Sunday, June 21, 2026
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Matthew 10:26-33
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Jeremiah 20:10-13
For I have heard the defaming of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce, and we will denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall. “Perhaps he will be persuaded, and we will prevail against him, and we will take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me as an awesome mighty one. Therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they won’t prevail. They will be utterly disappointed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonor which will never be forgotten. But, the Lord of Hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance on them; for to you I have revealed my cause. Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord, for he has delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 69:7-9,13,16,32-34
I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s children. For the zeal of your house consumes me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. When I wept and I fasted, that was to my reproach. Deliver me out of the mire, and don’t let me sink. Let me be delivered from those who hate me, and out of the deep waters. Don’t hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Answer me speedily! For the Lord hears the needy, and doesn’t despise his captive people. Let heaven and earth praise him; the seas, and everything that moves therein! For God will save Zion, and build the cities of Judah. They shall settle there, and own it.
Gospel
Matthew 10:26-33
Therefore don’t be afraid of them, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed; and hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in the ear, proclaim on the housetops. Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. “Aren’t two sparrows sold for an assarion coin? Not one of them falls on the ground apart from your Father’s will, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore don’t be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows. Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.
Lectio
There is a particular loneliness that comes when those closest to us turn away — Jeremiah feels it in the whispers of his "familiar friends," and the psalmist names it more sharply still: a stranger to his own brothers, an alien to his mother's children. This is not the abstract suffering of an enemy attack but the intimate wound of being misunderstood by people we love, of being watched for our fall by those who once watched over us. And yet, woven through this isolation is a stubborn confidence: the Lord is with me. Jeremiah does not pretend the terror away. He simply refuses to let it have the final word.
Into this very human fear, Jesus speaks three times the words we most need: do not be afraid. He does not promise that no one will whisper against us, or that the body cannot be harmed. He promises something deeper — that nothing hidden will stay hidden, that the truth of who we are and what we have suffered is fully seen by the One who numbers even the hairs of our head. The God who notices the falling sparrow has not looked away from us. Our fear of others' judgment, the Gospel suggests, often shrinks God down to their size, forgetting how vast and attentive His love actually is.
So the question that runs beneath these readings is quietly about courage — not the loud kind, but the courage to keep speaking and living the truth in the light when it would be easier to fall silent. To confess Christ before others is rarely dramatic. More often it is the small daily decision not to disown what we believe simply because we are tired of being misunderstood.
Where in your life right now are you staying silent — not out of prudence, but because you fear the whispers of people whose opinion you can't seem to escape?
What would change today if you truly believed that the One who numbers the hairs of your head has not looked away from the very thing that's wearing you down?
Saint of the day
St. Aloysius Gonzaga, (1568-1591)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora