Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Wednesday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 10:1-7
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Hosea 10:1-3,7-8,12
Israel is a luxuriant vine that produces his fruit. According to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars. As their land has prospered, they have adorned their sacred stones. Their heart is divided. Now they will be found guilty. He will demolish their altars. He will destroy their sacred stones. Surely now they will say, “We have no king; for we don’t fear the Lord; and the king, what can he do for us?” Samaria and her king float away, like a twig on the water. The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, “Cover us!” and the hills, “Fall on us!” Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and rains righteousness on you.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 105:2-3,4-5,6-7
Sing to him, sing praises to him! Tell of all his marvelous works. Glory in his holy name. Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face forever more. Remember his marvelous works that he has done; his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth, you offspring of Abraham, his servant, you children of Jacob, his chosen ones. He is the Lord, our God. His judgments are in all the earth.
Gospel
Matthew 10:1-7
He called to himself his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every sickness. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these. The first, Simon, who is called Peter; Andrew, his brother; James the son of Zebedee; John, his brother; Philip; Bartholomew; Thomas; Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus; Lebbaeus, who was also called Thaddaeus; Simon the Canaanite; and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Jesus sent these twelve out, and commanded them, saying, “Don’t go among the Gentiles, and don’t enter into any city of the Samaritans. Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, preach, saying, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’
Lectio
Hosea speaks to a people whose prosperity became their undoing. As Israel's land flourished, so did its altars and sacred stones—but the heart that should have been undivided was instead split between God and the false comforts of wealth and power. The prophet's diagnosis is piercing: their fruit multiplied, but their devotion fractured. And so he offers not condemnation but an invitation: "Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord." The hardened, neglected places within us are precisely where God longs to rain down righteousness, if only we will turn the soil.
The Gospel shows us what this seeking looks like when it bears fruit. Jesus gathers an unlikely twelve—a tax collector beside a zealot, fishermen beside a man who would betray him—and entrusts them with His own authority. He does not wait for them to be perfect or undivided in heart. He sends them out as they are, to the lost sheep, to announce that the Kingdom is near. Where Hosea's people scattered like a twig on the water, the apostles are called to gather. Where Israel adorned its altars to created things, the disciples are sent to proclaim the living God.
The thread between these readings is the heart's true allegiance. The Psalm names the remedy plainly: "Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his face forever more." Not our own strength, which floats away like Samaria's king, but His. The seeking is itself the breaking of fallow ground, the slow turning back of a heart that has wandered toward lesser glories.
Where in your life has prosperity or success quietly become a "sacred stone"—something you've adorned and trusted more than you'd like to admit, leaving your heart divided?
Like the unlikely twelve Jesus chose and sent before they were ready, what is the work He may be entrusting to you today, not despite your unfinished places but right in the middle of them?
Saint of the day
St. Edgar the Peaceful, King (c. 943-975)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora