Commentary on the Readings: 11 OT A

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

Exodus 19: 2-6a

Psalm 100

Romans 5: 6-11

Matthew 9:36-10:8



The connecting link of today’s reading is the concept of being chosen. In the First Reading, from the book of Exodus, God offers a covenant to the Israelites, saying, “If you hearken to My voice and keep My covenant, you shall be My special possession, dearer to Me than all other people, although all the earth is Mine. You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” The Responsorial Psalm with its refrain “We are His people, the sheep of His flock!” confirms this covenant between God and His people. In the Gospel, Jesus is “moved to pity for them, because…they were like sheep without a shepherd.” He then summons the Twelve, gives them authority, and sends them out. In doing so, Jesus connects the covenant God made with the Israelites to His own work (“the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”). While this is limited at the time to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” it will take on universal scope at the Ascension.

St. John Chrysostom says, “How could Jesus talk of ‘harvest’ about work that was only beginning? Why was He about to send His apostles out,bewildered and anxious, saying: ‘How can so few put the world to rights?’ It was to save them from anxiety that the Lord called the Gospel a harvest….you must be like that when you go out into the world.” (Last Homilies 10, 2-3)



The in-course reading from Romans takes us today to Paul’s reasoning about God’s immeasurable love for humanity, which is demonstrated by Christ dying for us “while we were still sinners.” This having been done, Paul says, how much more are we saved by the life of the Son of God, now that we are “justified in His blood.” This, in fact, becomes material worthy of boasting about—all through Jesus Christ, “through whom we have now received justification."



You can hear hear the hymn "From Egypt, From the Land of Death," on the compact disc "Music for the Year of Matthew," sung by the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter's in the Loop, available from The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN (www.litpress.org).