Sunday
Commentary from the Catholic Navarre Bible

Luke 17: 11 Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

14 So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.

17 So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

Commentary: The Law of Moses laid down, to prevent the spread of the disease, that lepers should live away from other people and should let it he known that they were suffering from this disease (cf. Lev 13:45-46). This explains why they did not come right up to Jesus and his group, but instead begged his help by shouting from a distance. Before curing them our Lord orders them to go to the priests to have their cure certified (cf. Lev l4:2ff), and to perform the rites laid down. The lepers’ obedience is a sign of their faith in Jesus’ words. And, in fact, soon after setting out they are cleansed.

However, only one of them, the Samaritan, who returns praising God and showing his gratitude for the miracle, is given a much greater gift than the cure of leprosy. Jesus says as much: “Your faith has made you well” (v.19) and praises the man’s gratefulness.

Prayer:  O my God I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I believe that Thy Divine Son became man, and died for our sins, and that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. (Act of Faith)

Monday
Luke 17:

20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, [f]‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is [g]within you.”

22 Then He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 And they will say to you, [h]‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ Do not go after them or follow them. 24 For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. 25 But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

Prayer:  Having risen from sleep I hasten to Thee, O Lord, Lover of men, and by Thy loving-kindness I strive to do Thy work, and I pray to Thee:  help me at all times, in everything, and deliver me from every evil thing of the world and every attack of the devil, and lead me into Thine eternal Kingdom. For Thou art my Creator, the Giver and Provider of everything good, and all my hope is in Thee, and to Thee I send up glory, now and ever, and to the ages of ages.  Amen.
*Prayer for the next day’s morning

Tuesday
Commentary on the Last Days… Like many Jews of their time, the Pharisees imagined the establishment of the Kingdom of God in terms of external, political authority; whereas Jesus teaches that it is something eminently spiritual, supernatural, which has been happening ever since Jesus’ coming, although its climax will be after his second coming or Parousia at the end of the world; its effect is to be seen, above all, in men’s hearts, although it is also something visible and external, just as the Church has a visible dimension.

After the Apostles receive the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost they will devote their whole lives to preaching boldly the message of Jesus Christ, and winning all men over to the Lord. This will lead them to experience many severe contradictions; and they will suffer so much that they will yearn to see even “one of the days of the Son of man”, that is, one of the days of the victory of Jesus Christ. But this day will not arrive until the Lord’s second coming.

Prayer:  Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears! Turn, then, O most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
*Salve Regina

Wednesday
Luke 17:31 “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his [i]goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. 33 Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, in that night there will be two [j]men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. 35 Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. 36 [k]Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”

37 And they answered and said to Him, “Where, Lord?”

So He said to them, “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”

Prayer:  Queen of Heaven rejoice, alleluia: For He whom you merited to bear, alleluia, Has risen as He said, alleluia. Pray for us to God, alleluia. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia. Because the Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
Let us pray : O God, who by the Resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, granted joy to the whole world: grant we beg Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may lay hold of the joys of eternal life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
*Regina Coeli

Thursday
Navarre Commentary on the second coming…   it is useful to recall here that everyone will find himself before the divine Judge immediately he dies, at the particular judgment. Thus Jesus’ teaching has also a present urgency about it: here and now a disciple should scrutinize his own conduct, for the Lord can call him when he least expects.

33 “Will preserve it”: what the Greek word literally means is “will engender (his life)”, that is to say, “will give true life to the soul”. Thus our Lord seems to mean the following: he who wants to save his life at all costs, making it his basic value, will lose eternal life; whereas, he who is ready to lose his earthly life, that is, to resist even to death the enemies of God and of his soul, will obtain eternal happiness through this struggle. In content this passage is almost identical with Lk 9:24.

Prayer:  The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.   And she conceived of the Holy Ghost.
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death.

Friday
Continued Commentary on the last days…

“Where, Lord?” The Pharisees had asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God was coming (v.20). Now, after hearing the Messiah’s explanation, the disciples, out of natural curiosity, ask him, “Where . . . will this take place?” Jesus replies with a phrase which sounds very much like a proverb and which, precisely because it is enigmatic, suggests that he does not want to give a clear answer to their question. And so our Lord’s short discourse on the coming of the Kingdom of God and of Christ opens and closes with questions put by his listeners, superficial questions which he uses to teach them something which they will later come to understand.

“Where the body is, there the eagles will gather”: the Greek text uses a word which could mean either eagle or vulture. In any event the proverb indicates the speed with which birds of prey swoop down on their victims — apparently referring to the sudden, unexpected way the second coming or last judgment will happen.

Prayer:   Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that, we to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an Angel, may by His Passion and Cross, be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord.

Saturday
Commentary concluded…Sacred Scripture also deals with this subject in other passages: “But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess 5:1.2). Once more Jesus is exhorting us to be watchful: we should never neglect the most important thing in life — eternal salvation. “All that, which worries you for the moment, is of relative importance. What is of absolute importance is that you be happy, that you be saved” (J. Escrivá, The Way, 297). So curious are the Pharisees and the disciples about the time and place of the last coming that they are distracted from Jesus’ main point; the same thing happens to us: for example, we can spend a lot of time pondering the circumstances of the deaths of people we know, and fail to grasp the warning these deaths contain — that this life is going to end one way or another and that after it we too will meet God.

Prayer:  May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.