Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
5 July 2026
What if we woke up every morning and said to Jesus: I can’t carry the burden of this day without you. I need you to teach me. I need you to lead me and to guide me. I need you to place your yoke upon me.
If you are like me, you need a daily reminder from Jesus to come to him, and take his yoke upon you and learn from him. It’s too easy to get caught up in life and forget to do this. It’s too easy to neglect our soul. It’s too easy to forget that we don’t have to bear life’s burden ourselves. That Jesus wants us to take his yoke upon us so that he can help bear our burden. Most of us need a daily reminder to do this.
This daily invitation from Jesus can become something even more than that. It can also become our daily mission. What if we approached every day with this invitation in mind for others? What if we kept this invitation in mind whenever we met someone who was weary and carrying a heavy burden?
We can see plenty of evidence all around our world of this weariness, this burden. We see a world that regularly neglects its soul, and desperately tries to distract itself from all of life’s burdens, and will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing its soul. Our world needs to know that there is a place to turn when life becomes overwhelming. That there is one who wants to help bear the burden, if we will only come to him.
James Laurence mypastoralponderings.com
* * *
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
12 July 2026
Despite the imagery Jesus uses in today’s gospel this parable isn’t about farming or gardening. You know that and so do I. It’s about us, you and me. It’s about our lives, marriages, parenting, and friendships. It’s about our work and our faith. It’s about our pain and needs. It’s about those who are struggling and holding on by a thread. It’s about injustice and the violence we do to ourselves, others, and our environment. It’s about living with meaning and purpose. It’s about healing, wholeness, and well-being for others as well as ourselves. It’s about hope and our future. It’s about the coming of God’s kingdom, the one we pray for every Sunday. Jesus is tossing out a story the way the sower tosses out seeds. The story lands beside our lives as a mirror in which to see ourselves, as a window into our hearts.
Seeds are about life. They hold possibility and potential. They get things started. They are a beginning. They carry our hopes. They are the sower’s commitment to the future.
There are all sorts of seeds – seeds of love, friendship, compassion, forgiveness; seeds of vulnerability and intimacy; seeds of hope and change; seeds of success and accomplishment; seeds of truth, healing, and justice; seeds of anger, resentment, discord, and division; seeds of judgment, indifference, fear, hatred. Every feeling, emotion, attitude, and experience we have comes with a packet of seeds and we each have to decide if that’s really what we want to scatter on the earth, in our families and friendships.
Michael K. Marsh
interruptingthesilence.com
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
19 July 2026
The picture in the parable this Sunday would be familiar to a Palestinian audience. A weed called the bearded darnel was one of the curses a farmer had to endure. In the early stages darnel so closely resembled wheat that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. Both must be left to grow until the harvest time. In ancient times, sowing seeds among a growing crop was a criminal act. Even to this day in India, one of the direst threats which someone can make to an enemy is ‘I will sow bad seed in your field’.
There is always the temptation within a community for it to become a Church of the pure, a Church of the elite. The parable of the darnel presupposes such a temptation. ‘Do you want us to go and weed out the darnel?’ ‘No’ said Jesus, ‘because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it’. It is quite clear that Jesus is interested above all in saving the good grain. He wants to give the wheat every possible chance. In this life nobody can pretend to adopt that attitude that divides everything into two distinct categories; good and evil, truth and error. Heresy itself can have its grain of truth and the true teaching can contain traces of error. As Gerard McGinty once wrote ‘It is possible to sense the presence of an angel and yet scent the devil’. We must practice the difficult art of discernment – a question of uniting two apparently contradictory attitudes – wanting to be the wheat and at the same time taking a stand against the ‘world’ and its desires.
