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Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

July 19, 2026

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Collect

Show favor, O Lord, to your servants
and mercifully increase the gifts of your grace,
that, made fervent in hope, faith and charity,
they may be ever watchful in keeping your commands.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading (Wisdom 12:13,16-19)

There is no god besides you, Lord, whose care is for all people, to whom you should prove that you have not judged unjustly. 16 For your strength is the source of righteousness, and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all. 17 For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power, and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it. 18 Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, and with great forbearance you govern us; for you have power to act whenever you choose. 19 Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.

Responsorial Psalm (86:5-6,9-10,15-16)

R/. Lord, you are good and forgiving.

Second Reading (Rom 8:26-27)

The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Verse before the Gospel

Gospel [Mt. 13:24-30; Shorter Form]

Jesus put before the crowds a parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26 “So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ 28 He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” 31 Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” 33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

Catena Nova

All the farmer’s work naturally leads towards the harvest….When the farmer leaves his home to go out and gather the harvest, he is brimming over with joy and shining with happiness. He thinks neither of the suffering nor the difficulties that he might encounter… Christ says, lend me your tongue and you will see the ripe grain going into the king’s granaries. And so He then sends them out, telling them: “I am with you always, until the end of the world.” (Mt 28:20) (St. John Chrysostom)

The Lord has explained to us the parable he told. Consider what we choose to be in his field; consider what sort of people we are found to be at the harvest. The field, you see, which is the world, is the Church spread throughout the world. Let those who are wheat persevere until the harvest; let those who are weeds change themselves into wheat. This, you see, is the difference between people and real ears of wheat and real weeds, because with those things growing in a field whatever is wheat is wheat, and whatever are weeds are weeds. But in the Lord’s field, which is the Church, what used to be grain sometimes changes into weeds, and what used to be weeds sometimes changes into grain; and nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow….But thanks be to God, who will be pleased in due course to sort things out, and who cannot be mistaken…. Sometimes, though, people are considered by human estimation to be grain, and in fact they are weeds; and others are reckoned to be weeds, but in fact are really grain. (St. Augustine of Hippo)

Every day the farmer diligently drives away the birds by making a noise or by frightening them with scarecrows (…) Nevertheless he suffers from the raids of nimble roes or the wantonness of wild asses, on the one hand, voles convey the grain to their underground barns, on the other, ants in a moving column ravage the crop. This is how things are! No one who has land is free from care. While the householder slept, the enemy sowed tares, when the servants hastened to go and root them up, the Master prevented them, reserving for Himself the separation of wheat and chaff. (…) No one, before the Day of Judgement, can take Christ’s winnowing fan in hand, no-one can pass judgement on another, whoever they might be (St. Jerome).

Our soul is like a garden in which the weeds are ever ready to choke the good plants and flowers that have been sown in it. If the gardener who has charge of this garden neglects it, if he is not continually using the spade and the hoe, the flowers and plants will soon disappear. Thus, my children, do the virtues with which God has been pleased to adorn our soul disappear under our vices if we neglect to cultivate them. As a vigilant gardener labours from morning till night to destroy the weeds in his garden, and to ornament it with flowers, so let us labor every day to extirpate the vices of our soul and to adorn it with virtues. See, my children, a gardener never lets the weeds take root, because he knows that then he would never be able to destroy them. Neither let us allow our vices to take root, or we shall not be able to conquer them (St. John Mary Vianney).

This is no smooth evolutionary transition, in which creation simply moves up another gear into a higher mode of life. This is traumatic, involving convulsions and contractions and the radical discontinuity in which mother and child are parted and become not one being but two. But neither is this a dualistic rejection of physicality as though, because the present creation is transient and full of decay and death, God must throw it away and start again from scratch. The very metaphor Paul chooses [of birth pangs] for this decisive moment in his argument shows that what he has in mind is not the unmaking of creation or simply its steady development but the drastic and dramatic birth of new creation from the womb of the old (N.T. Wright).

How would it be if instead of information about the end [the parable of the Wheat and the Tares] were rather a teaching about how to live in the here and now, in the time before the end? In that case, the function of the story is a little different. Instead of furnishing us with details of a judgment after death, it is rather an insistence on not exercising any type of judgement before death. When he says: “There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” let us not take it as a threat, but as: “Leave it for another to cause wailing and gnashing of teeth. Let it be there and not here. Do not you exercise any sort of judgement or separation between good and evil people now. In this way you will be building the kingdom of heaven.” (James Alison).

The field owner’s attitude is that of hope, grounded in the certainty, that evil does not have the first nor the last word. And it is thanks to this patient hope of God, that the same weed, which is the malicious heart with so many sins, in the end can become good grain. But be careful – evangelical patience is not indifference to evil, one must not confuse good and evil! In facing weeds in the world, the Lord’s disciple is called to imitate the patience of God, to nourish hope, with the support of indestructible trust, in the final victory of good, that is, of God (Pope Francis).

Homily

What's the use of praying? Like the endless prayers for peace in Ukraine, Israel-Palestine and Iran with no end in sight to war. Or for Christian unity when a new schism breaks out. Or like the continual prayers "for vocations," while the number of priests continues to decline in most places. Or all the other petitions we make every Sunday in the "prayers of the faithful" for pretty much every problem facing the world, most of which seem hopeless. Oh, the list is endless. And Someone seems asleep at the switch!

Just on those prayers for vocations — there were a total of 13 ordinations in the 8 dioceses New York State this year — 2 of them in the Archdiocese — one wag I know commented, "The seeming futility of these endless entreaties is likely due to the fact that the prayers have already been answered. Unacknowledged vocations are abundant….So this is really a manufactured crisis of discernment — or lack thereof." To which I might add Paul's warning to the Romans, We do not know how to pray as we ought (II).

Or do we? After all, that's not all Paul says. The apostle adds how the real issue is not what we pray for but who is doing the praying — and it's not us. For the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, interceding with inexpressible groanings…according to God's will (cf. II). That's something I think we miss. It's less about how we pray. What matters is the Spirit in us. It's what Pope Leo said recently about the Liturgy though it holds true for prayer in general: "We recognize," he said, "that we are preceded by divine grace and we learn to live in a rhythm inhabited by the Holy Spirit." (General Audience; June 24, 2026)

Now Paul's metaphor for this kind of prayer is birth pangs as we heard last week. All creation [is] groaning in labor pains, awaiting the day when the futility we so often experience in the face of evils both large and small will be set free from slavery to corruption. And even though, Paul said, we have the first fruits of the spirit, we also groan within ourselves. (Cf. Rom 8:18-21).

So it seems the Holy Spirit is the Divine Midwife there to help the birthing process along. The new creation and the new humanity have yet to be born. And the suffering of this present time — there's Paul again — is proof God's not finished with the world or with us. And the futility we sometimes experience when we pray, well, that futility wasn't part of the plan — not of creation's own accord, as Paul put it.

So as we await in hope the time when creation itself will be set free from slavery to corruption — all those things we pray about week after week in the general intercessions and in our own individual prayers — in the meantime, groaning is permissible. As Anglican bishop and Scripture scholar N.T. Wright once suggested, those things that make us lament, like war and sickness and troubled relationships, do so "within the pain of the whole creation" and we should be careful “not to explain the trouble but to provide reassurance within it.” Indeed, he says, "It is no part of the Christian vocation…to be able to explain what’s happening and why. In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain—and to lament instead. As the Spirit laments within us, so we become, even in our self-isolation, small shrines where the presence and healing love of God can dwell."

So whenever and however the Spirit prompts you to pray, always hope for what you pray. As Wisdom reminds us, in addressing the Divine, There is no god besides you who have the care of all...[and] you gave your children good ground for hope (I). Just be careful about asking for reasons why things have gone so seemingly wrong. More often than not, those answers lie out of view — how or why the field God sows with good seed ends up more than a few weeds. That happens, Jesus says, because while everyone is asleep (cf. G). It might be a good idea then to sleep with one eye open 'cause you never know who's seeding the field with the weeds of corruption hoping we're not paying attention. (More than a few people have been having some rude awakenings of late!)

But in the end, the harvest is God’s to reap even if, at the moment, the wheat seems so often choked by tares. Yet as Wisdom also prayed, [You, God] show your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved (I). Like those servants who wondered if the Sower had indeed sown good seed when the weeds appeared as well as the fruit. And the Master’s response? The growing season is not over for the Day is coming – hope for it -- when the wheat will all be gathered and the weeds will be bundled for burning. In the meantime, we groan and lament over an enemy who has done this (cf. G) even as we feed on the best of wheat, the Bread of life, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

Intercessions (Joe Miner; The Sunday Website)

For the church: that we may allow the good seed of the Gospel to take root within us and bring forth a harvest of virtue and manifestations of the reign of God.

For openness of mind and heart: that the parables of Jesus may help us recognize the limits of our vision and understanding, and move us toward examining our life and actions from new perspectives.

For patience: that we may not judge one another but rather be open to the work that God is doing within each of us that will be revealed in God’s time.

For a deepening of prayer: that we may offer our discontent, pain, and yearnings to God honestly and allow the Spirit to intercede for us.

For Wisdom: that we may recognize the small ways God is at work in our lives so that we may cooperate with God who accomplishes great things

For healing and transformation of our weaknesses: that the Spirit of God will work within us to bring us to wholeness in the areas in which we are most wounded and vulnerable.

For all who are bound by hatred and resentment: that the Spirit will cultivate forgiveness and compassion within hearts and wither the seeds of the Evil One that yield revenge, violence, and destruction.

For all who have suffered abuse or who are in abusive relationships: that the Spirit will translate their cries and tears into prayers and lead them to safety and wholeness.

O God, patient and forbearing, you alone know fully the goodness of what you have made. Strengthen our spirit when we are slow and temper our zeal when we are rash, that in your own good time you may produce in us a rich harvest from the seed you have sown and tended. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

Offertory Antiphon

Offertory Hymn (George Croly, 1867)

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art;
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies;
But take the dimness of my soul away.

Hast Thou not bid me love Thee, God and King?
All, all Thine own, soul, heart and strength and mind.
I see Thy cross; there teach my heart to cling:

O let me seek Thee, and O let me find!

Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The kindling of the heaven descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.

Communion Antiphon

Closing Hymn

We plough the fields, and scatter
the good seed on the land,
but it is fed and watered
by God's almighty hand;
he sends the snow in winter,
the warmth to swell the grain,
the breezes and the sunshine,
and soft refreshing rain.

Refrain: All good gifts around us
are sent from heaven above,
then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
for all his love.

He only is the Maker
of all things near and far;
he paints the wayside flower,
he lights the evening star;
the winds and waves obey him,
by him the birds are fed;
much more to us, his children,
he gives our daily bread. (Refrain)

We thank thee, then, O Father,
for all things bright and good,
the seed time and the harvest,
our life, our health, and food;
no gifts have we to offer,
for all thy love imparts,
and, what thou most desirest,
our humble, thankful hearts. (Refrain)

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