22 January 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” 1 Corinthians 4:15
On the third Friday of Denha the Church honours the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, through whom the good news has reached every land. The readings show what the Gospel is: God making himself known. On Mount Carmel Elijah repairs the broken altar with twelve stones, “according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob”, soaks the offering with water and prays: “Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Fire falls, and the whole people cries: “The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God.” This is Denha: the true God revealed. In Acts the same God works “many signs and wonders” through the apostles, and the sick are laid in the streets so “that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them”.
In the Gospel Jesus calls the Twelve by name; among them are “James son of Zebedee, and his brother John” and “Thomas and Matthew the tax collector”. He sends them out: “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’” And he adds: “You received without payment; give without payment.” The Evangelists did in writing what the Twelve did by voice: Matthew and John from among the Twelve, Mark and Luke from the circle of Peter and Paul. Paul tells the Corinthians what it cost: “We are fools for the sake of Christ”, hungry, homeless, reviled; yet “in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” Through their four books the Evangelists are fathers in faith to us too. In Kerala the faith first preached by the Apostle Thomas has been fed for centuries by these Gospels, read at every Holy Qurbana.
Theme: “In Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.”
The four Evangelists: God revealed, the Twelve sent, fathers in faith.
“When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God.”” 1 Kings 18:39
“But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:31
Apply: Thank God for the Gospels and those who brought them to Kerala.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”” Isaiah 52:7
“As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.” Matthew 10:7–8
Apply: Share the Gospel freely with one person this week.
“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.” Jeremiah 15:16
“For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” 1 Corinthians 4:15
Apply: Read one Gospel chapter every day.
The Evangelists wrote what the apostles preached.
Through the Gospel they are our fathers in faith; we must pass it on.
Take-home resolution: Read one Gospel chapter every day for the rest of January.
Dear friends, on the third Friday of Denha we honour the four Evangelists. The first reading takes us to Mount Carmel. Elijah rebuilds the broken altar of the LORD with twelve stones, pours water on the offering three times, and prays: answer me, O LORD, so that this people may know that you are God. The fire falls, and the people cry: the LORD indeed is God (1 Kings 18:39).
Denha means manifestation: God showing himself. In Acts he shows himself again: many signs and wonders are done through the apostles, and people lay the sick in the streets hoping Peter's shadow will fall on them (Acts 5:12–15).
In the Gospel Jesus calls the Twelve by name and sends them: as you go, proclaim the good news, the kingdom of heaven has come near. You received without payment; give without payment (Matthew 10:7–8). Matthew and John were among them. Mark and Luke learned from Peter and Paul. What the apostles preached, the Evangelists wrote, so that the good news could reach us.
It was not easy. Paul says: we are fools for the sake of Christ, hungry, poorly clothed, homeless. But he also says: in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel (1 Corinthians 4:15). Each time we open a Gospel, these fathers in faith speak to us. Let us read one Gospel this month, and pass on freely what we have freely received. Amen.
Children, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote down the story of Jesus for us! Jesus said: you received for free, so give for free. Share something with a friend today, and read a little of the Gospel every day.
Lord Jesus, you sent the Twelve to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven has come near, and through the four Evangelists your Gospel has reached us. Let the fire of your Spirit fall on our hearts, so that we may say with all your people: the Lord indeed is God. Make us glad to give freely what we have freely received. Amen.
On this Friday of Denha the Church remembers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the four readings show what their work is about: God making himself known. On Carmel, Elijah prays that a wavering people may know who God is, and fire answers. In Acts the same God works through the apostles among the sick of Jerusalem. Paul tells the Corinthians what it costs to carry this message, and calls himself their father through the gospel. In Matthew, Jesus names the Twelve and sends them out with empty hands. The Evangelists did in writing what the Twelve did by voice. The key words are know, sent and without payment.
Setting.
The scene belongs to the ninth century BC, in the northern kingdom of Israel. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel have promoted the worship of Baal (16:31–33), who was honoured as the god of storm and rain. So the drought announced by Elijah (17:1) challenges Baal on his own ground. On Mount Carmel Elijah puts the question plainly: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions?” (18:21). The prophets of Baal have cried out all day, and “there was no voice, no answer, and no response” (18:29). Now it is Elijah’s turn.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“First he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down;” (18:30)
Before he asks for anything he repairs. The twelve stones (v. 31) are striking, because the kingdom had long been divided and Elijah is standing in the north. He builds for the whole family of Jacob, the Israel that God intends.
“Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” (18:37)
After a whole day of shouting by others, this prayer is brief. Elijah does not ask to be proved right. He asks that the people may know God, and he sees that even their turning back is God’s own work.
“Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench.” (18:38)
The water poured in a time of drought made any trick impossible. Everything on the altar is taken, even the stones and the water.
“The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.” (18:39)
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism counts this among the great prayers of the Old Testament, and it notes that the Eastern liturgies repeat Elijah’s plea, “Answer me”, in the Eucharistic epiclesis (CCC 2583). The Letter of James holds him up as “a human being like us” whose prayer was heard (James 5:17). Sirach calls him “a prophet like fire” (Sirach 48:1). Mar Ephrem loved this language: fire and Spirit are in the womb of Mary, in the Jordan, in our baptism, and in the bread and the cup (Hymns on Faith 10, in substance). That is why this reading suits Denha.
Setting.
