Sunday, July 2

2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16 & Matthew 10:37-42

In today’s first reading, we meet a woman who is so hospitable that she anticipates the need of a visitor. The visitor turns out to be a friend of God, a prophet, a holy one. Our parish volunteers are as hospitable as this biblical heroine when we welcome homeless families here every 13 weeks.

Jesus says later in Matthew’s gospel that we can see him in those who need clothes, in strangers, in people who are sick and those who need food. And every day, right here, these scriptures open our eyes to see Jesus in many visitors, like the pregnant mother who asks us for baby clothes and diapers, food and more.

Our Gospel today asks us to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Our difficulties may seem unbearable until we see someone with nothing but pain. That reality opens our heart to change our plans so we can be hospitable, to create a place of unhurried comfort, drop our agenda and any sense of imposition in order to meet the needs of those whose cross is so enormous we fear we’d be crushed by it. God eases the weight not only through biblical heros but through you and me even when we think we have no time, and nothing to give.

Deni Mack
Pastoral Associate