Homily for 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 19, 2026
Ps 86: 5-6, 9-10, 15-16                             
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

“You, O Lord, are good and forgiving” (Ps 86: 5).

We come to Mass every week or more often because God has touched us with his mercy, and we’re grateful for that.  We depend upon it!

When we profess the Creed, we acknowledge that our Lord Jesus will come again to judge us.  Judgment comes at the end of our lives, and our individual judgment will be confirmed before the entire world on the Last Day.  “At harvest time, I’ll say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn’” (Matt 13:30).

That’s a daunting consideration.  Toward the end of Handel’s Messiah, the oratorio asks, “But who may abide the day of his coming?”, citing the prophet Malachi.  It will be a frightful day for sinners, a day of wrath, dies irae, as we used to chant at funeral Masses:

Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla

(“Day of wrath and doom impending!  Heaven and earth in ashes ending!”) 

Quantus tremor est futurus, quando iudex est venturus

(“Oh, what fear man’s bosom rendeth, when from heaven the Judge descendeth”).

But thru our Lord Jesus, our merciful Savior, God gives us the Holy Spirit:  “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness” (Rom 8:26).  God knows we’re weak, not sure how to pray, not sure how to seek his mercy.  In spite of his power, his goodness, his unapproachable holiness, he’s eager to forgive:  “Your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.  Tho you are master of might, you judge with clemency” (Wis 12:16,18).  How often Pope Francis reminded us that “the name of God is mercy”!

Clemency, mercy, pardon—we all need it, and thru Jesus God grants it when we turn to him.  “O Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed” (Communion rite).  We acclaim gratefully, “You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you” (Ps 86:5).

So we don’t hesitate to bring to our Lord Jesus our weakness and our sins:  our pride, greed, lust, laziness, harshness, judgment of others, gossip, selfishness, and whatever else haunts our consciences, whatever weeds are growing within our hearts along with the wheat of goodness that God has planted there.  We turn all that bad stuff over to Jesus, here at Mass and in the sacrament of Reconciliation.  For he is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and fidelity” (Ps 86:15) toward every one of us who seeks him from our hearts.