THE DAILY GOSPEL AND READINGS 13 SEPTEMBER 2026

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Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 130

Reading 1

Sirach 27:30—28:7

Wrath and anger are hateful things,
yet the sinner hugs them tight.
The vengeful will suffer the LORD’s vengeance,
for he remembers their sins in detail.
Forgive your neighbor’s injustice;
then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.
Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the LORD?
Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself,
can he seek pardon for his own sins?
If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath,
who will forgive his sins?
Remember your last days, set enmity aside;
remember death and decay, and cease from sin!
Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor;
remember the Most High’s covenant, and overlook faults.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12

R. (8) The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with kindness and compassion.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
He will not always chide,
nor does he keep his wrath forever.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.

Reading 2

Romans 14:7-9

Brothers and sisters:
None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
For this is why Christ died and came to life,
that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Alleluia

John 13:34

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I give you a new commandment, says the Lord:
love one another as I have loved you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 18:21-35

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
‘Pay back what you owe.’
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
But he refused.
Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master
and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

THE DAILY GOSPEL AND READINGS 12 SEPTEMBER 2026

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Saturday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 442

Reading 1

1 Corinthians 10:14-22

My beloved ones, avoid idolatry.
I am speaking as to sensible people;
judge for yourselves what I am saying.
The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ?
The bread that we break,
is it not a participation in the Body of Christ?
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one Body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.

Look at Israel according to the flesh;
are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?
So what am I saying?
That meat sacrificed to idols is anything?
Or that an idol is anything?
No, I mean that what they sacrifice,
they sacrifice to demons, not to God,
and I do not want you to become participants with demons.
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons.
You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.
Or are we provoking the Lord to jealous anger?
Are we stronger than him?

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 116:12-13, 17-18

R.        (17) To you, Lord, I will offer a sacrifice of praise.

How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.

R.        To you, Lord, I will offer a sacrifice of praise.

To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people.

R.        To you, Lord, I will offer a sacrifice of praise.

Alleluia

John 14:23

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Luke 6:43-49

Jesus said to his disciples:
“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit,
nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.
For every tree is known by its own fruit.
For people do not pick figs from thornbushes,
nor do they gather grapes from brambles.
A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good,
but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil;
for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command?
I will show you what someone is like who comes to me,
listens to my words, and acts on them.
That one is like a man building a house,
who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock;
when the flood came, the river burst against that house
but could not shake it because it had been well built.
But the one who listens and does not act
is like a person who built a house on the ground
without a foundation.
When the river burst against it,
it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.”

The Lone Piper

/ Michael J. Cunningham / 1 Comment

The Lone Piper

On September 11th, 2002, I sat preparing my slides and notes at Softworld2002, a North American software conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. It was the first anniversary of the attacks. I was scheduled to give the first presentation, and my time slot fell just after the hour when, a year earlier, the planes had struck the Twin Towers in New York.

Today is the 25th anniversary of September 11th, 2001. What returns to me each year, though, is not only that terrible day, but that first remembrance of it, a year later, in a conference hall far from New York. It has taught me something about how our remembrances find their way into the rest of our lives, or fail to.

My topic was business-to-business e-commerce, the subject of my first book. It was new and fertile ground in the software industry, and I expected it to be of real interest to the people in that room. Shortly before I began, the organizer told me there would be a moment of silence. I swallowed hard. I knew the morning would be difficult, but I did not expect what happened next.

The lights dimmed, and a lone piper walked onto the stage. He stood for a few moments, gathering himself, and then began the saddest tune I have ever heard. He probably played for no more than five minutes, but it seemed an eternity. The silence before his first note had already drawn us together, and the music carried every one of us into sadness, and into unity. It was a communal prayer without words, and his ceremonial dress gave it the feel of a liturgy.

His dreadful, beautiful sound seemed to come not only from his pipes but from all of us, a voice with no need for words. Sadness, regret, helplessness, frustration, and love filled that large conference space. And this was happening in Canada, on an island far from New York, among people drawn from across North America. The grief did not stop at any border. It was a spiritual atmosphere no one would have expected at such a “secular” event.

I watched the last glimpse of the white spats over his shoes disappear from the stage, and I felt strangely lost, caught between two worlds. How could I possibly move from that silence to a talk about online commerce?

After what seemed like an age, I walked to the podium. The lights were still dim. Then my first slide appeared on the screen, and the space around me lit up. I think I stumbled out a few unprepared remarks about the solemnity of what we had just shared, and they only made the turn to eBay and Amazon feel more incongruous.

I made my way through the presentation as best I could. The enormous changes the Internet was bringing to commerce, and all the automation tools that came with them, suddenly seemed beside the point. What was truly present in that hall was the human experience of being together, revisiting pain and tragedy with compassion. It did not need to be interrupted. And I, with my slides, was the interruption.

Most of us know some version of that moment. We step out of a hospital room, a funeral, or a quiet hour of prayer, and find ourselves back among emails, errands, and meetings. The two worlds seem as though they cannot belong together. Yet everyone in that hall had to return to their work that day, and I have come to believe the grace was not in leaving the silence behind, but in carrying some of it with us.

Every September 11th, I think of that lone piper and that conference hall, filled for a few precious minutes with shared compassion and communion. Those moments are a grace. They reveal what is already waiting in our hearts: a unity that tragedy uncovers but does not create. We do not have to wait for an overwhelming event to set it free. We can carry it into the ordinary rooms of our lives, even the ones where the lights have come back up, and the slides are already showing.

 

 

Copyright 2026 Michael J. Cunningham www.spiritualbreak.com