Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time, November 5, 2023 Before the first reading: After the return of the people Judah from exile, their priests were indifferent about their duties and unfair in their judgments. The prophet Malachi expresses God’s outrage at this. After the psalm, before the second reading: Saint Paul contrasts himself to some other religious teachers who had visited the Thessalonians. Paul’s credentials include the fact that he supported himself during his visit. Before the gospel acclamation: The community of the evangelist Matthew continues to ponder why other Jews rejected Jesus, and the nature of real leadership among God’s people. Proclaiming It: Notice that the person of the speaker changes in the last three short sentences. Where the prophet had been speaking in the voice of God, he switches to his own voice for three rhetorical questions. Pause before starting to proclaim those questions. Modulate your tone of voice, if you can, to bring out the difference. You can express the divine outrage by building your volume and sharpening your tone through the first sentence and the long second sentence, until you’re practically shouting “I will send a curse upon you.” When introducing the reading, pronounce the author’s name MAL uh kie, where the accented first syllable rhymes with “pal,” and the third syllable sounds like “eye.”