Saturday, July 4, 2026
Saturday of the Thirteenth week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 9:14-17
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Amos 9:11-15
In that day I will raise up the tent of David who is fallen, and close up its breaches, and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations who are called by my name,” says the Lord who does this. “Behold, the days come,” says the Lord, “that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the one treading grapes him who sows seed; and sweet wine will drip from the mountains, and flow from the hills. I will bring my people Israel back from captivity, and they will rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them; and they will plant vineyards, and drink wine from them. They shall also make gardens, and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they will no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them,” says the Lord your God.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 85:8-9,10-11,12-13
Show us your loving kindness, the Lord. Grant us your salvation. I will hear what God, the Lord, will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, his saints; but let them not turn again to folly. Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs out of the earth. Righteousness has looked down from heaven. Yes, the Lord will give that which is good. Our land will yield its increase.
Gospel
Matthew 9:14-17
Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?” Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch would tear away from the garment, and a worse hole is made. Neither do people put new wine into old wine skins, or else the skins would burst, and the wine be spilled, and the skins ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wine skins, and both are preserved.”
Lectio
There is a quiet thread of restoration running through today's readings, and it asks something of us. Amos speaks to a people whose city lies in ruins, whose vineyards have been trampled, and into that desolation God promises not merely repair but abundance — wine dripping from the mountains, gardens flowering where there had been rubble. Notice that the rebuilding is God's doing, not ours: "I will raise up," "I will build," "I will plant." We do not generate our own renewal. We receive it. And the psalmist catches the texture of how that renewal arrives — not as a transaction but as a meeting, mercy and truth embracing, righteousness and peace exchanging a kiss. Something tender is happening in the way God restores what has been broken.
But here is the strange tension Jesus names in the Gospel: new wine cannot be poured into old skins. The God who restores us is also the God who changes us, and the new life He offers will not fit comfortably into the rigid shapes we have hardened around our old wounds, our old habits, our old griefs. John's disciples wanted to know why Jesus' followers weren't fasting like everyone else — they wanted the new thing to behave like the familiar thing. But the Bridegroom is present, and His presence requires a different vessel. To receive what God is doing, we may have to let go of forms that once protected us but now would only crack under the weight of grace.
The invitation, then, is to become supple — to let ourselves be made new rather than merely patched. The ruins God wants to rebuild in us are real, but so is His promise that they will become vineyards. The only question is whether we will hold ourselves rigidly to the old shape, or let Him pour something new.
Where in your life are you still trying to patch an old garment — clinging to a familiar way of coping or relating that grace is quietly asking you to set down entirely?
What is the specific "ruined city" within you right now — a relationship, a regret, a part of yourself you've given up on — that you have not yet trusted God to rebuild into something fruitful?
Saint of the day
St. Elizabeth of Portugal, Queen (1271-1336)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora