The Memorial of Saint Hedwig
We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will, To the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ. In him you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation — in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, Who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory.
Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous! Praise is fitting for the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre. Sing praises to him with the harp of ten strings.
For the Lord's word is right. All his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the loving kindness of the Lord.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, The people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord looks from heaven. He sees all the sons of men.
Meanwhile, when a multitude of many thousands had gathered together, so much so that they trampled on each other, he began to tell his disciples first of all, "Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light. What you have spoken in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
"I tell you, my friends, don't be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom you should fear. Fear him who after he has killed, has power to cast into Gehenna. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
"Aren't five sparrows sold for two assaria coins? Not one of them is forgotten by God. But the very hairs of your head are all counted. Therefore don't be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows.
Saint Hedwig of Silesia was a thirteenth-century duchess who used her considerable wealth and influence to build hospitals, care for prisoners, and reconcile warring factions — a woman who took the inheritance she'd been given and poured it outward. That's a fitting entry point for everything these readings are asking us to sit with today.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians opens with this dense, almost overwhelming image: we have been *assigned an inheritance*. Not earned it. Not stumbled into it. Assigned it — foreordained, sealed, claimed. The Holy Spirit functions here the way a down payment functions on a house: it's the guarantee that the full thing is coming. We already belong to something larger than we can see on any given Tuesday.
And then Luke's Gospel does something interesting. Jesus doesn't let that inheritance become abstract comfort. Notice how quickly he moves from cosmic belonging to the very hairs of our heads. Five sparrows sold for two small coins — essentially worthless in the ancient marketplace — and not one of them slips past God's attention. We are, Jesus says plainly, worth more than many sparrows.
The tension here is that we often live as though the opposite were true. We perform, we hide, we whisper things in dark rooms that we'd never say in the light — because somewhere underneath the inheritance language, we don't quite trust that we're actually kept. Hypocrisy, Jesus warns, is yeast: it spreads quietly and changes everything around it.
Hedwig understood that security in God's love isn't meant to make us comfortable — it's meant to make us free. Free to give, free to be honest, free to stop managing how we appear.
What are we currently hiding that we're afraid to bring into the light? Where does fear of others' judgment shape our choices more than trust in God's care? And what would it look like to actually live today as someone who has already been claimed?