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Saint Gertrude Parish - Lasne
September 28, 2025
On this page you will find:
The readings for Mass, the Mass leaflet with the choice of hymns
A sample universal prayer available for download , in PDF and editable Word formats.
A meditation on the Sunday Gospel , a spiritual text and a commentary by Marie-Noëlle Thabut
26th Sunday
Ordinary Time
World Day of Migrants and Refugees
Jesus Christ, who was rich, became poor.
so that you may become rich through his poverty.
2 Corinthians 8:9
Readings from the Mass
Mass leaflet
Universal Prayer
Lectio Divina
Consult this page for a prayerful preparation for the liturgy and then read the meditations below.
Meditation
Homily of Pope Francis
The Lord gathers us around his table, becoming bread for us: “It is the bread of celebration on the children’s table, […] it creates sharing, strengthens bonds, has the taste of communion” (Hymn, 17th National Eucharistic Congress, Matera 2022). Yet, the Gospel we have just heard tells us that bread is not always shared on the world’s table: this is true; it does not always emanate the fragrance of communion; it is not always broken justly.
It does us good to pause before the dramatic scene described by Jesus in the parable we have heard: on one side, a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, displaying his wealth and feasting; on the other, a poor man, covered in sores, lying at the door hoping that a few crumbs will fall from the table so that he may eat. And faced with this contradiction—which we see every day—we ask ourselves: what does the sacrament of the Eucharist, the source and summit of Christian life, invite us to do?
First, the Eucharist reminds us of God's primacy. The rich man in the parable is not open to a relationship with God: he thinks only of his own well-being, of satisfying his needs, of enjoying life. And with that, he has also lost his name. The Gospel doesn't say what his name was: it calls him with the adjective "a rich man," whereas it gives the name of the poor man: Lazarus. Riches lead you to this; they even strip you of your name. Satisfied with himself, drunk with money, dizzy with the vanity fair, there is no room for God in his life because he worships only himself. It is not by chance that his name is not given: he is called "rich," he is defined only with an adjective because from now on, he has lost his name, he has lost his identity, which is given only by the possessions he owns. How sad this reality is today, too, when we confuse who we are with what we have, when we judge people by their wealth, the titles they display, the roles they play, or the brand of clothing they wear. It is the religion of having and appearing that often dominates the stage of this world, but in the end, it leaves us empty-handed: always. Not even the name of the rich man in the Gospel remains. He is no longer anyone. On the contrary, the poor man has a name, Lazarus, which means "God helps." Even in his poverty and marginalization, he can retain his dignity because he lives in relationship with God. There is something of God in his name, and God is the unwavering hope of his life.
Here, then, is the ongoing challenge that the Eucharist presents to our lives: to worship God and not ourselves. To place Him at the center, not the vanity of our ego. To remember that the Lord alone is God, and everything else is a gift of His love. Because if we worship ourselves, we die in the suffocation of our petty self; if we worship the riches of this world, they seize us and enslave us; if we worship the god of appearances and become intoxicated by extravagance, sooner or later, life itself will present us with the bill. Life always presents us with the bill. When, on the contrary, we worship the Lord Jesus present in the Eucharist, we also receive a new perspective on our lives: I am not defined by the things I possess or the successes I achieve; the value of my life does not depend on how much I manage to display, nor does it diminish when I encounter failures and setbacks. I am a beloved son, each of us is a beloved son; I am blessed by God; He has chosen to clothe me in beauty and He desires me to be free, He desires me to be free from all bondage. Let us remember this: whoever worships God becomes no one's slave: he is free. Let us rediscover the prayer of adoration, a prayer that is frequently forgotten. Adoration, the prayer of adoration, let us rediscover it: it liberates us and restores us to our dignity as children, not slaves.
Besides the primacy of God, the Eucharist calls us to love our brothers and sisters. This Bread is, above all, the Sacrament of love. It is Christ who offers himself and breaks himself for us and asks us to do the same, so that our lives may be like ground wheat and become bread that nourishes our brothers and sisters. The rich man in the Gospel fails in this task; he lives in opulence, feasts lavishly, without even noticing the silent cry of poor Lazarus, lying exhausted at his door. It is only at the end of his life, when the Lord reverses destinies, that he finally notices Lazarus, but Abraham tells him, “Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed” (Lk 16:26). But it is you who fixed it: yourself. It is we who fix abysses in selfishness. The rich man had created a chasm between himself and Lazarus during his earthly life, and now, in eternal life, that chasm remains. Because our eternal future depends on this present life: if we dig a chasm now with our brothers and sisters, we are "digging our own grave" for the afterlife; if we build walls now against our brothers and sisters, we remain prisoners of loneliness and death even afterward.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is painful to see that this parable is still the story of our time: injustices, inequalities, the unequal distribution of the earth's resources, the abuse of the powerful against the weak, indifference to the cry of the poor, the abyss we dig every day by creating marginalization—none of these things can leave us indifferent. And so today, together, we recognize that the Eucharist is a prophecy of a new world; it is the presence of Jesus that calls us to commit ourselves so that a concrete conversion may take place: a conversion from indifference to compassion, a conversion from wastefulness to sharing, a conversion from selfishness to love, a conversion from individualism to fraternity.
Brothers and sisters, let us dream. Let us dream of a Church like this: a Eucharistic Church. Made of women and men who break themselves like bread for all those who graze on loneliness and poverty, for those who hunger for tenderness and compassion, for those whose lives crumble because they lack the good leaven of hope. A Church that kneels before the Eucharist and adores with wonder the Lord present in the bread; but that also knows how to bend with compassion and tenderness before the wounds of those who suffer, lifting up the poor, wiping away the tears of those who suffer, becoming the bread of hope and joy for all. Because there is no true Eucharistic worship without compassion for the many "Lazaruses" who, even today, walk beside us. They are many!
Brothers and sisters, from this city of Matera, the "city of bread," I would like to say to you: let us return to Jesus, let us return to the Eucharist. Let us return to the taste of bread, because while we are hungry for love and hope, or broken by the difficulties and sufferings of life, Jesus becomes the food that nourishes and heals us. Let us return to the taste of bread, because while injustices and discrimination against the poor continue to rage in the world, Jesus gives us the Bread of sharing and sends us out each day as apostles of fraternity, apostles of justice, apostles of peace. Let us return to the taste of bread so that we may be the Eucharistic Church, which places Jesus at its center and becomes the bread of tenderness, the bread of mercy for all. Let us return to the taste of bread to remind ourselves that, while our earthly existence is consumed, the Eucharist anticipates the promise of the resurrection and guides us towards the new life that conquers death.
Let us think seriously today about the rich man and Lazarus. It happens every day. And so often, too—and this should shame us—this struggle happens within us, among us, in the community. And when hope fades and we feel within ourselves the loneliness of the heart, the inner weariness, the torment of sin, the fear of not succeeding, we return to the taste of bread. We are all sinners: each of us bears our sins. But, sinners, let us return to the taste of the Eucharist, to the taste of bread. Let us return to Jesus, let us adore Jesus, let us welcome Jesus. Because He alone conquers death and constantly renews our life.
PASTORAL VISIT TO MATERA FOR THE CLOSING OF THE 27TH ITALIAN NATIONAL EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS
EUCHARISTIC CONCELEBRATION
HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS
Matera Municipal Stadium
Sunday, September 25, 2022
[ Multimedia ]
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Homily – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
“Open your eyes to Lazarus”
Siblings,
Today's Gospel tells a striking, almost brutal story: that of a rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen, who feasts every day, and a poor man named Lazarus, covered in sores, lying at his gate, hoping for a few crumbs. Two lives that cross paths without ever meeting. Two destinies that are reversed in the afterlife.
This story is not a condemnation of wealth itself, but a call to open our eyes. The rich man's sin is not having money. It is not seeing Lazarus. Not hearing his silence. Not being moved by his misery.
