Posted on 09/15/2026 11:38:51 PM PDT by fidelis
Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs
Jesus said to the crowds: “To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’” Luke 7:31–32
The simile Jesus uses in this teaching—“We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep”—portrays a generation that is spiritually unresponsive and resistant to both the joyful and sorrowful invitations of God’s grace. It may seem like a contradiction that the Gospel draws us to grace through both joy and sorrow, but both are essential movements of the heart, preparing us to receive the fullness of salvation.
Joy arises from recognizing God’s mercy, His abiding presence, and the hope of eternal life. Holy sorrow, on the other hand, is born when we confront our sin, contemplate Christ’s suffering, and acknowledge the brokenness of the world. The Gospel “plays the flute” when it invites us to rejoice in the nearness of the Kingdom; it “sings a dirge” when it calls us to repentance and conversion. A heart attuned to God responds to both—rejoicing in His blessings and weeping over sin. To ignore either call reveals a deeper hardness of heart, a spiritual insensitivity that neither celebrates divine goodness nor grieves over what separates us from it.
The context of this simile is important. After Jesus raised the only son of the widow at Nain, some of John the Baptist’s disciples, who had witnessed the miracle, returned to the Fortress of Machaerus (in modern-day Jordan), where John was imprisoned. They reported to him all they had seen. In response, John sent two of them back to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” (Luke 7:19).
Jesus answered, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me” (Luke 7:22–23).
After John’s disciples departed, Jesus turned to the crowd and delivered this comparison. The children playing the flute represent the joyful proclamation of the Kingdom made manifest through Jesus’ miraculous works and message. The children singing a dirge symbolize John’s call to repentance and preparation for the Messiah. Both were divine invitations—one to rejoice, the other to mourn—and both were largely rejected by that generation.
Reflect today on the disposition of your own heart. Are you moved by the Gospel’s invitation to rejoice in the nearness of God and His blessings? Are you also willing to let your heart be pierced by the sorrow that comes from recognizing sin and the suffering it causes? Ask for the grace of a heart that is fully alive—dancing to the melody of divine joy and weeping with holy sorrow over all that hinders love. By embracing both, you will be drawn more deeply into the mystery of Christ, who came to call both the joyful and the contrite into His Kingdom.
My joyful and sorrowful Lord, at times You filled Your disciples with rejoicing; at other times, You permitted them to experience holy sorrow. Both are necessary, each accomplishing what is most needed in the moment. Grant me the grace to embrace both joy and sorrow, so that the full rhythm of the Gospel may take hold of my heart and draw me ever more deeply into Your Kingdom. Jesus, I trust in You.
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The Month of September is Dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows
“And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.’” (Luke 2:33-35)
Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for the month of September, 2026:
For the care of water
Let us pray for a just and sustainable management of water, a vital resource, so that everyone may have equal access to it.
Today’s First Reading
From: 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
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[31] But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you still a more excellent way.
Hymn to Charity
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[1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. [3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. [4] Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; [5] it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [6] it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. [7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
[8] Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. [9] For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. [11] When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. [12] For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. [13] So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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Commentary:
31. "Earnestly desire the higher gifts": according to some Greek manuscripts this can be translated "earnestly seek the greater gifts." St Paul is encouraging his Christians to put greater value on those gifts of the Holy Spirit which contribute most to the goal of the Church than on those which are spectacular. He probably has in mind the teaching he will develop (chap. 14) about the superiority of graces and charisms to do with teaching and catechesis.
"A still more excellent way": this undoubtedly refers to charity, which he goes on to describe and praise (chap. 13). Therefore, what is called his "hymn to charity" is not a digression, much less a later addition, but an outpouring of the Apostle's soul, which perfectly explains why charity is the greatest of all gifts, a sure route to holiness and salvation, and the identifying mark of the Christian: "the first and most necessary gift is charity, by which we love God above all things and our neighbor because of him. [...] This is because love, as the bond of perfection and fullness of the law (cf. Col 3:14, Rom. 13:10), governs, gives meaning to, and perfects all the means of sanctification. Hence the true disciple of Christ is marked by love both of God and of his neighbor" (Vatican II, "Lumen Gentium", 42).
1-13. This wonderful hymn to charity is one of the most beautiful pages in Pauline writing. The literary style of the chapter is designed to present charity in all its splendor. St Paul sings the praises of love as seen from three points of view--the superiority and absolute need of this gift (vv. 1-3); its features and practical expression (vv. 4-7); and the fact it endures for ever (vv. 8-13).
Love, the charity of which St Paul is speaking, has nothing to do with selfish desire for physical passionate possession; nor is it restricted to mere philanthropy, whose motivation is purely humanitarian: charity is a love which is to be found in the new order of things established by Christ; its origin, context and purpose are radically new; it is born of the love of God for men, a love so intense that he sacrificed his only-begotten Son (In 3:16). The Christian is enabled to respond to this love of God by this gift of the Holy Spirit, charity (cf. Gal 5:22; Rom 15:30), and by virtue of this divine love he discovers God in his neighbor: he recognizes that all are children of the one Father and brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ: "Our love is not to be confused with sentimentality or mere good fellowship, nor with that somewhat questionable zeal to help others in order to convince ourselves of our superiority. Rather, it means living in peace with our neighbor, venerating the image of God that is found in each and every person and doing all we can to get them in their turn to contemplate that image and learn to turn to Christ" (St. J. Escriva, "Friends of God", 230).
To make this clear St Paul mentions those gifts which appear to be most exceptional--the gift of tongues; knowledge; and heroic actions.
Firstly, the gift of tongues. St Thomas Aquinas comments that the Apostle "rightly compares words lacking in charity to the sound of lifeless instruments, to the sound of a bell or cymbals, whose sound though clear is a dead sound. The same occurs in the speech of someone who has no charity; no matter how brilliant it be, it comes across as something dead, because it is of no help as far as meriting eternal life is concerned" ("Commentary on 1 Cor, ad loc."). By way of emphasis St Paul speaks of the tongues of angels as the highest degree of the gift of tongues.
"I am nothing": this conclusion could not be more emphatic. A little further on (1 Cor 15:10), St Paul will himself say that "by the grace of God I am what I am", to make us see that from God's love for man (grace) derives man's love for God and for his neighbor for God's sake (charity).
Knowledge and faith, which need not ever be separated, also acquire their full meaning in the Christian who lives by love: "Each one according to his own gifts and duties must steadfastly advance along the way of a living faith, which arouses hope and works through love" (Vatican II, "Lumen Gentium", 41).
Strictly speaking, martyrdom is the supreme act of love. St Paul is referring here as in the previous points to hypothetical cases or merely external gestures, which seem to be token detachment and generosity, but are in fact mere appearances: "If someone does not have charity", St Augustine says, "even though he may have these gifts at the moment, they will be taken away from him. What he has will be taken away because he is missing the main thing, that whereby he will have everything and which will keep him safe [...]. He has the power to possess, but he has no charity in what he does; and because he lacks charity, what he has in his possession will be taken from him" ("Enarrationes in Psalmos", 146, 10).
4-7. In his listing of the qualities of charity, St Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, begins with two general features—patience and kindness--which the Bible attributes to God. Both of these lead on to thirteen particular ways in which love expresses itself.
Patience is a quality often praised in the Bible: in the Psalms God is said to be slow to anger (Ps 145:8); patience means great serenity in the face of injury; kindness has to do with being inclined to do good to others. St Thomas Aquinas explains this by starting with the etymology of the word: "Kindness ["benignitas", benignity] is like good fuel ["bona igneitas"]: just as fire causes solid substances to become liquid and start to melt, charity sees to it that a person does not keep his things for himself but distributes them to others" ("Commentary on 1 Cor, ad loc."). Since to charity are attributed qualities which in the first instance apply to God, we can see the excellence of this virtue: "Charity towards our neighbor is an expression of our love of God. Accordingly, when we strive to grow in this virtue, we cannot fix any limits to our growth. The only possible measure for the love of God is to love without measure: on the one hand, because we will never be able to thank him enough for what he has done for us; and on the other, because this is exactly what God's own love for us, his creatures, is like: it overflows without calculation or limit" (St. J. Escriva, "Friends of God", 232).
"Love is patient", St Gregory the Great comments, "because it bears serenely the injury it suffers. It is kind, because it repays evil with good. It is not jealous, because it covets nothing in this world: it does not know what it is to envy worldly prosperity. It is not boastful, because it yearns only for spiritual reward and it is not carried away by external things. It is not arrogant, because it thrives only on the love of God and neighbor and avoids whatever would take it from the path of righteousness. It is not covetous, because although it ardently pursues its own spiritual goals, it does not desire the goods of others. It does not insist on its own way, because it scorns as alien those things it temporarily possesses here below: it seeks to hold on only to what is enduring. It is not irritable, and even though injuries seek to provoke it, it does not let itself have any desire for vengeance, for no matter how difficult a time it may have in this life, it hopes for greater rewards in the next. It is not resentful, because it has invested its thought in the love of purity, and having rooted out all hatred it is incapable of harboring in its heart any type of aversion. It does not rejoice at wrong, because it feels affection for others and does not rejoice at seeing the ruin of its enemies. It rejoices in the right, because by loving others as it loves itself, it is as pleased to see goodness in them as if it were indeed something to its own personal advantage" ("Moralia", X, 7-8, 10).
7. The repetition of the word "all" reinforces the absolute, essential, value of charity. This is not hyperbole, much less a depiction of utopia: it is recognition of the fact, as the Word of God confirms, that love lies at the very source of all Christian virtue. "Since we are all children of God," the founder of Opus Dei reminds us, "our fraternity is not a cliché or an empty dream; it beckons as a goal which, though difficult, is really ours to achieve.
"As Christians we must show that affection of this kind is in fact possible, whatever cynics, skeptics, those disappointed in love or those with a cowardly outlook on life might say. It may be quite difficult to be truly affectionate, for man was created free and he can rebel against God in a useless and bitter way. But it is possible and people can attain it, because it flows as a necessary consequence of God's love for us and our love for God. If you and I want it, Jesus also wants it. Then we will obtain a full and fruitful understanding of the meaning of suffering, sacrifice and unselfish dedication in ordinary life" ("Friends of God", 233).
8-13. Love is enduring; it will never disappear. In this sense it is greater than all God's other gifts to man; each of those gifts is designed to help man reach perfection and eternal beatitude; charity, on the other hand, is beatitude, blessedness, itself. A thing is imperfect, St Thomas comments, for one of two reasons either because it contains certain defects, or because it will later be superseded. In this second sense knowledge of God and prophecy are overtaken by seeing God face to face. "Charity, on the other hand, which is love of God, does not disappear but, rather, increases; the more perfect one's knowledge of God, the more perfectly does one love him" (St Thomas Aquinas, "Commentary on 1 Cor, ad loc.").
St Paul is constantly reminding us to pursue the goal of charity, the bond of perfection (cf. Col. 3:14). Following his example the saints teach the same message; St Teresa of Avila puts it in this way: "I only want you to be warned that, if you would progress a long way on this road and ascend to the mansions that we desire, it is not a matter of thinking much, but of loving much; do, then, whatever most arouses you to love. Perhaps we do not know what it is to love; that would not greatly surprise me; for love consists, not in what most pleases us, but in the strength of our determination to desire to please God in everything and to endeavor to do everything we can not to offend him, and to pray him ever to advance the honor and glory of his Son and the growth of the catholic Church" ("Interior Castle", IV, 1, 7).
11-12. "Then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood": the Old Testament usually avoids mentioning God by name; these words in effect mean "Then I will know God as he knows me." The knowledge which God has of men is not merely speculative: it involves an intimate, personal union which embraces a person's mind and will and all his or her noble aspirations. Thus in Sacred Scripture God is said to know someone when he shows a preferential love for him (1 Cor 8:3), particularly when he chooses him out to be a Christian (Gal 4:8).
Happiness in heaven consists in this direct knowledge of God. To explain this better St Paul uses the simile of the mirror: in those times mirrors were made of metal and produced a reflection which was blurred and dark; but it is still easy for us to understand what St Paul means; as St Thomas explains, in heaven "we shall see God face to face, because we shall see him directly, just as we see a man face to face. And by seeing in this way we become very like God, becoming sharers in his beatitude: for God has knowledge of his own substance in its very essence and therein his happiness lies. Therefore does St John (1 Jn 3:2) write: 'When he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is"' ("Summa Contra Gentiles", III, 51).
In this connection the Church's Magisterium teaches that "in the usual providence of God, the souls of all the saints who departed this world [...] see the divine essence with an intuitive and even face-to-face vision, without the interposition of any creature in the function of object seen; rather, the divine essence immediately manifests itself to them plainly, clearly, openly [...]. We also define that those who see the divine essence in this way take great joy from it, and that because of this vision and enjoyment the souls of those who have already died are truly blessed and possess life and eternal rest" (Benedict XII, "Benedictus Deas, Dz-Sch", I000f).
13. Faith, hope and charity are the most important virtues in the Christian life. They are called "theological" virtues, "because they have God as their direct and principal object" ("St Pius X Catechism", 85 9), and it is he himself who infuses them into the soul together with sanctifying grace (cf. ibid., 861).
When discussing the superiority of charity over faith and hope, St Thomas Aquinas says that the greatest of these virtues is that which most directly unites one to good: "Faith and hope attain God in so far as we derive from him the knowledge of truth or the acquisition of good; whereas charity attains God himself that it may rest in him not that something else should come to us from him" ("Summa Theologiae", II-II, q. 23, a.6).
From: Luke 7:31-35
Jesus Reproaches His Contemporaries
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[31] (Jesus spoke to the crowds), “Then to what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? [32] They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance.
We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’
[33] For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, `He has a demon.' [34] The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you say, Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' [35] Yet wisdom is justified by all her children."
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Commentary:
31-34. See the note on Matthew 11:16-19.
[The note on Matthew 11:16-19 states: 16-19. Making reference to a popular song or a child's game of His time, Jesus reproaches those who offer groundless excuses for not recognizing Him. From the beginning of human history the Lord has striven to attract all men to Himself: "What more was there to do for My vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (Isaiah 5:4), and often He has been rejected: "When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?" (Isaiah 5:4).
Our Lord also condemns calumny: some people do try to justify their own behavior by seeing sin where there is only virtue. "When they find something which is quite obviously good," St. Gregory the Great says, "they pry into it to see if there is not also some badness hidden in it" ("Moralia", 6, 22). The Baptist's fasting they interpret as the work of the devil; whereas they accuse Jesus of being a glutton. The evangelist has to report these calumnies and accusations spoken against our Lord; otherwise, we would have no notion of the extent of the malice of those who show such furious opposition to Him who went about doing good (Acts 10:38). On other occasions Jesus warned His disciples that they would be treated the same as He was (cf. John 15:20).
The works of Jesus and John the Baptist, each in their own way, lead to the accomplishment of God's plan for man's salvation: the fact that some people do not recognize Him does not prevent God's plan being carried into effect.]
35. The wisdom referred to here is divine Wisdom, especially Christ Himself (cf. Wisdom 7:26; Proverbs 8:22). "Children of Wisdom" is a Hebrew way of saying "wise men"; he is truly wise who comes to know God and love Him and be saved by Him—in other words, a saint.
Divine wisdom is revealed in the creation and government of the universe, and, particularly, in the salvation of mankind. Wise men "justifying" wisdom seems to mean the wise, the saints, bear witness to Christ by living holy lives: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
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