October 16, 2026 // Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time // Optional Memorial of Saint Hedwig, Religious // Optional Memorial of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin

Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Ephesians 1:11-14

Reflect on the Word // 

Imagine living in France in the early 1900s, receiving a letter from a young religious named Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, who was suffering from Addison’s disease and nearing the end of her life. You’d likely get a bit of news, inquiries about your life, some uplifting advice, spiritual encouragement, and the promise of her prayers. As you reach the end of the letter, you notice something: rather than signing it as “Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity” she signs it with a flourish: Laudem Gloriae, or “Praise of Glory.”

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity had a special love for the letters of Saint Paul. She was particularly drawn to a passage in Saint Paul’s letters to the Ephesians which we read in today’s First Reading: “[. . .] so that we might exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ ” (Ephesians 1:12, emphasis added). As she prayed with this passage, she came to see that not only are we called to praise God in our lives and prayer, but to actually become praise, that is, living acts of worship. “In Heaven,” she wrote, “each soul is a praise of glory of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit” (Source).

This beautiful Saint spoke deeply to me from Heaven as I first read her letters years ago. She challenged me to see differently, pray differently, live and love differently. She wants to speak to you, too, asking if you can imagine yourself not just as the recipient of a letter from a convent, but a new “name,” bestowed on you by virtue of your Baptism.  

We are being invited to see our very identity as a praise of glory, that is, a soul whose existence is centered on the love and worship of God. We are called to reflect back to Him His own goodness, bursting forth in praise, unable to contain ourselves as we know ourselves to be loved and forgiven. Praise becomes for us then not only a noun, but a name. 

Let’s claim this identity and begin to live it.

Relate to the Lord // Is there someone who could benefit from a letter, email, or text message from you? Include in it a witness and praise to God for something He has done in your life.