How many Lazaruses are at our doorstep? Not just those begging in the streets, but also those suffering in silence: an isolated neighbor, a colleague in distress, a teenager searching for meaning. The danger lies in indifference. It lies in living withdrawn, in comfort, never allowing ourselves to be disturbed.
When the rich man asks that his brothers be warned, Abraham replies, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them!” In other words, the Word of God is already here, alive, burning, and challenging. It invites us to conversion, to compassion, to justice. But we must listen to it, allow it to transform us.
This parable is a mirror. It prompts us to ask ourselves: am I attentive to others? Do I see the Lazaruses of my daily life? Do I allow the Word of God to illuminate my choices, my priorities, my commitments?
Brothers and sisters, let this parable not leave us in peace. Let it disturb us, awaken us, and urge us to open our eyes and hearts. For it is there that the Kingdom of God begins: in the gaze we cast upon others, in the outstretched hand, in concrete love.
Better understanding the Gospel
with Marie-Noëlle Thabut
GOSPEL — according to Saint Luke 16:19-31
At that time, Jesus said to the Pharisees:
19 “There was a rich man, dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived in luxury every day.
20 At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores.
21 He would have liked to fill his stomach with what fell from the rich man’s table; but the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 The poor man died, and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried.
23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus near him.
24 Then he cried out, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this furnace.
25 — “My child,” Abraham replied, “remember: in your lifetime you received good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”
26 And besides all this, a great chasm has been set between you and us, so that those who would like to cross over to you cannot do so, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.”
27 The rich man replied, “Very well, father, I beg you to send Lazarus to my father’s house.
28 For I have five brothers: let him testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torture!”
29 Abraham said to him, “They have Moses and the Prophets: let them listen to them!
30 — “No, Father Abraham,” he said, “but if someone from the dead comes to them, they will repent.”
31 Abraham replied, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
WHEN JESUS READAPTS A FOLK TALE
This last sentence is doubly terrible: “They will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” At first, it seems desperate, as if nothing could force a heart of stone to change! But it is even more terrible coming from Jesus: one might wonder if he is thinking of himself when he says this? “They will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead”…? And when Luke writes his Gospel, he knows all too well that the Resurrection of Christ did not convert everyone, far from it; it even hardened more than a few. Let us turn to the story of the rich man and Lazarus: ultimately, we know very little about the rich man, not even his name; it is not said that he is particularly wicked, on the contrary, since he will even later think about saving his brothers from misfortune in the afterlife. Simply, he is in his own world, in his comfort zone, "in his ivory tower," one might say, like the Samaritans Amos spoke of in the first reading. So much so that he doesn't even see, through his gate, the beggar starving to death, who would be quite content with his garbage. The beggar, for his part, has a name, "Lazarus," which means "God helps," and that, in itself, is quite telling: God helps him, not because he is virtuous—we don't know that—but simply because he is poor. Perhaps this is the first surprise Jesus gives his listeners when he tells them this parable : for, in fact, they already knew this story; it was a well-known tale from Egypt. The two characters were a rich man full of sins and a poor man full of virtues. Upon arriving in the afterlife, they were both weighed on the scales, and their good and bad deeds were tallied. And ultimately, no one seemed to mind the little story: the good, whether rich or poor, were rewarded; the wicked, rich or poor, were punished. All was as it should be. The rabbis, too, before Jesus, told a similar story, also obviously borrowed from Egypt. The rich man was the son of a sinful tax collector, the poor man a very devout man; they too were weighed on a scale that carefully weighed their respective merits; quite logically, the devout man was deemed more deserving than the tax collector's son.
THE TRUE SONS OF ABRAHAM
Jesus somewhat disrupts this logic: he doesn't calculate merits and good deeds; for, once again, it is nowhere stated that Lazarus is virtuous and the rich man wicked; Jesus simply observes that the rich man remained rich throughout his life, while the poor man remained poor at his doorstep: this illustrates the abyss of indifference, or blindness if you prefer, that opened up between the rich and the poor, simply because the rich man never even cracked open his gate. Another detail that is important in Jesus' account: it is not entirely true that we know nothing about the rich man; in fact, we know how he was dressed: in purple and linen, which is a clear allusion to the vestments of the priests! The color purple, which was originally the color of royal garments, had become the color of the high priests because they serve the king of the world; as for linen, it was the fabric of the high priest 's tunic. There, in Jesus' words, there is certainly a subtle dig at his listeners: very pious, but perhaps indifferent to the suffering of others. Jesus tells them something like, "High priest or not, if you despise your brothers, you do not deserve your title of son of Abraham." For, as we have noticed, Abraham is mentioned seven times on this page; this is certainly a key to the text. Essentially, Jesus' question is, "Who is truly a son of Abraham?" and his answer is: if you do not listen to the Law and the Prophets, if you are indifferent to the suffering of your brothers, you are not the sons of Abraham. Jesus goes even further: the poor man would have liked to eat the rich man's crumbs, but instead, it was the dogs who came to lick his wounds. But dogs were unclean animals… which meant that even if the rich, pious man had taken the trouble to open his gate, he would have been shocked anyway and would have fled from this unclean man licked by dogs… Jesus’ lesson, here again, is “you attach importance to merits, you take care to remain pure, you are proud to be descendants of Abraham… but you forget the essential.” This essential is stated in the Law and the Prophets; And here, we are spoiled for choice, in the book of Isaiah for example: “Is not this the fasting I have chosen: to share your food with the hungry, to provide the homeless poor with shelter, to clothe the naked when you see them, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh and blood? If you give to the hungry what you yourself desire, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light will rise in the darkness…” (Isaiah 58:6-7, 10). We don't need extraordinary signs to convert: we have the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels: it is up to us to listen to them and live by them!
Wealth and poverty
Assuredly, brothers, this poor man, lying covered in sores at the gate of a rich man, was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom—this is what we read, this is what we believe. And this rich man, clothed in purple and fine linen, who feasted daily, was carried off to hell and its torments. But was this poor man truly carried off by angels because of his poverty, and was this rich man sent to torment because of his riches? It was humility that was honored in this poor man, and pride condemned in this rich man.
I can prove to you in a few words that it was not wealth that was punished in this rich man, but pride. In any case, this poor man was taken up to Abraham's bosom. Now, Scripture says of Abraham himself that he possessed much gold and silver and that he was rich on earth. If every rich man is condemned to punishment, how could Abraham have gone before our poor man to welcome him into his bosom after death?
But Abraham, amidst riches, was poor, humble, respectful of all the commandments, he was obedient.
Strive to remain poor and destitute; if you are not, your prayers will not be answered. Reject everything around you or within you on which you might be tempted to place your trust. Let all your trust be in God. Be yearning for God, so that you may be filled with Him.
ST AUGUSTINE OF HIPPOINA
Saint Augustine († 430), philosopher and theologian, converted after wandering for a long time in search of God.
Saint Augustine
SERMON XIV.
Pronounced in Carthage on a Sunday.
THE REAL POOR PERSON
Who is the truly poor person, the poor person who abandons themselves to God, and who is the true orphan, the orphan whose support is the Lord?
I. The truly poor person is the humble one. If pride is unbearable in the rich, is it not even more so in the poor? But the humble person is poor, even if they are like Zacchaeus amidst riches. No, says the poor man, they must be even more destitute like Lazarus, as I myself am. Beware of pride, and are you not condemned by the very sight of Abraham, who received Lazarus into his bosom? For Abraham was poor in the midst of opulence. To be poor, one must be detached from riches, not desire them. Therefore, the rich person is poor when they do not desire to acquire them, when they are detached from those they possess and use them for the good of others. You, on the contrary, who envy them, are unfortunately rich in your poverty. Thus, the true model of the poor Christian is Jesus Christ: he was both poor and rich at the same time.
II. The true orphan is the one who considers himself to have no other father than the One who is in heaven.
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