This is the third of Luke’s short summaries of life in the first community (compare 2:42–47 and 4:32–35). The apostles have already been warned by the authorities (4:18), and the grave story of Ananias and Sapphira has just been told (5:1–11), which helps to explain why “none of the rest dared to join them” (v. 13). The believers meet in Solomon’s Portico, a colonnade on the east side of the Temple court (see 3:11; John 10:23). They are still Jews praying in their own Temple.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles.” (5:12)
The Greek says literally “through the hands of the apostles”, as the Malayalam POC keeps it. The hands are theirs; the power is not.
“in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by.” (5:15)
Luke does not teach that shadows have power. He reports the faith of simple people, as with the fringe of Jesus’ cloak (Mark 6:56) and later with Paul’s handkerchiefs (Acts 19:12). God is pleased to work through created things and through people, and the sacraments rest on the same truth.
“A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.” (5:16)
How the Church reads it.
The Church continues this ministry to the sick. The Catechism teaches that the Lord sends his disciples to heal in his name (CCC 1506–1507), and it also says honestly that even the most intense prayers do not obtain the healing of every illness (CCC 1508). St Luke, whom tradition honours today, wrote this book as the second part of his work (Acts 1:1), so that the story of Jesus should not end with the Gospel but go on in the Church.
Setting.
Paul wrote to Corinth from Ephesus in the mid-50s. The community he founded is split into parties around favourite teachers (1:12; 3:4), and some members think they have already arrived: “Already you have become rich!” (4:8). His answer is sharply ironic. If they are kings, what does that make the apostles?
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.” (4:10)
This is irony, not self-pity. The Corinthians measure success as the city does. Paul has already said that the message of the cross looks like foolishness (1:18).
“When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;” (4:12)
This is the Sermon on the Mount lived in a working life. Paul adds that he grows “weary from the work of our own hands”, a thing educated Greeks tended to look down on.
“For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” (4:15)
“In Christ Jesus” and “through the gospel” are the limits of this fatherhood. He does not take God’s place. The life passes through him from Christ.
“I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me.” (4:16)
He later adds the condition that explains it: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (11:1).
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council takes up this verse when it asks priests to care, as fathers in Christ, for those they have begotten spiritually through baptism and teaching (Lumen Gentium 28). On this day the passage can be applied to the Evangelists too. They too are fathers in faith, and those who first carried their books often paid the price Paul describes.
Setting.
This is the beginning of the second of the five great discourses in Matthew (chapters 5–7, 10, 13, 18, 24–25). Just before it Jesus sees the crowds “like sheep without a shepherd” and tells his disciples to pray for labourers (9:36–38). Now those who were told to pray become the answer to their own prayer.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter,” (10:2)
Twelve recalls the twelve tribes: Jesus is gathering the whole of Israel (19:28). Only here in the lists is Matthew called “the tax collector” (10:3; compare Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15). The Gospel that bears his name does not hide where he came from. Thomas stands beside him. The lists differ a little: Luke has Judas son of James where Matthew has Thaddaeus, and some manuscripts of Matthew read Lebbaeus.
“Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,” (10:5)
This is the order of God’s plan: Israel first (compare Romans 1:16). The same Gospel ends with “make disciples of all nations” (28:19). Between those two commands the Gentile centurion and the Canaanite woman have already appeared (8:5–13; 15:21–28).
“You received without payment; give without payment.” (10:8)
“Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts,” (10:9)
The lack of baggage is itself a message: God provides, and the messenger depends on those who receive him. Mark allows a staff and sandals (Mark 6:8–9), so the point is the attitude, not an exact rule of equipment. The early Church manual called the Didache warns that a travelling apostle who asks for money is a false prophet (Didache 11, in substance).
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism sees in the Twelve, representing the tribes of Israel, the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem (CCC 765), and it says that the whole Church is apostolic because she is sent into the world (CCC 863). On the Evangelists, the Second Vatican Council teaches that what the apostles preached at Christ’s command, they and apostolic men handed on in writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Dei Verbum 18). The Catechism calls the Gospels the heart of all the Scriptures (CCC 125) and gives them unique honour in the Church’s worship (CCC 127). St Irenaeus compared the four Gospels with the four winds and the four corners of the earth, so that the one Gospel reaches everywhere (Against Heresies 3.11, in substance).
Did the four men named really write the Gospels?
The Church teaches firmly that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin (Dei Verbum 18). Ancient tradition names Matthew and John from the Twelve, and Mark and Luke from the circle of Peter and Paul. Many scholars today think that disciples and communities also had a hand in the final form of some of these books. The Church’s concern is that they faithfully hand on what Jesus did and taught, under the Spirit’s inspiration (Dei Verbum 11, 19).
Jesus says, “call no one your father” (Matthew 23:9). So why do we call priests “father”?
Jesus is warning against claiming the honour that belongs to God alone. The same New Testament has Paul writing “I became your father through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). A spiritual father is a channel of what comes from the Father, never his rival.
Did Peter’s shadow really heal people?
Luke reports what the people hoped and that the sick were cured. He does not say the shadow had power of its own. The healer is the risen Lord, who works through his apostles and meets people in their simple faith.
The Fridays of Denha keep a line of witnesses: in this year’s calendar, St John the Baptist, Sts Peter and Paul, the Evangelists, and St Stephen. We who received the faith through the tradition of Mar Thoma hear him named today among the Twelve, and we hear the four Gospels read at every Holy Qurbana. When the Gospel is read and we stand, we are standing before the words that these men handed down at great cost.