Homily for 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 5, 2026
Zech 9: 9-10
Matt 11: 25-30
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

Jesus enters Jerusalem (Giotto)

“Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!  See, your king shall come to you; … meek, and riding on an ass…” (Zech 9: 9).

If you stand at the southeast corner of Central Park, you’ll see a majestic statue of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman astride a mighty horse.  Along Riverside Drive you can find Joan of Arc on horseback, wielding her sword.  In Jackson Square in front of New Orleans’ cathedral, Gen. Andrew Jackson’s waves his military hat astride a rearing stallion.  I don’t know how many generals perched on their horses you can find at Gettysburg or other battlefields.

No one depicts a mighty general ambling along on a donkey.

That would depict meekness, mildness, peaceableness, amiability.  And that’s the picture the prophet Zechariah presents to us of Israel’s king entering Jerusalem:  no more war chariots or warrior’s bows.  He shall rule a vast dominion in peace.

Jesus consciously adopted that image on Palm Sunday.  He images “the Lord gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, good to all and compassionate toward all his works” (Ps 145:8-9).  Recognizing that, the crowd on that Sunday hailed him:  “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matt 21:9).

The crowd, as we know from the events of Good Friday, didn’t really grasp who Jesus is.  “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him” (Matt 11:27).  No one sees this revelation except the “little ones” (11:25) whose hearts and minds are open to a meek, mild, peaceable Savior; to those humble enuf to take up his yoke and learn from him, to accept the burden of his teachings (11:29-30).  The Lord’s way isn’t the way of the warrior, the way of power, the way of worldly wisdom; it’s the lowly way of service, of forgiveness, of care for the poor and downtrodden.  It’s the way of listening to Jesus’ Gospel, to his words whispered in our hearts.

God the Father used “the abasement of [his] Son” to “raise up a fallen world” (Collect).  The Son had to be brought low—right down into the world of the dead (“he descended into hell”)—in order that the Father could raise him up, and with him all death’s victims:  “the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, thru his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11).  Jesus’ abasement was the living out of his meekness and humility of heart (Matt 11:29).  He shows us the path to the “eternal gladness” the Father has in mind for us (Collect).