Sunday, June 14, 2026
In one year of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy, we’ve seen clear pastoral emphasis on mercy, evangelization, peace, and the Church’s engagement with indubitable human needs. The Pope pursued initiatives that touched both ecclesial governance and matters of culture and faith formation. Regarding Gaza, the Pope shared the Vatican’s vision for a two-state solution and a faster pace of the peace process. He hoped for a truce in Ukraine and met with young people in Lebanon and brought them God’s message of peace. He visited nations on three continents, spotlighting people’s need for education and healthcare; spoke about the Church’s cooperation with governments toward building new hospitals and new facilities; and stressed the Church’s responsibility to recognize and promote human rights. He called Catholic Charities agencies in the U.S. “agents of hope,” highlighting their material services of food, shelter, medical care, and legal assistance for migrants and refugees, and publicly criticized the war with Iran and rejected any religious language used to justify it. His first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, called for safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.
By leading the Church and recentering humanity’s focus on human needs, the Pope is living the movement given to us in today’s lectionary: God gathers, God names, God heals, and God sends. Let’s explore today’s readings.
In Exodus, God commands Moses to remind the Israelites of His commission: “You will be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” —Exodus 19:6. God set apart Israel as a priestly kingdom and a holy nation, consecrating the people for witness and worship. The Church teaches that the baptized share Christ’s priestly vocation, distinct from the ordained ministerial priesthood, so that they may offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim Christ everywhere on earth. Saint Paul in today’s New Testament reading reminds us that God’s divine love is shown in that “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” And “we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” —Romans 5:8, 11. Jesus’ death and reconciliation are a grace for a humanity that is incapable of rescuing itself from sin. The Gospel reading recounts Jesus looking at the crowd and being moved with compassion for them “because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36. Jesus summons His twelve disciples, the number is not random but evokes the twelve tribes of Israel, and commissions them to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Putting the lectionary’s pieces together, their formation becomes clear. Exodus gives identity and commission to the Israelites and, by grace, to us Christians as we are grafted onto them; Romans reminds us that Christ died for us while we were still sinners; and Matthew sends us forth into the world to proclaim that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Our faith should not be shrunk into private devotion; the Church has been commissioned to bear witness to Christ everywhere on earth.
Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord.