October 13, 2026 // Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Galatians 5:1-6 

Reflect on the Word // 

If you’ve ever been a parent to a teenager you probably understand the frustration of trying to teach the same lesson, or correct the same bad behavior, over and over and over again. You explain why the bad behavior is wrong, why it’s bad for that child personally, all the unintended possible consequences, and the importance these actions can have on their immortal souls. But lo and behold, that same teenage kid goes out and chooses the same not-so-great behavior. 

I think about this frustration when I take my own sins to the Lord in Confession. I commit the same small sins over and over and over again even though I know Christ’s teachings. Just like my own children, I commit the same mistakes and sins again through habit but also because one of the effects of sin is to enslave us, sometimes even in those small pesky sins we think are no big deal. 

Maybe you are like me and think that the small sins we commit or allow to continue just out of habit aren’t a big deal. But that may be part of the yoke of slavery that Saint Paul speaks of today (see Galatians 5:1). By assuming small sins are no big deal, or that habits of sin don’t need to be broken, our minds have fallen under a kind of yoke. A belief that we don’t need to actively choose freedom in Jesus Christ. 

“For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1), a freedom that rejects even the small sins that want to pull us down into slavery. By choosing to receive the Sacrament of Penance we stand firm against that yoke and, through Christ’s mercy and forgiveness in the Sacrament, we can again experience “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). It is this faith that makes a life of freedom possible. 

Relate to the Lord // Examine your conscience today and make a commitment to receive the Sacrament of Penance this week.