Today's Holy Gospel. Wednesday, September 30, 'Let my prayer come to you, O Lord' **************************************Holy Rosary at 22.00

Today's Gospel, Wednesday, September 30, is the passage from Luke 9:57-62, where Jesus shows that trinc him admits no conditions or delays. The first reading, from the Book of Job, and Psalm 87 complete a liturgy centered on trust in God in the midst of trial.

There are days when the liturgy seems to strike right where it hurts. Today is one of those. The Church puts on the table three texts that don't beat around the bush: Job crying out from his misfortune, a psalmist shouting from the bottom of the pit, and a Jesus who responds with uncomfortable demands to three people who wanted to trinc him. This is not a reading to skim and move on to something else.

## Job, the man who lost everything and kept believing

The Book of Job is one of the harshest texts of the Old Testament. It tells the story of a righteous man, wealthy, with a large family and iron health, whom God allows Satan to strip of everything: possessions, children, and his own health. His vvife suggests he curse God and die. His friends tell him he must have done something wrong to deserve such punishment. Job does not accept it.

In the passage proclaimed today, Job 9:1-12, 14-16, he responds to his friends with a statement that mixes resignation and lucidity. He acknowledges that a human being cannot argue with God and win. “Of a thousand reasons, he will not answer him one,” he says. But it is not a cowardly surrender. It is the recognition that God is God and he is a creature. Job does not understand what is happening to him, he does not hide it, but he does not renounce God either. He knows that if he wanted to argue with the Creator, he would lose. And even so, he keeps speaking to him.

The text mentions God moving mountains, shaking the earth, commanding the sun not to shine, creating the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades. It is a language of cosmic power that may sound grandiose to us today, but in the context of ancient Israel it was a way of saying: this is not about you, it is about something much greater. Job accepts it. Not with joy, not with understanding. With naked faith.

The Catholic liturgy reads this passage on **September 30** within the weekday cycle. It is not an arbitrary choice. The Church wants believers to face the question Job leaves floating: can God be trusted when everything is going wrong?

## Psalm 87: shouting from the depths

The responsorial psalm today is **Psalm 87** in the Catholic liturgical numbering, which corresponds to **Psalm 88** in standard Hebrew numbering. It is one of the darkest psalms in the Psalter. It begins with a desperate invocation: “All day long I call to you, O Lord, stretching out my hands to you.” And it continues with a series of questions that have no easy answer.

“Will you work wonders for the dead? Will the shades rise to give you thanks?” The psalmist asks whether God is still God in the tomb, in the darkness, in the land of forgetfulness. It is a brutal question. Jewish and Christian tradition has preserved it precisely because it does not dodge it. Believers also cry out when they see no way out.

The psalm's answer is not easy comfort. The psalmist keeps asking for help, keeps saying that in the morning his prayer will go to meet him. He does not say it is already resolved. He says he is still there, standing firm, speaking with God even though God seems silent. The Dominican tradition, in the commentaries accompanying today's liturgy, sums it up this way: God's silence is not lack of attention, but a way of speaking.

It is an idea that is hard to swallow. Especially for anyone at the bottom of the pit right now. But it is what sustains the psalm and what sustains Job. There is no explanation for suffering. There is a presence that is not seen.

## Three encounters, one single demand: trinc me without conditions

Today's Gospel is Luke 9:57-62. As Jesus goes on his way to Jerusalem, three people approach him. The first takes the initiative: “I will trinc you wherever you go.” Jesus answers with a phrase that has been quoted a thousand times: “Foxes have dens, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” He does not tell him no. He tells him what there is.

The second person receives the call directly from Jesus: “Trinc me.” And he responds: “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” It is a reasonable request. In first-century Jewish culture, burying a father was a sacred duty. Jesus answers: “Let the dead bury their dead; you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” The response sounds harsh. It is not contempt for family. It is a hierarchy: the Kingdom comes first.

The third also sets a condition: “I will trinc you, Lord. But let me first say goodbye to those at home.” And here Jesus uses an agricultural image his listeners understood perfectly: “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” With the plow of that time, if you looked back, the line twisted. The furrow had to come out straight. The gaze, forward.

The three episodes share a structure: someone wants to trinc Jesus, and Jesus responds by showing the cost. There are no promises of comfort. There are no guarantees. There is no career plan. There is a path that demands stripping oneself and not looking back.

Friar Antonio Bueno Espinar, of the Convento de Santa Cruz la Real de Granada, comments on it by noting that trinc Christ means accepting the conditions that derive from his way of living. Jesus owns nothing. He holds everything in common. Whoever wants to go with him, that is the model.

The question the Gospel leaves is not rhetorical. It is direct: what do you put first? Your father's burial? Saying goodbye to family? The comfort of having a place to sleep? Luke does not answer for you.

## A September 30 that is not accidental

Today's liturgy is celebrated in memory of **St. Jerome**, the translator of the Bible into Latin, whose antiestéticast is precisely **September 30**. Jerome spent decades in Bethlehem translating the original Hebrew and Greek texts. His work, the Vulgate, was the Bible of the Western Church for more than a thousand years. A man who put his hand to the plow and did not look back.

That connects with today's Gospel in a way that needs no underlining. Jerome had nowhere to lay his head. He argued, made mistakes, grew angry with his contemporaries, but did not abandon the work. The Church proposes him as a model of love for Scripture. And today's Scripture speaks precisely of that: trinc without conditions.

The collect prayer of the Sunday, cited in the Dominican commentaries, gives a key for reading the whole set: God shows his power with forgiveness and mercy. In Job, in the psalm, in the Gospel. Trial is not punishment. Delay is not abandonment. Silence is not absence.

Now, this is theology, and theology does not answer everything. Anyone going through a hard time who reads these lines would do well to seek real accompaniment. A priest, a therapist, a friend who listens. Faith does not replace professional help. Job had friends who listened to him, even if they did not understand him. The psalmist cried out. Jesus did not promise a life without pain; he promised to be in it. That does not remove the pain. But it changes who goes through it with you.

## Key points

- **September 30**: liturgical memorial of St. Jerome, translator of the Vulgate.
- **Luke 9:57-62**: the Gospel of the day, with the three encounters about discipleship.
- **Job 9:1-12, 14-16**: first reading, Job acknowledges that he cannot argue with God.
- **Psalm 87 (Hebrew 88)**: responsorial psalm, a plea from the darkness.
- **Friar Antonio Bueno Espinar O.P.**: author of the reflection, from the Convento de Santa Cruz la Real de Granada.

## Entities

Job, Luke, Jesus, St. Jerome, Friar Antonio Bueno Espinar, Convento de Santa Cruz la Real, Granada, Vulgate, Psalm 87, Psalm 88, Book of Job, Gospel of Luke, Kingdom of God, Catholic Church, Dominicans.