July 16, 2026
Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 392
Reading 1
The way of the just is smooth;
the path of the just you make level.
Yes, for your way and your judgments, O LORD,
we look to you;
Your name and your title
are the desire of our souls.
My soul yearns for you in the night,
yes, my spirit within me keeps vigil for you;
When your judgment dawns upon the earth,
the world's inhabitants learn justice.
O LORD, you mete out peace to us,
for it is you who have accomplished all we have done.
O LORD, oppressed by your punishment,
we cried out in anguish under your chastising.
As a woman about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pains,
so were we in your presence, O LORD.
We conceived and writhed in pain,
giving birth to wind;
Salvation we have not achieved for the earth,
the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth.
But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise;
awake and sing, you who lie in the dust.
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the land of shades gives birth.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm
102:13-14ab and 15, 16-18, 19-21
R. (20b) From heaven the Lord looks down on the
earth.
You, O LORD, abide forever,
and your name through all generations.
You will arise and have mercy on Zion,
for it is time to pity her.
For her stones are dear to your servants,
and her dust moves them to pity.
R. From heaven the Lord looks down on the earth.
The nations shall revere your name, O LORD,
and all the kings of the earth your glory,
When the LORD has rebuilt Zion
and appeared in his glory;
When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,
and not despised their prayer.
R. From heaven the Lord looks down on the earth.
Let this be written for the generation to come,
and let his future creatures praise the LORD:
"The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die."
R. From heaven the Lord looks down on the earth.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said:
"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071626.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
26:7-9,12,16-19
We have today a beautiful prayer for judgement to come soon.
It is the prayer of one who wants to follow closely the Lord’s way:
The way of the righteous is level;
straight is the path of the righteous that you clear.
His one longing is to be close to his Lord:
…your name and your renown
are the soul’s desire.
This contrasts strongly with the cruel and materialistic
world of yesterday’s reading.
The next phrase is also a lovely one and one which we could
make our own prayer:
My soul yearns for you in the night;
my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
We speak today of ‘seeking God in all things’, in every
person, in every experience, in every situation. This is where our lives
get their true meaning:
For when your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
It is the judgements of God which throw light on what is
really good and true and just.
The upright person too totally accepts those judgements and
decisions of God:
O Lord, may you ordain peace for us,
for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.
The good person has nothing to fear: good deeds will bring
their own reward; evil deeds will bring their consequences too. In either
case, the good experience peace because, whatever happens, they are in touch
with God’s love.
The pains that follow from sinful acts are accepted:
O Lord, in distress they sought you;
they poured out a prayer
when your chastening was on them.
Everything, absolutely everything—be it good or bad,
pleasant or painful, as Paul reminds us, works together for the ultimate good
of those who love God. Those without that love are left pained and
puzzled. Those with love find peace in every experience.
In this passage, the prophet also speaks with regret of how
the people have not lived up to their commitments. He may be referring to
the Assyrian oppression.
Israel was intended to be “a light for the nations” (see
Isaiah 42:6 and 9:2) but:
We have won no victories on earth,
and no one is born to inhabit the world.
Jesus will teach us in the Gospels that his followers are
also called to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”.
We are to let people see our goodness so that they may be drawn to love and
glorify God. But by their behaviour, Isaiah says that God’s people failed in
this regard.
And we Christians, too, would have to admit to frequent
failure. In these days, we are as likely to turn people away from Christ as
towards him. It is time for us, as it was for the people that Isaiah addressed,
to bring the dead, the spiritually dead, back to life. And then:
Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise.
Let us pray that our land be transformed from one of
“corpses” to one that has and gives life.
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Commentary on
Matthew 11:28-30
The Gospel in many of its passages is very demanding and
requires an unconditional commitment to the following of Christ. We have
seen that clearly in the contrast Jesus made between the demands of the Law and
what he expected from his followers. But again and again, that is
balanced by the other side of God—his compassion and his understanding of our
weakness and frailty.
Today Jesus invites:
Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest.
He seems to be referring to the burden of the Law and the
many other legalistic observances which had accumulated over the generations.
In fact there was a common rabbinic metaphor which spoke of the ‘yoke of the
Law’. We will see some of this in the two remaining readings of this
week. Jesus did not have much time for this kind of religion. He
invites us rather to come to him and experience comfort and consolation.
Jesus invites us to take on his yoke instead. A yoke
can be heavy, but it makes it easier for an ox to pull a cart or a
plough. Jesus’ yoke is the yoke of love. On the one hand, it
restricts us from acting in certain ways, but at the same time it points us in
the right direction. In the long run, it has a liberating effect.
It is not unlike the idea of the “narrow gate” which Jesus invites us to go
through rather than follow the wide road to nowhere (Matt 7:13-14).
Jesus asks us to learn from him in his gentleness and
humility. This was in stark contrast to the severity and arrogance of
other religious leaders. Not only are we to experience the gentleness of
Jesus, we are also to practise it in our own dealings with others.
Another lovely idea that has been expressed arises from the
observation that it was quite common for farmers to use double yokes, with two
animals pulling a cart together. The thought is that Jesus is offering to share
his yoke with me, so that Jesus and I will pull together and thus split the
work. In any case, Jesus assures us that his yoke is easy and his burden is
light.
Jesus expects us to give all of ourselves to him, but when
we do so, we discover that what he asks is absolutely right for us. To
follow Jesus is not to carry a great weight, but to experience a great sense of
liberation. If we have not found that experience yet, then we are not yet
carrying the yoke of Jesus.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o2155g/
LECTIO DIVINA: MATTHEW 11, 28-30
Lectio Divina:
Thursday,
July 15, 2026
Ordinary Time
1) Opening prayer
God our Father,
your light of truth
guides us to the way of Christ.
May all who follow him
reject what is contrary to the gospel.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 11,28-30
Jesus said: 'Come
to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.
Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.'
3) Reflection
• The Gospel
today is composed only by three verses (Mt 11, 28-30) which form part of a
brief literary unity, one of the most beautiful ones, in which Jesus thanks the
Father for having revealed the wisdom of the Kingdom to the little children and
because he has hidden it to the doctors and the wise (Mt 11, 25-30). In
the brief commentary which follows we will include all the literary unity.
• Matthew 11, 25-26: Only the little children accept and understand the
Good News of the Kingdom. Jesus recites a prayer: “I thank you Father,
Lord of Heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the
clever and revealing them to little children”. The wise, the doctors
of that time, have created a system of laws which they imposed on the people in
the name of God (Mt 23, 3-4). They thought that God demanded this observance
from the people. But the law of love, which Jesus has revealed to us,
said the contrary. What is important to be saved, is not what we do for
God, but what God, in his great love, does for us! God wants mercy and not
sacrifice (Mt 9, 13). The simple and poor people understood this way of
speaking of Jesus and rejoiced. The wise said that Jesus was in
error. They could not succeed to understand his teaching. “Yes,
Father for that is what it pleased you to do! It pleased the Father
that the little children understand the message of the Kingdom and that the
wise and the learned do not understand it! If they want to understand it they
have to become the pupils of the little children! This way of thinking
and of teaching makes people feel uncomfortable and change their community life
together.
• Matthew 11, 27: The origin of the new Law: the Son knows the
Father. What the Father has to tell us he has given to Jesus, and
Jesus reveals it to the little children, so that they may be open to his
message. Jesus, the Son, knows the Father. He knows what the Father
wanted to communicate to us, when many centuries ago he gave his Law to Moses.
Today also, Jesus is teaching many things to the poor and to the little
children and, through them, to all his Church.
• Matthew 11, 28-30: The invitation of Jesus which is still valid
today. Jesus invites all those who are tired to go to him, and
he promises them rest. In our communities today, we should be the
continuation of this invitation which Jesus addresses to people who were tired
and oppressed by the weight of the observance asked by the laws of
purity. He says: “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of
heart”. Many times, this phrase has been manipulated, to ask people
for submission, meekness and passivity. Jesus wants to say the contrary. He
asks people not to listen to “the wise and learned”, the
professors of religion of that time and to begin to learn from him, from Jesus,
a man who came from Galilee, without higher instruction, who says he is “meek
and humble of heart”. Jesus does not do like the Scribes who exalt
themselves because of their science, but he placed himself at the side of the
people who are exploited and humiliated. Jesus, the new Master, knows by
experience what takes place in the heart of the people who suffer. He has
lived this well and has known it during the thirty years of his life in
Nazareth.
• How Jesus puts into practice what he taught in the Discourse of the
Mission. Jesus has a passion: to announce the Good News of the
Kingdom. He had a Passion for the Father and for the people of his country who
are poor and abandoned. There where Jesus found people who
listened to him, Jesus transmitted the Good News, in any place: In the Synagogues during
the celebration of the Word (Mt 4, 23), in the houses of the
friends (Mt 13, 36); walking along the way with the disciples (Mt 12, 1-8);
along the shore of the sea, sitting in the boat
(Mt 13, 3); on the Mountain from where he proclaims the Beatitudes (Mt 5, 1);
in the squares and in the cities, where people would
bring the sick to him (Mt 14, 34-36). Also in the Temple of
Jerusalem, during the pilgrimage (Mt 26, 55)! In Jesus
everything is revelation of everything which he bore inside himself! He not
only announced the Good News of the Kingdom, He himself was and continues to be
a living sign of the Kingdom. In him we see clearly what
happens when a human being allows God to reign in his life. Today’s
Gospel reveals the tenderness with which Jesus welcomes the little children. He
wanted them to find rest and peace. And because of this choice of his for the
little children and the excluded, he was criticized and persecuted. He suffered
very much! The same thing happens today. When a community tries to open itself
to be a place of welcome and consolation for the little children and the
excluded of today who are the foreigners and the migrants, many persons do not
agree and criticize.
4) Personal questions
• Have you
experienced some time the rest promised by Jesus?
• How can the words of Jesus help our community to be a place of rest for our
life?
5) Concluding Prayer
In you is the
source of life,
by your light we see the light.
Maintain your faithful love to those who acknowledge you,
and your saving justice to the honest of heart. (Ps 36,9-10)
