Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Wednesday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 11:25-27
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Isaiah 10:5-7,13-16
Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation! I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me will I give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations. For he has said, “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I have understanding: and I have removed the boundaries of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures. Like a valiant man I have brought down their rulers. My hand has found the riches of the peoples like a nest, and like one gathers eggs that are abandoned, I have gathered all the earth. There was no one who moved their wing, or that opened their mouth, or chirped.” Should an ax brag against him who chops with it? Should a saw exalt itself above him who saws with it? As if a rod should lift those who lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up someone who is not wood. Therefore the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, will send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire.
Responsorial psalm
Psalms 94:5-6,7-8,9-10,14-15
They break your people in pieces, the Lord, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless. They say, “The Lord will not see, neither will Jacob’s God consider.” Consider, you senseless among the people; you fools, when will you be wise? He who implanted the ear, won’t he hear? He who formed the eye, won’t he see? He who disciplines the nations, won’t he punish? He who teaches man knows. For the Lord won’t reject his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. For judgment will return to righteousness. All the upright in heart shall follow it.
Gospel
Matthew 11:25-27
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.
Lectio
There is a strange irony threaded through today's readings. Assyria, the mighty empire, believes it conquers by the strength of its own hand, by its own wisdom and understanding. And God, with almost weary tenderness, exposes the delusion: can the ax boast against the one who swings it? Can the saw exalt itself above the hand that guides it? All that power, all that self-assured mastery, was borrowed. The Assyrian never noticed the hand around the handle. This is the peculiar blindness of the strong — not that they lack sight, but that they cannot see the Giver behind the gift.
Then Jesus turns everything upside down. He praises the Father for hiding these things from the wise and understanding and revealing them to infants. Not because knowledge is bad, but because the infant knows something the empire has forgotten: it did not make itself. An infant cannot boast of its own strength; it simply receives, reaches, trusts. The psalmist asks the question that cuts to the heart of it — *He who formed the eye, will he not see?* We are so quickly convinced that we are the ones seeing, when in truth we have been seen and known all along, held in a gaze that formed us before we could form a single thought.
To be revealed the mysteries of God, then, is not a matter of climbing higher but of becoming smaller — of laying down the ax and remembering whose hand we are meant to rest in. The wise cannot receive what the infant already holds, because their hands are too full of their own accomplishments.
Where in your life have you begun to say, quietly, "By the strength of my hand I have done this" — mistaking a borrowed gift for your own achievement?
Is there a place today where God is asking you to become small enough, trusting enough, to finally receive something you've been too proud or too capable to accept?
Saint of the day
St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (1218-1274)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora