Friday, July 24, 2026
Friday of the Sixteenth week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 13:18-23
Listen to the whole reading — MP3
First reading
Jeremiah 3:14-17
“Return, backsliding children,” says the Lord; “for I am a husband to you. I will take one of you from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. It will come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days,” says the Lord, “they will no longer say, ‘the ark of the Lord’s covenant!’ It will not come to mind. They won’t remember it. They won’t miss it, nor will another be made. At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘the Lord’s Throne;’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the Lord’s name, to Jerusalem. They will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart.
Responsorial psalm
Jeremiah 31:10,11-12,13
“Hear the Lord’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’ For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of the Lord, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all. Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
Gospel
Matthew 13:18-23
“Hear, then, the parable of the farmer. When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside. What was sown on the rocky places, this is he who hears the word, and immediately with joy receives it; yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. What was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. What was sown on the good ground, this is he who hears the word, and understands it, who most certainly bears fruit, and produces, some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty.”
Lectio
There is a tenderness running beneath today's readings that is easy to miss if we only hear the language of judgment. God calls his people "backsliding children," yet in the same breath he says, "I am a husband to you." This is not the voice of a disappointed master but of a spouse who refuses to give up on the marriage. He promises to gather even the scattered ones — one from a city, two from a family — as though no soul is too lost or too small to be sought out individually. The prophet's image of a soul "as a watered garden" tells us what God truly desires: not our endless guilt, but our flourishing, our mourning turned to joy.
The Gospel asks the harder question of what becomes of this seed once it falls into us. Jesus does not describe four kinds of people so much as four conditions of one heart — the same heart that can be hardened like a path, shallow like rocky soil, crowded like a thorn patch, or open and receptive. What strikes me is how ordinary the obstacles are. It is not dramatic rebellion that chokes the word, but "the cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches" — the slow, respectable anxieties of a busy life. The seed is good and freely given. The difference lies in whether we have let ourselves be tilled.
Perhaps this is why Jeremiah's call to "return" and the parable belong together. To return is to let God turn the soil of a hardened heart, to allow the roots to go deeper than our fleeting enthusiasm, to clear away what crowds out grace. The watered garden is not something we manufacture; it is what happens when we stop resisting the One who has always wanted to be our husband, our shepherd, our home.
Where in your life right now are you living more like a "backsliding child" hiding from God, when he is in fact waiting to receive you not as a judge but as a spouse who longs for your return?
Which "care of this age" — a particular worry, ambition, or financial anxiety that you could name today — has quietly grown up around your faith and begun to choke the word before it can bear fruit?
Saint of the day
St. Sharbel Makhluf, Priest (1828-1898)
Ora reads this aloud, every morning, free. Ora