June 14, 2026 Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel: Matthew 9:36–10:8
Today is the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. The passage from the Gospel of Saint Matthew describes the challenges faced by Jesus and His disciples in His time. I would say: this challenge remains present in the Church today.
Often, like the crowds whom Jesus saw when He first sent out His disciples to proclaim the Gospel, we too live amid various hardships and sufferings (cf. Mt 9:36–38). When we find ourselves in such distress, we are like the disciples crossing the sea with Jesus that night, caught in a violent storm, crying out to Him: “Teacher! We are perishing!” (cf. Mk 4:35–39)—for it seems to us that God no longer loves us.
But in truth, God, rich in mercy, has not abandoned us, nor left us to remain forever in sin and the death it brings. He gave His only Son, who offered Himself as a sacrifice on the cross, a sin offering for all our transgressions, reconciling us to Himself. Thus, Christ became the mediator of the new covenant, and through His death He atoned for the sins committed under the first covenant, so that those called might receive the promised inheritance (cf. Heb 9:15–16). For through the disobedience of the first Adam and Eve, we were born into original sin and plunged into death; but the second Adam—Christ—poured out His precious blood on the cross. “In the days of His flesh, He offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the One who was able to save Him from death” (cf. Heb 5:7). As He hung upon the cross, He prayed to the Father: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). When His side was pierced by the soldier’s spear, there flowed out blood and water (cf. Jn 19:34). It is in that blood and water flowing from His sacred side that we are cleansed from the stain of original sin, dying with Christ, buried with Him, so that we may be united with Him and share in His resurrection, beginning a new life in Him (cf. Rom 6:4–5).
Having been baptized into Christ and anointed with the Holy Spirit, we become children of God. We have a responsibility to cherish our own vocation and the vocation of the Church. Today, the Church needs Christians—especially the lay faithful—to take up the mission of evangelization. To evangelize, we must first understand what we proclaim: what God reveals through His Church, built upon Saint Peter. Only then can we rightly announce the word of God, inviting others to enter our churches, hear the divine message, and experience together the love of God, united in communion through our Lord Jesus Christ.
O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our pleas, and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace, that in following your commands we may please you by our resolve and our deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever
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