Friday, June 12, 2026
Sacred Heart of Jesus - Solemnity
Matthew 11:25-30
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Deuteronomy 7:6-11
For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth. The Lord didn’t set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples: but because the Lord loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you today, to do them.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 103:1-2,3-4,6-7,8,10
Praise the Lord, my soul! All that is within me, praise his holy name! Praise the Lord, my soul, and don’t forget all his benefits; who forgives all your sins; who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies; the Lord executes righteous acts, and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities.
Gospel
Matthew 11:25-30
At that time, Jesus answered, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in your sight. All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Lectio
There is a tender logic running through today's readings, and it begins where we least expect God to begin: with smallness. Moses tells the people plainly that they were not chosen because they were impressive or numerous — they were, in fact, "the fewest of all peoples." God did not love them because they earned it. He loved them simply because He loved them. This is the strange grammar of the heart of God, a love that has no cause outside of itself. And on this feast of the Sacred Heart, we are invited to stand before that love not as accomplished men and women, but as the little ones to whom the Father reveals what He hides from the wise.
The psalmist knows this love by its effects: it forgives, it heals, it crowns, it does not repay us according to our sins. And then Jesus speaks the words that gather all of it into a single, quiet invitation — "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened." Notice that He does not promise to remove the yoke. He offers to share it. The rest He gives is not the rest of having nothing to carry, but the rest of being carried alongside Someone who is "gentle and humble in heart." We so often imagine that God's love must be earned by our competence, our strength, our flawless keeping of every statute. But the Heart of Christ bends toward the weary, not the self-sufficient.
Perhaps the deepest conversion asked of us is not to work harder, but to let ourselves be loved without reason — to become, again, the small and the unimpressive who can actually receive what is freely given.
Where in your life are you still trying to earn a love that today's readings insist was given to you before you did anything to deserve it?
What is the particular burden you are carrying alone right now — and what would it mean, concretely, to bring it to Christ this very day rather than continuing to shoulder it by yourself?
Saint of the day
St. John of St. Fagondez, Priest († 1479)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora