26th Week in Ordinary Time
Guardian Angels

1st Reading: Bar 1:15–22
Gospel: Lk 10:13–16 (or Mt 18:1–5, 10)
Jesus said, “Alas for you Chorazin! Alas for you Bethsaida! So many miracles have been worked in you! If the same miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would already be sitting in ashes and wearing the sackcloth of repentance. Surely for Tyre and Sidon it will be better than for you on the Judgment Day. And what of you, city of Capernaum? Will you be lifted up to heaven? You will be thrown down to the place of the dead.
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me; and he who rejects me, rejects the one who sent me.”

Commentary
Jesus was quite plain in telling his disciples that life as his disciples will not be easy. To those who rejected him, Jesus warned that his words would stand as a witness against them on the day of God’s judgment and wrath. So, when a person of God, who is walking with God, speaks the word of God, he or she speaks for God. And to reject that person or that message is to reject God Himself.
In other words, Christ tells us that, even though He didn’t come to judge individuals at first, the words that He left with us stand as witnesses against all those, who reject His message, when He returns to judge the living and the dead. Although Christ came to save, not condemn the world, an individual’s rejection of Christ is a sign that such a person will stand condemned on the day, when He will come to judge everyone. We must pray for Christ to take over our lives. Nothing is more important than prayer; it works inside a person. It is the pre-eminent work of a disciple. It has been said that we can do no more than pray, until we have prayed.

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