blessingtonparish.ie
* * *
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
26 July 2026 • World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly
A rather unusual sower goes out to sow, but does not care where the seed falls. He throws the seeds even where it is unlikely they will bear fruit: on the path, on the rocks, among the thorns. This attitude surprises the listener and induces him to ask: how come? We are used to calculating things – and at times it is necessary – but this does not apply in love! The way in which this ‘wasteful’ sower throws the seed is an image of the way God loves us. Indeed, it is true that the destiny of the seed depends also on the way in which the earth welcomes it and the situation in which it finds itself, but first and foremost in this parable Jesus tells us that God throws the seed of his Word on all kinds of soil, that is, in any situation of ours: at times we are more superficial and distracted, at times we let ourselves get carried away by enthusiasm, sometimes we are burdened by life’s worries, but there are also times when we are willing and welcoming. God is confident and hopes that sooner or later the seed will blossom. This is how he loves us: he does not wait for us to become the best soil, but he always generously gives us his word. Perhaps by seeing that he trusts us, the desire to be better soil will be kindled in us. This is hope, founded on the rock of God’s generosity and mercy.
Pope Leo, May 2025
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 August 2026
What will happen to us if we are generous? We never run out of things to give be it money, goods, intellect or anything that we are generous of giving. Everything flows back in return a hundredfold. Why is this so? The reason behind is, the moment we give; we don’t only give to the person who needs it we also give to Jesus. And Jesus whom we can never outdo in generosity gives back to us many times over what we give Him. With five loaves and two fish He feed the nearly five thousand people not including women and children. After all of them had eaten they had an excess of twelve wicker baskets. The simple message of the gospel for us is we must be generous at all times.
We just have to look at what is happening during Holy Mass which is very similar to what happened with the feeding of the five thousand people in our gospel. Inside every Holy Mass Jesus generously gives to us His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity during Holy Communion. Has Jesus stopped giving Himself to us during Holy Mass? No, Since HE instituted the Eucharist up until this very moment Jesus has been generously giving Himself to us through Holy Communion. As Jesus is merciful and generous most especially to the poor so we must be also. Let us not worry if our pockets will hurt from our being merciful and generous. For Jesus will always see to it that we will be filled with anything that we need.
Marino J. Dasmarinas
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
9 August 2026
The storm at sea is Jesus’ response to the problem of storms in our lives. First, Jesus shows that he is present even where we least expect him. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea he identified himself with the words, It is I, ego eimi in Greek, the same words God used to identified himself to Moses on Mt Sinai.
Next, the story teaches us a powerful prayer: ‘Lord, save me.’ St Peter’s cry occurs only once in the whole bible, but it goes to the heart of our helplessness. True to his name, Peter ‘the rock’, he begins to sink like a stone. Peter cries out: ‘Lord, save me.’ At Mass we repeat the litany, ‘Lord, have mercy.’ In our private prayers we might say with the publican: ’Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.’ But, Peter’s short pray includes them all: ‘Lord, save me.’
Finally, the story teaches how Jesus helps us. He brings us back to the boat. That’s the climax of Matthew’s story: Jesus saves by bringing us into the praying community. Separated from the boat, from the people of God, we are exposed to being overwhelmed by the wind and the waves. The Christian assembly gathered in church at the Eucharist is the boat that carries us safely to the other shore. To this day the long central part of our Church buildings, where the community gathers to pray, is called a nave, from the Latin word navis, which means a boat.
As successors of the first Christians, with grateful love and one voice, we proclaim our faith together saying, ‘Jesus, truly, you are the Son of God.’
Fr Stephen Verbest
newmellery.org
* * *
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
15 August 2026
The Taj Mahal has been described as a ‘love song in marble.’ Completed in 1645, the magnificent marble mausoleum was built by Shah Jahan, India’s Mogul emperor, in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal (= ‘the chosen one of the palace’).
Her maiden name was Princess Arjumand. Shah Jahan loved her deeply, calling her his ‘Taj Mahal,’ meaning ‘The Pearl of the Palace.’ But Princess Mumtaz Mahal died giving birth to their fourteenth child, and the emperor was inconsolable.
So, he summoned a great architect from Persia to build the Taj Mahal, telling him that it must be ‘the one perfect memorial in the world.’ Seventeen years were needed to build this enchanting edifice of gleaming white marble embroidered with flashing jewels. It is an enduring monument to love that still inspires tourists, artists, and writers from all over the world.
This beautiful love story gives us some idea of how much God must have loved Mary, the mother of Jesus. Today’s feast of her Assumption into Heaven is proof of this.
By raising her from the dead and taking her into Heaven – body and soul – God demonstrated His undying love for Mary. Like Shah Jahan, God could not bear the death of His beloved. However, God could do what no Indian emperor could do – raise His beloved from the dead and restore her to life even more beautiful than before.
Moreover, God didn’t have to build a Taj Mahal to memorialize Mary. Her glorified body is itself a magnificent temple of the Holy Spirit. (Albert Cylwicki in His Word Resounds).
Fr Tony Kadavil
frtonyshomilies.com/
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
16 August 2026
We admire the mother or father who really fights for their child. They won’t take no for an answer if their child is being bullied or treated unjustly in any way, they will fight for the best medical treatment for their sick child. The woman in the gospel is like that.
She has a sick child and really wants healing. Who would not want the same? She almost forces Jesus into curing her little daughter. Her persistence is an effect of her faith, and because of her faith Jesus cures her child.
‘Dogs’ was a name for the Gentiles – and in this story the woman plays on its meaning to get Jesus to feed the dogs and, in this way, care for her.
Maybe this is a ‘change moment’ for Jesus when he realises through this poor woman that he is sent not only to his own lost ones, but that his mission is for the whole world.
This is not the first biblical figure to argue with the Lord: Genesis and Exodus tell of times when Abraham and Moses gave out to God. This woman is different from the scribes who often tried to trap Jesus with arguments.
She is begging for her daughter. There is something teasing and humorous about Jesus’ first reply to her. He enjoyed that Semitic style of thrust and counter.
His first response is what we often experience in prayer: no give. But a mother seeking health for her child is not easily deterred, and Jesus rewards her persistence – I imagine him smiling as he blesses her.
sacredspace.com • The Irish Jesuits
* * *
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
23 August 2026
On many occasions, Jesus asks his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Son of God, the Messiah. Why might that be? The only reason I can imagine is that he’s saying every one of us has to come to that knowledge for ourselves.
We can’t let someone else do our spiritual homework for us, but many of us do. We Catholics let the pope, bishops, and priests give us all the answers and then we just parrot them back. Has there been any experience of it ourselves?
Often, the answer is ‘usually not.’ Many Christians believe what we’re supposed to believe. But here Jesus says, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ What have you experienced? What have you personally discovered? What knowledge do you have?
This passage is most often used to preach the primacy of the papacy since Jesus tells Peter, ‘You are the rock upon which I will build my church.’
That’s true, but a couple chapters later Jesus says the identical thing to the whole community: ‘Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. What you loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven’ (Matthew 18:18).
Jesus is not only talking about the pope; he’s talking about the people of God, all of us. Peter as the symbolic leader has to do it first, but then we all participate in passing on the message.
Center for action and contemplation
cac.org
* * *
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
30 August 2026
Peter has just been congratulated as the rock on which Jesus will build his church. He is comfortable in a theology of grace and glory. Suddenly that rock looks sandy and unsafe.
Jesus calls him abruptly out of his comfort zone into the real world where suffering must be faced (cross is used here as a proverbial term for suffering and agony, not referring specifically to Jesus’ crucifixion).
One of the ideas in the gospel is that we take up the cross of doing what is right and being willing to bear it. Like parents who try to explain, cajole, encourage and define what is right for their children, even when they are thought foolish. Jesus bore a cross to the end of his convictions and love.
Taking the cross is also accepting and living with pain, suffering of any sort, and the griefs of life we can do nothing about. Crosses may be inflicted on us by others.
We know of people who have accepted a heavy burden in life and who ploughed tough furrows, through no fault of their own. They have been helped often by the example of the one who carried the cross to the end. Help often came to them also from family, friends and neighbours.
On the way to Calvary, Jesus was helped by one man, remembered forever, Simon from Africa. Help can come from expected or unexpected quarters, but help there must be if we are to bear our crosses in life. In prayer we might ask how we help those near us carry the burdens of their lives.
sacredspace.com • The Irish Jesuit