spirit7So have you become a pattern for all who believe in Macedonia and in Achaia8For from you, the Word of the Lord was spread, not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith, which is toward God, has advanced so much so that we do not need to speak to you about anything9For others are reporting among us of the kind of acceptance we had among you, and how you were converted from idols to God, to the service of the living and true God10and to the expectation of his Son from heaven (whom he raised up from the dead), Jesus, who has rescued us from the approaching wrath
Gospel: Matthew 22.34-40
34But the Pharisees, hearing that he had caused the Sadducees to be silent, came together as one35And one of them, a doctor of the law, questioned him, to test him36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?37Jesus said to him: " ‘You shall love the Lord your God from all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.38This is the greatest and first commandment39But the second is similar to it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.40On these two commandments the entire law depends, and also the prophets.
Sermon
The readings today remind us of the heart of God’s law and the transformative power of living according to His will. In the first reading from Exodus, we hear God’s clear command to care for the vulnerable—newcomers, widows, orphans, and the poor. This is not merely a suggestion but a divine mandate rooted in Israel’s own experience of oppression in Egypt. God, who is compassionate and hears the cries of the afflicted, demands that His people reflect His mercy in their treatment of others. The second reading from 1 Thessalonians shows us what this looks like in practice. The early Christians in Thessalonica, though persecuted, embraced the Gospel with joy and became a model of faith for others. Their conversion from idolatry to the living God was not just a change in belief but a radical transformation in how they lived, inspiring others to follow their example.
In the Gospel, Jesus distills the entire law into two commandments: love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. These are not separate commands but intertwined expressions of the same love. To love God is to love those He loves, and to love our neighbors is to reflect God’s love in the world. The Pharisees, trying to test Jesus, instead receive a profound truth that cuts through legalism and gets to the heart of what it means to follow God. Today’s readings, therefore, call us to examine how we are living out these two great commandments in our daily lives.
As we reflect on these readings, let us ask ourselves: Are we treating others with the same compassion God has shown us? Are we living in a way that inspires others to know and love God? The Good News is that God’s love is not just a command but a gift that transforms us. When we love as God loves, we become instruments of His mercy and grace in a world that desperately needs it. Let us strive to be like the Thessalonians, whose faith and joy in the midst of trials became a light to others. By living out the two great commandments, we not only fulfill the law but also become the face of God’s love to a world in need.