The Feast of St Leo the Great | Friday 10 November 2023

Today is Friday 10 November, the feast of Saint Leo the Great, in the 31st week of Ordinary time.

The Choir of Royal Holloway sings, ‘One In Christ’, by George Arthur’.

When we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home.
Dying and living you declared your love and opened the gate of glory.

Today’s reading is from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Rom 15:14-21



I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless, on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ. Thus, I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written,

‘Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.’


People generally dislike boasting and displays of self-promotion, but here Paul is ‘boasting in the Lord’. He praises God’s power at work amid human fragility. Are you aware of God’s power at work in your life, whatever your weaknesses might be?

Paul speaks of those who have never encountered Jesus getting to know him through Paul’s own life. Do you have a sense of living in such a way that others might get to know Jesus through you? How do you find yourself wanting to ‘live’ Jesus into life?

What words or feelings strike you as you listen to the reading once more? Allow whatever catches your attention to lead your response to God’s grace at work in you.

Whatever your feelings, allow yourself to speak to Jesus from your heart, expressing your thoughts and feelings, and asking for whatever you need at this time.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.