22 November 2025 (Saturday) / Saint Cecilia, Virgin, Martyr on Saturday of week 33 in Ordinary Time / Saint Cecilia, Virgin, Martyr Obligatory Memorial / Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

22 November 2025 (Saturday)

Saint Cecilia, Virgin, Martyr on Saturday of week 33 in Ordinary Time.

Saint Cecilia, Virgin, Martyr Obligatory Memorial.

Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: First Maccabees 6: 1-13
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 9: 2-3, 4 and 6, 16 and 19
Alleluia: Second Timothy 1: 10
Gospel: Luke 20: 27-40

First Reading : 1 Maccabees 6:1‐13

King Antiochus was making his way across the upper provinces; he had heard that in Persia there was a city called Elymais, renowned for its riches, its silver and gold, and its very wealthy temple containing golden armour, breastplates and weapons, left there by Alexander son of Philip, the king of Macedon, the first to reign over the Greeks. He therefore went and attempted to take the city and pillage it, but without success, since the citizens learnt of his intention, and offered him a stiff resistance, whereupon he turned about and retreated, disconsolate, in the direction of Babylon. But while he was still in Persia news reached him that the armies that had invaded the land of Judah had been defeated, and that Lysias in particular had advanced in massive strength, only to be forced to turn and flee before the Jews; these had been strengthened by the acquisition of arms, supplies and abundant spoils from the armies they had cut to pieces; they had overthrown the abomination he had erected over the altar in Jerusalem, and had encircled the sanctuary with high walls as in the past, and had fortified Bethzur, one of his cities. When the king heard this news he was amazed and profoundly shaken; he threw himself on his bed and fell into a lethargy from acute disappointment, because things had not turned out for him as he had planned. And there he remained for many days, subject to deep and recurrent fits of melancholy, until he understood that he was dying. Then summoning all his Friends, he said to them, ‘Sleep evades my eyes, and my heart is cowed by anxiety. I have been asking myself how I could have come to such a pitch of distress, so great a flood as that which now engulfs me – I who was so generous and well‐loved in my heyday. But now I remember the wrong I did in Jerusalem when I seized all the vessels of silver and gold there, and ordered the extermination of the inhabitants of Judah for no reason at all. This, I am convinced, is why these misfortunes have overtaken me, and why I am dying of melancholy in a foreign land.’

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 9(9):2‐4,6,16,19

I will rejoice in your saving help, O Lord.

I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will recount all your wonders. I will rejoice in you and be glad, and sing psalms to your name, O Most High.

I will rejoice in your saving help, O Lord.

See how my enemies turn back, how they stumble and perish before you. You have checked the nations, destroyed the wicked; you have wiped out their name for ever and ever.

I will rejoice in your saving help, O Lord.

The nations have fallen in the pit which they made, their feet caught in the snare they laid; for the needy shall not always be forgotten nor the hopes of the poor be in vain.

I will rejoice in your saving help, O Lord.

Alleluia: Second Timothy 1: 10
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
10 Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
(6. That is why I am reminding you now to fan into a flame the gift of God that you possess through the laying on of my hands.
7. God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power and love and self-control.
8. So you are never to be ashamed of witnessing to our Lord, or ashamed of me for being his prisoner; but share in my hardships for the sake of the gospel, relying on the power of God
9. who has saved us and called us to be holy -- not because of anything we ourselves had done but for his own purpose and by his own grace. This grace had already been granted to us, in Christ Jesus, before the beginning of time,
10. but it has been revealed only by the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus. He has abolished death, and he has brought to light immortality and life through the gospel,
11. in whose service I have been made herald, apostle and teacher.
12. That is why I am experiencing my present sufferings; but I am not ashamed, because I know in whom I have put my trust, and I have no doubt at all that he is able to safeguard until that Day what I have entrusted to him.
13. Keep as your pattern the sound teaching you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
14. With the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, look after that precious thing given in trust).

Gospel : Luke 20:27‐40

Some Sadducees – those who say that there is no resurrection – approached Jesus and they put this question to him, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, that if a man’s married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers. The first, having married a wife, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally the woman herself died. Now, at the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife since she had been married to all seven?’ Jesus replied, ‘The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.’ Some scribes then spoke up. ‘Well put, Master’ they said – because they would not dare to ask him any more questions.

For our reflection today:

With this response, first and foremost, Jesus invites His interlocutors — and us too — to consider that this earthly dimension in which we now live is not the only dimension, but that there is another, no longer subject to death, which will fully manifest that we are children of God. It is of great comfort and hope to listen to this simple and clear word of Jesus about life beyond death; we need it very much especially in our time, so rich in knowledge about the universe but so lacking in wisdom about eternal life. Jesus responds that life belongs to God, who loves us and cares very deeply about us, to the point of linking His name to ours. Life exists where there is [a] bond, communion, brotherhood; and it is a life stronger than death when it is built on true relationships and bonds of fidelity. On the contrary, there is no life where one has the presumption of belonging only to oneself and of living as an island: death prevails in these attitudes. It is selfishness. If I live for myself, I am sowing death in my heart. (Pope Francis, Angelus, 10 November 2019)

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Most High Servant,
Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love (Blessed  and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)