8 November 2026 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29
Today's readings speak of inheritance. In Egypt, crushed by slavery, Israel hears God's promise: “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God… I will bring you into the land… I will give it to you for a possession.” The promised land was never only a territory; it was life with God.
The Servant in Isaiah feels he has laboured in vain, “yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.” Peter writes to scattered Christians that they have been born anew “into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” The Church is the people already on the way to that inheritance.
In the Gospel the disciples are shocked: if the rich can hardly enter the Kingdom, who can be saved? Jesus answers, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Then Peter asks what they will receive for leaving everything. Jesus promises thrones, a hundredfold, and eternal life. The apostles, on whom the Church is founded, will share in Christ's judgement and glory.
For Kerala Christians, whose families have often been measured by land and property, this Gospel is searching. Our deepest inheritance is not the family property but the faith received from the apostle Thomas and handed down for centuries. What we leave for Christ is never lost; it returns a hundredfold.
Theme: “The inheritance that does not fade.”
From the promised land to the heavenly inheritance: God gives himself to his people, and what we leave for Christ returns a hundredfold.
“I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians.” Exodus 6:7
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29
Apply: Thank God for the freedom he has given you in Christ.
“The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage.” Psalm 16:5–6
“By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” 1 Peter 1:3–4
Apply: Tell your children how faith came to your family.
“But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.”” Isaiah 49:4
“But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”” Matthew 19:26
Apply: Give something valuable to someone in need this week.
What we keep we lose; what we give to Christ we keep forever.
Let us leave our children the inheritance of faith.
Take-home resolution: Read 1 Peter 1:3–9 as a family this week.
Dear brothers and sisters, in Kerala we know a lot about inheritance: land, houses, gold, and sometimes long family disputes over them. Today God speaks to us about a different inheritance.
In Egypt the Israelites were slaves. God said to Moses: “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. I will bring you into the land I promised.” The land was a gift, but the greater gift was God himself: “I will be your God.”
St Peter writes to Christians who had lost homes and property: God has given you new birth “into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” No one can steal it, divide it, or take it to court.
In the Gospel Jesus says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom. The disciples are shocked. Jesus says, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” And to those who leave everything for him he promises a hundredfold and eternal life.
So let us ask ourselves today: what am I leaving to my children? If we leave them land without faith, we leave them poor. If we leave them faith, we leave them an inheritance that will never fade. Amen.
Children, do you know what an inheritance is? It's something precious your parents and grandparents give you.
Jesus said the most precious gift is not money or land, but God himself and heaven, which no one can take away.
Let's thank God for our faith, the best gift from our families. Say together: “Jesus, you are my treasure!”
Father of mercy, you have given us new birth into a living hope and an inheritance kept in heaven. Free us from all that holds us back from following your Son, and make us faithful to the faith we have received, for all things are possible with you. Amen.
On the second Sunday of Qudash Edtha the readings speak of an inheritance. In Exodus, God promises slaves in Egypt a land “for a possession”. In Isaiah, the Servant who seems to have labored in vain knows that his reward is with God. Peter tells scattered Christians that they have been born anew into an inheritance kept in heaven. In Matthew, Jesus promises those who leave everything for his name a hundredfold and eternal life. The season looks at the Church as God's house; today's readings show what that house is for: a people God has made his own, on the way to an inheritance that cannot fade.
The key words are promise, possession and reward. Each reading also has a time of testing before the gift: brick-making in Egypt, hidden years in a quiver, “various trials”, and the hard saying about riches.
Setting.
Moses has gone to Pharaoh for the first time, and things have got worse. Pharaoh orders the Israelites to make bricks without being given straw, and the Israelite foremen blame Moses (Exodus 5). Moses turns to God with a bitter question: “Why did you ever send me?” (5:22). Chapter 6 is God's answer. It does not begin with an explanation but with God's name and a chain of promises.
Many scholars see 6:2–8 as a second account of Moses' call, parallel to the burning bush in chapter 3, from another strand of Israel's tradition. Placed here, after failure, it carries a message: God's plan is not defeated by the first setback.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“I have also heard the groaning of the Israelites whom the Egyptians are holding as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.” (6:5)
In the Bible, for God to “remember” is not to recall something forgotten; it is to act on a promise. The groaning of the slaves and the promise to the fathers meet in God's memory.
“I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm” (6:6)
The “outstretched arm” is the image of God's power at work in the Exodus (Deuteronomy 4:34; 26:8).
“I will take you as my people, and I will be your God.” (6:7)
This is the heart of the covenant, a formula repeated through the prophets (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:28) and at the very end of the Bible (Revelation 21:3). The land is given so that a people may belong to God. Jewish tradition links the four verbs of vv. 6–7 (bring out, deliver, redeem, take) with the four cups of wine at the Passover meal.
“I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession.” (6:8)
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the revelation of the divine name to Moses proved to be the fundamental one for both the Old and the New Covenants, and that the name expresses God's faithfulness in spite of human sin (CCC 204, 211). The memory of the Exodus is the pattern of the Christian memorial: when the Church remembers God's saving deeds in the liturgy, they become present (CCC 1363). The New Testament says that Christ “redeemed” us (Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 1:18–19): in the Incarnation God became our next of kin in the flesh.
Setting.
