Catholic Mass Readings and Reflection October 01, 2026
Thursday – 26th Week of Ordinary Time
01st October 2026 (Thursday)
Psalter: Week 2
Here are the Catholic Mass readings and a daily Gospel reflection for Thursday, October 01, 2026, the Memorial of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Job, in his suffering, cries out that his Redeemer lives, and Jesus sends seventy-two laborers into the harvest.
Catholic Mass Readings
Readings of the Day
First Reading: Job 19:21-27
Job said: “Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh? “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock for ever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
Psalm 27:7-8b, 8c-9abc, 13-14 (R. 13)
R/. I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living
Gospel Acclamation
V/. Alleluia
R/. Alleluia
V/. The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the Gospel.
R/. Alleluia
Gospel: Luke 10:1-12
At that time: The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the labourer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
Thursday – 26th Week in Ordinary Time
Daily Gospel Reflection
Main Point: Jesus sends seventy-two laborers into the harvest. The Church gives us this Gospel on the feast of a woman who never went anywhere, a cloistered nun who died at twenty-four, and yet is patroness of the missions. Her secret changes how we think about doing great things for God.
1. The harvest is plentiful, Jesus says, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. Then He sends seventy-two of them ahead of Him, into every town, to heal and to announce that the kingdom of God is near. It is a scene of movement, mission, going out.
2. And on this Gospel of laborers sent to the ends of the earth, the Church places the feast of Thérèse of Lisieux, who went almost nowhere. She entered a cloistered Carmelite convent at fifteen, lived hidden behind its walls, and died of tuberculosis at twenty-four. She left France only once. By every visible measure, she did nothing large.
3. Yet she is named, with the great missionary Francis Xavier, patroness of all the missions. How can a nun who never reached a mission field be its patron? The answer is the discovery that made her a saint and a Doctor of the Church, what she called her “little way.”
4. Thérèse realized she could never do the grand things she once dreamed of, the great deeds, the far journeys, the martyrdom. So she chose instead to do small things with great love. A kind word to a difficult sister. A hidden act of patience. Every ordinary duty offered to God as an act of love, joined to Christ, and poured out for the whole world through prayer.
5. Reading Saint Paul, she understood that love is what gives every other work its life, and in a moment of joy she cried out that she had found her place at last:
“My vocation is love.”
6. This is good news for almost all of us, who will never do anything the world calls great. You may be at a kitchen sink, a classroom, a sickbed, a desk, sure your life is too small to matter to God’s harvest. Thérèse says the opposite. The smallest task done with great love, offered to Christ, reaches further than you can imagine. She reached the missions from a cloister, by love.
7. Job, in the depths of his suffering, reaches the same bedrock beneath all this. Even stripped of everything, he cries out, I know that my Redeemer lives, and in my flesh I shall see God. That confidence, that God is real and near even when we feel small or crushed, is the ground Thérèse built her whole little way upon. Love offered to a living Redeemer is never wasted.
My Practice: Choose one small, ordinary thing today, a task, a kindness, a moment of patience, and do it with great love, offering it to Christ for someone far away who needs grace. This is the little way, and through it your hidden life joins the harvest.
Prayer
Lord of the harvest, You send laborers to the ends of the earth, and You made a hidden nun who never traveled the patroness of them all. Thank You for Saint Thérèse and her little way, her discovery that small things done with great love reach further than great things done for show. We so often think our lives too small to matter to You. Teach us her secret: to offer our ordinary duties, our kindnesses, our patience, as acts of love joined to Your Son and poured out for the whole world. Like Job, let us hold fast that our Redeemer lives, and that no love offered to You is ever lost. Amen.
Question to Reflect Today
- What small, ordinary task in your day could you offer to Christ with great love today, trusting that through it you take part in His harvest?
Thank You 🙏🙏🙏
Tags: Daily Mass Reflection, Memorial, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Gospel of Luke, Catholic Mass Readings, October 2026
