13^th Sun in Ord Time  SJU June 28, 2026

Gospel  Matthew 10:37-42

Jesus said to his apostles:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." "Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man’s reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple—
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

 

13^th of the Year   SJU 11 AM  June 28, 2026

Suddenly it is the middle of summer, a favorite time for many of us because of the long hours of light and the lively colors of the season:  the flowers and the blue skies.   As I speak families are setting up their Sunday barbecues just a mile or two away in West Fairmount Park.   The John B. Kelly Pool there will open at Noon.   We will try to finish on time.  But putting God first as we are encouraged to do in today’s gospel, we bring ourselves into the Chapel here with its own beautiful windows and we give thanks for the leisure of the season.  Some of us might welcome silence right now.   So yes, I will be brief to allow for that.

Our three readings are intriguing.   I comment on the first reading about the prophet Elisha and also the gospel.    Jesus in the gospel reminds us that before anything else in our lives God comes first.   Indeed, before any person, God comes first, first even for parents who adore their beautiful children.   Parents must love God first.   It is God who presents children as gifts for parents to love and nourish.   Parents are called by God to this love of their children.   In general, of course, all of us, parents or not, are to lose and then rediscover life in the love and service of others.

The gospel goes on:  A sentence or two later Jesus talks about welcoming prophets.   Whoever receives a prophet because the person is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.   This phrase about reward for those who welcome prophets occurs, as I indicated, in today’s gospel.  But let us go to the first reading from the Second Book of Kings where “reward” is what happens after the Old Testament prophet Elisha is welcome by a woman and her husband.  This story about Elisha and his hostess comes to us from nearly three thousand years ago.  

 A woman suggests to her husband that they provide hospitality for the prophet Elisha.   And so they do.    Elisha discovers that the woman and her husband are childless, this in a culture where a woman unable to have children is considered a humiliating failure and even someone punished in this way by God.   Elisha therefore plans a reward for her.   The prophet summons the woman and says to her:  “This time next year, you will be fondling a baby son.”  Yes, the point Jesus made in the gospel is clear here:  Whoever receives a prophet because the person is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.

Jesus also claims that simple gestures extended even to the least important disciple are also worthy of reward.  The gesture need not be room and board for a famous prophet.   Even the person who sees a thirsty disciple (repeat a thirsty disciple) and rushes in with a drink of cold water for that disciple, no matter how unimportant he or she is, will surely not go without a reward.

First of all, Jesus tells us, the thirsty person must be recognized as a disciple.   On occasion, to give an evident example, I see two women from the local Protestant church standing on the sidewalk on 54^th St. across from the Hagan Arena.    They have a large sign proclaiming how Jesus comes to save us.  They are eager to engage those passing by in conversation and to hand out flyers with invitations to their church.   Yes, I could offer them a drink but Jesus is not discussing such an offer as a part of a simple transaction, that is, not every drink offered automatically means we earn something from God.   No, offering a drink must be part of an act of love and support for the disciple.    Yes, give those two women glasses of water and also exchange praise and thanks to God while doing this.   Such a gesture benefiting thirsty sidewalk preachers is praiseworthy in God’s sight.  

But let’s be clear a disciple is any human being offering love or service to any other human being.  The simple encouragement of such a person is like a glass of cold water feeding the person’s desire to assist others, important as a glass of cold water offered to a thirsty Pope.

Yes, a thirsty Pope.  And Pope Leo is surely thirsty.    Let me conclude with his timely request.    Day after day he is thirsting for peace.  Two days ago on Friday once again the Pope repeated his condemnation of war.  This time during an address to the Cardinals of the Catholic Church gathered in Rome.   I quote:  “War is never worthy of humanity, and it is never blessed by God, because, even if we are equipped with high-tech weapons, the Creator has endowed us with intelligence and free will to resolve conflicts as human beings and not as beasts. That the unity of the human family takes precedence over individual peoples and states is not merely a biological fact; it is an ethical principle. Peace is a duty of justice because we are one human family, a ‘magnifica humanitas’ that finds its head and redeemer in Christ.” 

I know that Jesus is enjoying the peace and blessings of heavenly joy in the life of the resurrection.    Theologians think of Jesus as first offering sympathy to those of us who are still suffering on this earth and also as sending us the Spirit to strengthen us.    But I sometimes imagine Jesus looking at Magnifica Humanitas in deep sorrow when he sees the children who are starving and the families who are losing loved ones in war.    Theologians tell me, however, that in heaven there is no sorrow or suffering.   So I have to imagine that Jesus already suffered all things for us while on earth.  

As the Pope indicates the Spirit is sent to inspire us to use our intelligence and free will to bring peace to this earth.   Our glasses of cold water, our simple gestures, are part of the package.

Even a glass of water, and even any gesture of encouragement, offered to anyone seeking to do God’s will not go without reward.

 

 

Corpus Christi   June 7, 2026    SJU 11:00 AM

 

     This feast of Corpus Christi always has a special place in my heart because it is the anniversary of my First Mass some 54 years ago.   The Feast, the Mass, and my ordination the day before all came together to make a coherent celebration.

 

     And over all these past years the Body of Christ in the Eucharist accompanied me in thousands of places.

 

E. g. I concelebrated at a  Corpus Christi Feast Day Mass in a small town in Mexico.  Firecrackers were going off actually inside the church.   This was, I am told, accidental but the noise and the burst of color added to the explosion of praise and song led by the mariachi band.

 

And as grace would have it, my one opportunity to visit the great Gothic Cathedral of Chartres in France occurred on the Feast of Corpus Christi.   I surprised myself arriving at the doors of this Cathedral dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God at exactly the hour when the Sunday Mass of Corpus Christi was beginning. 

 

     And those of us present 50 years ago at the 1976 Eucharistic Congress here in Philadelphia remember it for several reasons.    Our Jesuit Father Ed Brady, so active in justice issues here at SJU, was conscious of the broad meaning of the Eucharist.   He helped Cardinal Krol and the local church organize a shipment of grain and emergency food sent that summer to a drought stricken part of the world.  That Congress, too, was memorable because three saints, each short of stature but tall on holiness and hope appeared together on the same stage in Philadelphia: Dom Helder Camara from a poor area of Brazil, Jesuit Father Pedro Arrupe who founded Jesuit Refugee Services and  Mother Teresa who founded services for the dying poor in several continents.  All three witnesses of terrible human suffering; all three proclaiming a message of hope and God’s love.

 

     And still just yesterday in our City a prayerful Corpus Christi procession with great devotion took part in South Philadelphia through the streets between two of the Latino parishes (Annunciation and St. Thomas Aquinas) and ending at the Shrine of St Rita of Cascia on South Broad St.   I was blessed to join a part of the walk in which the monstrance displaying the Body of Christ was carried led by a dozen young altar servers with flower petals, incense and the Cross.   Teenage girls scattered the flower petals along Tasker St. to beautify the Lord’s path.  We called upon Jesus and his Mother in song and prayer to protect our Latino families from deportation and ended with Mass at St. Rita’s.   Among the hundreds in the procession were many young people, many Latino families, parents with their children of all ages.   The event was organized by a prophetic local group called Faithful Philadelphia which has been proclaiming the need for just paths to citizenship for our neighbors.   

    

     To summarize these events that I describe: Catholics who have an experience of their community as the Body and Blood of Christ find support in their lives from both the word of God and the sacrament of Holy Communion.   The sacrament invites us into a culture of solidarity far different from a contrasting national Christian culture which sometimes acts as a cover for white supremacy.   To be fed by the Body of Christ is to take part in the willingness of the community to contribute to the common good.   We are one body in the one Lord living together and guided by Catholic Social Teaching.   Its most important principle: the dignity of every single human being created in God’s image.   Just this morning P:ope Leo while celebrating Mass for over a million people in Madrid expanded this message preaching that God identified with the poor, the downtrodden and those who are alone and forsaken.

 

     I mentioned in the opening remark that my own First Mass took place years ago on the Feast of Corpus Christi, a Sunday like today.   At any First Mass Families like my own go out of their way to provide extra music and flowers and very often a reception afterwards.  Such celebrations actually introduce a tension between their optimistic richness and the basic original Eucharistic event at Jesus’s Last Passover Supper when he foretells the tragedy to come.

 

Let me complete my homily by a short presentation about this tension.

 

               Scripture commentators in their discussion of the Last Supper as reported in the gospel of Mark, remind us that yes, Jesus’ shares his body and blood in the bread and wine at that table meal.    But this sharing is sandwiched within words of Jesus that on one side predict the betrayal of Judas who helps the Temple authorities arrest him.   And on the other Jesus tells of his imminent abandonment by the disciples.  Further the last words of Jesus at this Supper are these: “I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I will drink it new in the kingdom of God.”   The commentators write that Jesus’ vow of fasting is a prophetic symbol of his coming death.  In fact one commentator goes so far as to say this: “At the Last Supper Jesus neither ate of the Passover lamb nor drank of the wine; probably he fasted completely.

 

     Jesus’ Last Supper was not a happy event.  There is a foreboding starkness.   I quote in summary: “Mark’s somewhat sober account stresses above all the sacrificial death of Jesus ‘for many’… We recall not only a meal, but the final meal of one who was to be executed as a criminal for our sake.”   

 

But thanks to the return of the risen Jesus to his disciples the report of the last supper in the gospel of Mark can generate hopeful feelings of a redemptive solidarity.   The risen Jesus sends the Spirit who helps us understand the importance of finding solidarity in the sharing of the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist.   The celebration of the Mass and the sharing of the Eucharist becomes the way in which the Catholic Church takes part in his complete saving action, his life, death and resurrection.   Indeed this celebration gives us the courage to be for and with others in their sorrows as well as their joys.

 

Finally, I imagine, in solidarity with the suffering of this world, Jesus is still fasting from the fruit of the vine.   He will so fast until that time when together with him we bring about the victory of the common good.    Then with us he will drink the fruit of the vine new in the kingdom of God.

 

We thank Jesus for inviting us to the celebration of Mass…. as always an encouraging preview of the Kingdom of God.   And we commit ourselves to joining in his mission so he may drink from the fruit of the vine once again.