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Reflection on the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on June 14, 2026, by Eleanor Craig SL

Exodus 19:2-6         Romans 5:6-11         Matt 9:36-10:8

This year the Gospel of Matthew had been leading us through the mysteries of life and faith.  The year opened last Advent with Matthew’s first chapters, with John’s baptism of Jesus, after which Jesus began proclaiming the message, “Change your hearts and minds, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”  The kingdom of heaven is the core theme of Jesus’s teaching, according to Matthew.  

Matthew’s Gospel continued as the new year began.  In his early chapters, Matthew chronicled Jesus gathering to himself men who he proposed to make “fishers of humankind.” Jesus announced to his followers and to the crowds that gathered around them that things are different in the kingdom of heaven, where the poor in spirit, the hungry and those who are persecuted will all be satisfied. Jesus’ early preaching was full of new alternatives:  “You have heard that our ancestors were told … But I tell you.  … You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor but hate your enemies.’  But I tell you love your enemies … This is how to be perfect as your Abba God in heaven is perfect.” 

Just before the section we’ve read this morning, Matthew has described Jesus’ works as well as his words, concluding, “Jesus continued touring all the towns and villages, proclaiming the Good News of God’s kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sicknesses.”  Then today’s passage picks up the story, with Jesus reflecting on all that he has seen and heard on his journey so far; his heart is moved with pity because the crowds are like sheep without a shepherd. 

People then and people now are drifting, anxious for direction yet suspicious of authority. Those wandering the hills in the Gospel and ourselves wandering through Zoomland and bombarded by media, all of us, troubled, distressed and dejected, are like sheep without a shepherd.  Jesus then and now sees us, and his heart is moved with pity. He urges his followers to pray: “Beg the master to send out laborers for his harvest.” Then, sensing that he and his followers are the answer to their prayers, Jesus commissions the disciples join him in his work, proclaiming as he proclaims “The reign of heaven has drawn near.”

We are the answer to our prayers for direction in the darkness of our times. Yes, we drift and are anxious, filled with pity for ourselves and for our neighbors. But we are also followers of Jesus, graced to find in ourselves the capacity to reach out, expelling unclean spirits, healing sickness and diseases of all kinds.

From now until the first Sunday of Advent, we will hear from Matthew more and more about the kingdom.  We will see in multiple ways that compassion is the hallmark, the core component of the kingdom of heaven, both the source and the goal of its authority.  It is appropriate to feel pity for the anxious and troubled crowd, ourselves included. And it is necessary to act with compassion, easing hurts and illnesses, driving away ill influences, lifting one another out of depression and despair. Compassion is love in action. It builds the kingdom of heaven here and now.

Eleanor Craig SL

Sister Eleanor Craig SL, Loretto Community Historian, served as director of the Loretto Heritage Center Archives and Museum from 2012-2020. While beginning her Loretto ministry as a math teacher, she soon developed a way of teaching life lessons through storytelling and adventure traveling, including, as Eleanor once put it, leading more wagon trains along the old western trails than any mountain man. She is guided by an inner passion for the natural world, for history in its natural context, and for teaching beyond the walls of a school. Now into her 80th decade, Eleanor is still avidly listening, reading and writing, and telling true stories.