Homily – 11th Sunday – A – Fr Jeremiah Browne (National director of the Pontifical Mission Societies #Southafrica #Swaziland #eswatini #Botswana)
Frederick Buechner, the well-known novelist and theologian once wrote: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
Those words capture something important about today’s readings. God’s call is never simply about ourselves. It is always about meeting the needs of others with the gifts that God has given us.
In the first reading from Exodus (19:2-6), God speaks to the people of Israel through Moses. Having freed them from slavery in Egypt, God reminds them of what He has done for them: “I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.” Before asking anything of them, God reminds them that they are loved, chosen, and cared for.
Then comes the invitation: “You shall be my treasured possession … a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
The same is true for us. Our Christian vocation does not begin with what we do for God. It begins with what God has done for us. We are first loved, first chosen, first called into relationship with Him. Only then are we sent.
Saint Paul develops this theme in the second reading, (Romans 5:6-11), when he reminds us that Christ died for us not when we were holy or deserving, but while we were still sinners. God’s love is not a reward for good behaviour. It is a gift freely given.
Many people spend their lives trying to earn God’s love. Saint Paul tells us that the opposite is true. We serve God because we are already loved. We reach out to others because Christ has first reached out to us.
We see this echoed in today’s Gospel (Matthew 9:36–10:8), when we hear that Jesus looked upon the crowds and is moved with compassion because they are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” He sees their hunger, their confusion, their loneliness, and their suffering.
Notice what happens next. Jesus doesn’t simply feel sorry for them. Compassion leads to mission.
He calls the twelve disciples and sends them out to heal, to proclaim the Kingdom, and to bring hope where hope is lacking. The world’s hunger becomes the disciples’ mission.
The same is true today. The harvest remains plentiful. There are people hungry for meaning, hungry for forgiveness, hungry for friendship, hungry for God.
There are families carrying burdens, young people searching for purpose, elderly people struggling with loneliness, and communities wounded by division.
The temptation is to think that someone else will respond. Yet Jesus still says to each of us: “The harvest is rich, but the labourers are few.”
The chances are that God is not asking us to travel to distant lands, but maybe he is asking us to notice the person beside us; a neighbour who needs encouragement; a family member who needs reconciliation; a young person who needs guidance; a lonely parishioner who needs a visit.
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Please consider praying a decade of the rosary on a daily basis for the evangelising Mission of the Church and the Pope’s intentions.
The pope’s prayer intention for June is ‘For the values of sports’.
Let us pray that sports be an instrument of peace, encounter, and dialogue among cultures and nations, and that they promote values such as respect, solidarity, and personal growth.
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Blessed Pauline Jaricot, Pray for us. 🙏🏼🙏🏼
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