OCTOBER 10, 2026 FATHER FRANCIS SALASIAR
A mother once told her son, “I have told you a hundred times to clean your room!” The son looked at her and said, “Mom, I know.” She replied, “Knowing is not the problem. Doing is the problem!”
We can smile at that, but there is a deep truth in it. There is a difference between hearing something and living it, between knowing what is right and actually allowing it to change our lives. That is exactly what Jesus is reminding us in today’s Gospel.
As Jesus is speaking to the crowd, a woman calls out, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed!” She is expressing admiration for Jesus and, in a beautiful way, for His mother, Mary. But Jesus responds, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
Jesus is not putting Mary down. If you look at it, it is quite the opposite. He is actually telling us what makes Mary truly blessed. Mary is blessed not simply because she gave birth to Jesus. She is blessed because she heard the Word of God and allowed that Word to shape her life. At the Annunciation, Mary heard God’s call. She did not understand everything. She certainly did not have all the answers. Yet she trusted God and said yes. That is what Christian discipleship is about.
We sometimes think that being a good Christian means knowing many things about our faith—knowing our prayers, attending Mass, knowing Scripture, knowing the teachings of the Church. All of these are important. But Jesus reminds us today that faith must go one step further. We must hear the Word of God and live it.
In the first reading, St. Paul tells the Galatians something equally important. Before Christ, people often understood their relationship with God through the law. But now, through faith in Christ, we have become God’s children. Paul says, “For all of you are children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Let us take a moment to think: what does that mean? It means we are not simply people who follow a set of religious rules. We are children of God. Our relationship with God is personal. God does not look at us merely as people who have succeeded or failed in keeping rules. He looks at us as His beloved children.
And Paul takes this even further. He says that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. Think about how radical that was then—and how radical it is right now. Our world is constantly looking for ways to divide people: rich and poor, educated and uneducated, immigrant and native-born, young and old, successful and unsuccessful, those who agree with us and those who disagree with us.
But the Gospel gives us a different way of seeing one another. Before God, we are first and foremost His children. The person sitting beside you at Mass is not simply a stranger. That person is your brother or sister in Christ. The person who irritates you is also a child of God. The person whose opinions are different from yours is also a child of God.
This is where today’s Gospel becomes very practical. It is easy to say, “I believe in God.” But how does that belief affect the way I speak to my family? How does it affect the way I treat someone who disagrees with me? How does it affect the way I speak about another person when they are not present?
Hearing the Word of God means allowing God’s Word to enter our ordinary lives. Sometimes the most difficult place to practice our faith is not here in church, or when you are attending Mass. It is at home. It is when we are tired. It is when someone pushes our buttons. It is when we feel we have been treated unfairly. It is when we have every reason to be angry, but the Gospel asks us to forgive. That is where faith becomes real.
Mary gives us the perfect example. She heard God’s Word, trusted it, and lived it—even when she could not see the whole picture. So dear brothers and sisters, perhaps today Jesus is asking each of us a simple question: What am I doing with the Word of God that I hear?
Every day or every Sunday, we hear Scripture. We listen to the Gospel. But the question is: Does the Word of God leave the church with us? Does it come home with us? Does it enter our conversations? Does it change our relationships? The gospel states, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
That is the blessing Jesus offers us today. May we not be Christians who simply hear the Word, but become Christians who live the Word. May the Word of God become visible—not only in what we say, but in how we live, how we love, how we forgive, and how we treat one another.Saturday
