Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Lk 14:12-14
October 31, 2022 | Monday
Jesus also addressed the man who had invited him, and said, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, or your brothers and relatives, or your wealthy neighbors. For surely they will also invite you in return, and you will be repaid. When you give a feast, invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Fortunate are you then, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the upright.”
Today’s Reflection:
Real hospitality excludes no one and expects nothing in return. In a world where nobody seems to truly care about anybody, this principle seems absurd. But Jesus promotes precisely such “absurdity.” We are called to care for the needy not because they are in need, but because they cannot give us anything in return. Moreover, Jesus wants us to care for the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (v.13) not because they have something lacking in their body, but because they are human beings. Just like us, they too are endowed with dignity. Simply put, the Lord promotes a kind of hospitality which is characterized by care, concern, love, and piety, which reflect the very characteristics or attributes of our God, whose mystifying image is made manifest in the faces of our needy and underprivileged brothers and sisters. /Vulnerasti, 2022