This is the second of the four Servant Songs in the Book of Consolation (Isaiah 42:1–9; 49:1–6; 50:4–9; 52:13–53:12). The setting is the end of the Babylonian exile. Here the Servant himself speaks, to the coastlands and the peoples far away.
Who is the Servant? In v. 3 he is called “Israel”, yet in v. 5 his mission is to bring Israel back to God. He is Israel as God meant it to be: one who carries the people's vocation and serves the people. The New Testament sees this figure fulfilled in Jesus.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.” (49:1)
Jeremiah heard the same call (Jeremiah 1:5), and Paul uses this language of his own vocation (Galatians 1:15). A vocation begins in God's choice, before any merit.
“he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away.” (49:2)
A sharpened arrow is kept in the quiver until the moment it is needed. Hidden years are not wasted years.
“I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.” (49:4)
The honest cry of every apostle who sees little fruit. The answer is not success but trust: the outcome belongs to God.
“I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (49:6)
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that the characteristics of the Messiah are revealed above all in the Servant Songs, which proclaim the meaning of Jesus' Passion (CCC 713). The Second Vatican Council opened its constitution on the Church with the words “Christ is the light of nations”, a light that shines on the face of the Church (Lumen Gentium 1). On a Sunday of Qudash Edtha this is the Church's mission: to carry that light to the end of the earth.
Setting.
1 Peter is addressed to “the exiles of the Dispersion” in five provinces of Asia Minor (1:1). Most of them were converts from paganism, living as a small minority and suffering suspicion and slander for their faith. The letter is sent from “Babylon” (5:13), a code name for Rome.
Today's passage is the opening blessing. It follows the Jewish form of prayer that begins “Blessed be God” (the berakah). Many scholars hear in the letter the echo of teaching given at baptism: new birth, hope, testing and joy.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1:3)
Hope is “living” because its foundation is a living person, the risen Christ.
“and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,” (1:4)
“more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire” (1:7)
Gold was refined in the furnace to remove its impurities. Trials do not destroy faith; they show that it is real. Notice the link with today's Gospel: gold perishes, faith remains.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that through baptism we are delivered from sin and reborn as children of God (CCC 1213), and that hope responds to the desire for happiness that God has placed in every heart (CCC 1818). Because of its many baptismal themes, 1 Peter is read on the Sundays of Easter in one year of the Roman lectionary, the season when the Church welcomes the newly baptized. What we receive at the font is not a reward for this life but the pledge of the life to come.
Setting.
The passage follows directly on the rich young man (19:16–22), who asked what good deed would bring eternal life and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Jesus now speaks to his disciples about what they have just seen.
Many people of the time took wealth as a sign of God's blessing (compare Job 42:10–12; Deuteronomy 28:1–14). That is why the disciples are astonished: if the blessed rich cannot easily enter, who can?
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (19:24)
Matthew, who usually says “kingdom of heaven”, here writes “kingdom of God”. The two mean the same: “heaven” is a reverent way of saying “God”.
“For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” (19:26)
An echo of the angel's word to Mary (Luke 1:37) and of God's word to Abraham (Genesis 18:14). Salvation is always God's gift; a rich man too can be saved by grace, as Zacchaeus was (Luke 19:1–10).
“you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (19:28)
The Twelve are the foundation of the renewed people of God. “Judging” here also carries the Old Testament sense of ruling and leading, as the judges of Israel did.
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.” (19:29)
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that Jesus asks his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone, and that detachment from riches is necessary for entering the Kingdom (CCC 2544, 2556). It sees in the Twelve, with Peter at their head, the structure the Lord gave to his community: representing the twelve tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem (CCC 765). Clement of Alexandria, in his homily “Who is the rich man that shall be saved?”, teaches that the Lord does not condemn possessions themselves but the soul's attachment to them; riches are to be used for others (in substance).
Was there a gate in Jerusalem called “the Eye of the Needle”?
This explanation is popular, but there is no ancient evidence for such a gate; it appears only in much later writers. A few late manuscripts read kamilos, “rope”, instead of kamēlos, “camel”, probably to soften the saying. Jesus means the impossible, and then says that God does the impossible (19:26).
If God is called “the Lord” in Genesis, why does Exodus 6:3 say the patriarchs did not know this name?
Genesis does use the name, even in God's own words to the patriarchs (Genesis 15:7; 28:13). Exodus 6:3 means that they had not yet known the full meaning of the name. That meaning is shown in the Exodus: the Lord is the God who delivers and redeems. Scholars also note that these books join different strands of tradition.
Must every Christian leave home and family?
Some are called to leave everything literally, as priests and religious do. All are called to put Christ first and to hold everything for his name's sake (CCC 2544–2545). The Gospel does not abandon families; in the family of the Church they are received back “a hundredfold”.
Qudash Edtha is the last season of the East Syriac liturgical year; its Sundays look at the Church as God's dwelling and as the bride on her way to the Kingdom. Today's Gospel promises thrones to the Twelve. For the St Thomas Christians this has a family meaning: our Church traces its faith to one of those Twelve, the apostle Thomas, who left everything and, as our tradition holds, came to India. In the Holy Qurbana we already receive the pledge of the inheritance Peter speaks of, kept in heaven and given to us at the altar.