Jesus tells his disciples about a man who goes to a friend at midnight to borrow three loaves for an unexpected guest, and who gets what he needs "because of his persistence." Then he applies it: "ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." If even flawed parents give good gifts to their children, he says, "how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Paul, in the first reading, reminds the Galatians where the Spirit came from: "did you receive the Spirit from works of the law, or from faith in what you heard?" Today's news has a pope asking for the freedom to listen, religious leaders preparing to ask for peace, and bishops asking a governor for mercy.

The deeper reflection on today's readings - and a daily prayer for your household - is waiting in the & Altar app and at andaltar.com. More after the news.

📰 Quick Hits

1. Pope Leo Opens the Family Meeting: "The Beauty and Fragility of Families"

Pope Leo XIV opened the Vatican's weeklong meeting of bishops' conference presidents and Eastern Catholic Church leaders on Wednesday, speaking in English from a round table among more than 150 bishops. "During these days dedicated to prayer and reflection, we intend to place the beauty and fragility of families at the heart of our journey," he said. He noted that young people "continue to long for love, fidelity and belonging," yet many find it hard to believe a lifelong commitment is how to reach it, and he asked: "What kind of Church, then, do people encounter precisely when they are most fragile?" He ended with a prayer: "May the Lord give us the freedom to listen to one another, the wisdom to recognize his work among his people, and the courage to follow where he leads us, so that, each day, the Gospel may become ever more fully good news for families throughout the world." The rest of the meeting is closed-door and ends October 14 with a Mass in St. Peter's Square.

Faith Lens for the Home: Jesus tells us to ask, and the Pope begins a week of work the same way: "I ask the Lord to help us gather together the fruits" of these ten years. Ask your family: "What are we asking God for in our own household, and are we willing to keep asking?" Pray this week for the bishops and for every family you know that is going through a fragile time.

2. Pope Leo Will Pray for Peace in Assisi, 40 Years After John Paul II

Pope Leo XIV will travel to Assisi on October 27, forty years to the day after St. John Paul II invited representatives of the world's religions there for a World Day of Prayer for Peace. The three-day gathering, October 25-27, was presented by the Community of Sant'Egidio, which has carried on the "Spirit of Assisi" each year since 1986, and it takes its title, "Disarmed and Disarming Peace," from Pope Leo's own words. On the final day the Pope will pray for peace with the Christian community in the Lower Basilica, where he and Patriarch Bartholomew will each offer a meditation, and then give a message of peace in the piazza outside the Basilica of St. Francis. As John Paul II explained at the time, participants came "to be together to pray," and each tradition prayed separately, according to its own identity.

Faith Lens for the Home: Jesus says to keep asking, and since 1986 Assisi has been one of the ways the Church asks for peace. Ask your family: "Which wars are we asking God to end, and do we ask every day or only when it's in the news?" Pray a decade of the Rosary for peace, as Pope Leo asked all the faithful to do throughout October.

3. Tennessee's Catholic Bishops Ask the Governor to Spare Christa Pike

A week after Tennessee's failed attempt to execute Christa Pike, now 50, who survived two doses of pentobarbital, she is awake and speaking in a hospital, her attorneys say. On Wednesday a Nashville judge ordered the state to preserve all evidence from the attempt, and Gov. Bill Lee has halted executions for the rest of the year and ordered an independent investigation of the state's capital punishment system. Tennessee's Catholic bishops joined other faith leaders in an October 1 letter asking Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison: "Such an act does not deny justice. It declares that justice need not become vengeance and that the State of Tennessee can choose restraint, human dignity, and mercy." The letter says it is "mindful of the horrific murder of Colleen Slemmer and the immeasurable grief endured by her family and those who loved her." Pike was convicted of the 1995 killing of Slemmer, 19, and the Tennessee Department of Correction says it "followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol."

Faith Lens for the Home: The Catechism teaches that the death penalty is inadmissible today because it is "an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person," and because modern societies can protect citizens without taking a life. Ask your family: "What is the difference between justice and vengeance, and how do we teach it when we are angry?" Pray for Colleen Slemmer's family, for Christa Pike, and for the people who must decide what happens next.

⛪ Family Saint Spotlight

St. Simeon - October 8

Simeon appears only in Luke 2: a righteous and devout man in Jerusalem, awaiting the consolation of Israel, to whom the Holy Spirit had revealed that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. When Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the Temple, Simeon took him in his arms and blessed God with the prayer the Church still says every day at Compline, the Nunc Dimittis. He then told Mary that a sword would pierce her own soul, the first of her Seven Sorrows. Tradition remembers him as an old man. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on October 8, though there is no Mass feast for him on the calendar today.

Ask at dinner: "Simeon waited for what God had promised and recognized it when it came. What are we still waiting on God for, and how do we keep asking?"

✋ One Simple Action

Tonight, ask God for one specific thing for your household, and tell your children what you asked for. Then keep asking every night this week, the way the man at the door does in the Gospel. Add two intentions to your Rosary: peace for the world, and mercy for everyone touched by the Pike case.

📚 Read More

• Pope Leo opens the family meeting: Vatican, official text of his opening address (https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2026/october/documents/20261007-anniversario-amoris-laetitia.html) and OSV News (https://www.osvnews.com/pope-leo-opens-vatican-bishops-meeting-calling-attention-to-the-fragility-of-families/)
• Pope Leo to Assisi: Vatican News (https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-10/pope-leo-assisi-40-years-john-paul-2-religions-peace-prayer.html) and the Vatican's Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue reflection on 1986, via the Diocese of Westminster (https://rcdow.org.uk/world-day-of-prayer-for-peace-vatican-reflection/)
• Tennessee bishops and Christa Pike: Catholic Review, OSV News (https://catholicreview.org/tennessee-catholic-bishops-join-call-for-clemency-for-inmate-who-survived-execution-attempt/) and NPR via KPBS, on the court ruling (https://www.kpbs.org/news/national/2026/10/07/judge-orders-that-christa-pike-execution-evidence-be-preserved)
• St. Simeon: Christian Iconography, with the Roman Martyrology entry (https://www.christianiconography.info/simeon.html) and New Liturgical Movement (https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/02/the-feast-of-saints-simeon-and-anne.html)

A man knocks at midnight and gets what he needs because he won't give up. A pope opens a week of work by asking the Lord for the freedom to listen. Religious leaders are preparing to gather in Assisi to ask for peace, and bishops have asked a governor for mercy. Simeon waited a lifetime and then held the answer in his arms. Ask tonight, and keep asking.