Tuesday, June 9, 2026
Tuesday of the Tenth week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 5:13-16
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
1 Kings 17:7-16
After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. The Lord’s word came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her, and said, “Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink.” As she was going to get it, he called to her, and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” She said, “As the Lord your God lives, I don’t have a cake, but a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go and do as you have said; but make me a little cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward make some for you and for your son. For the Lord, the God of Israel says, ‘The jar of meal will not run out, and the jar of oil will not fail, until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.’” She went and did according to the saying of Elijah; and she, and he, and her house, ate many days. The jar of meal didn’t run out, and the jar of oil did not fail, according to the Lord’s word, which he spoke by Elijah.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 4:1-2,3-4,6-7
You sons of men, how long shall my glory be turned into dishonor? Will you love vanity, and seek after falsehood? Selah. But know that the Lord has set apart for himself him who is godly: the Lord will hear when I call to him. Stand in awe, and don’t sin. Search your own heart on your bed, and be still. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness. Put your trust in the Lord. You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased. In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you, the Lord alone, make me live in safety.
Gospel
Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men. You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can’t be hidden. Neither do you light a lamp, and put it under a measuring basket, but on a stand; and it shines to all who are in the house. Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Lectio
The widow of Zarephath stands at the edge of her own ending. She has counted her supplies and counted her days, and the math is brutal: a handful of meal, a little oil, one last meal, and then death for herself and her son. Into this hopelessness Elijah speaks the strangest of requests — give to me first. Not after you have secured your own survival, not from your abundance, but from your scarcity, before you have taken care of yourself. And she does. The miracle does not precede her trust; it follows it. The jar does not fill until she has already poured out.
There is something quietly luminous in this woman, and it is exactly the light Jesus speaks of in the Gospel. She did not preach or perform. She simply gave what little she had, and in doing so became a city on a hill that we are still looking at thousands of years later. This is how salt works — not by drawing attention to itself, but by changing the flavor of everything around it. The psalmist understood that this kind of trust brings a peace the world cannot manufacture: *In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep.* The widow could face her last day without panic because she had handed it over to Someone larger than her empty jar.
We spend so much of our lives protecting our handful of meal, certain that if we give from our depletion there will be nothing left. But the readings whisper a different arithmetic — that what we cling to in fear stays small, and what we release in trust becomes the very place God chooses to act.
Where in your life right now are you holding tightly to your "handful of meal," convinced that you cannot afford to give until you are first secure — and what might God be asking you to pour out before you feel ready?
When you lie down tonight, will you be able to "lay yourself down and sleep" in peace, or is there a fear gnawing at you that you have not yet handed over to the God who fed the widow from an empty jar?
Saint of the day
St. Ephrem the Syrian, Doctor of the Church (c. 306-373)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora