Friday, July 10, 2026
Friday of the Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 10:16-23
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Hosea 14:1-9
Israel, return to the Lord your God; for you have fallen because of your sin. Take words with you, and return to the Lord. Tell him, “Forgive all our sins, and accept that which is good: so we offer our lips like bulls. Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.” “I will heal their waywardness. I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like the lily, and send down his roots like Lebanon. His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. Men will dwell in his shade. They will revive like the grain, and blossom like the vine. Their fragrance will be like the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim, what have I to do any more with idols? I answer, and will take care of him. I am like a green cypress tree; from me your fruit is found.” Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Who is prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the righteous walk in them; But the rebellious stumble in them.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 51:1-2,6-7,10-11,12,15
Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Don’t throw me from your presence, and don’t take your holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. Lord, open my lips. My mouth shall declare your praise.
Gospel
Matthew 10:16-23
“Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you. Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations. But when they deliver you up, don’t be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next, for most certainly I tell you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man has come.
Lectio
There is a tender paradox running through today's readings. Hosea speaks of return — of a God who does not wait at a cold distance for us to grovel back, but who promises to "heal their waywardness" and "love them freely." The image is almost startling in its gentleness: God as dew, settling silently over a parched land, asking nothing but our turning toward Him. And the only words we are told to bring are simple ones, an honest admission that the things we trusted in — Assyria, horses, the work of our own hands — could never save us. The Psalmist makes the same return, begging not merely for forgiveness but for a clean heart, a renewed spirit, the restored joy that sin had quietly drained away.
Then the Gospel sends us out from that place of mercy into a world of wolves. It would be easy to think these readings belong to different moods entirely — one all comfort, the other all hardship. But they are deeply joined. The same God who heals us freely also tells us not to be anxious about what we will say when we are dragged before the powers of this world, "for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." The interior renewal Hosea and the Psalm describe is precisely what makes such fearlessness possible. A heart that has stopped trusting in idols and the work of its own hands has nothing left to defend. It can stand before councils and kings with empty hands and an open mouth, because its security was never its own.
This is the wisdom Hosea ends with — the prudence to know that the ways of the Lord are right. To endure to the end is not to grit our teeth against the world, but to keep returning to the One who loves us freely, and to let that love speak through us when our own words fail.
What is the "work of your own hands" — the thing you secretly rely on to save you — that today's reading is gently asking you to release back into God's care?
Where in your life right now do you feel surrounded, outnumbered, perhaps even by those closest to you, and what would change if you truly believed the Spirit would give you the words in that very hour?
Saint of the day
Sts. Rufina & Secunda, Virgins and Martyrs (3rd century)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora