Reflecting on Matthew 13: 24-43

I like that householder. He knows that he didn’t plant weeds in his field of wheat. “The enemy” planted them, but to what avail? To make him look ridiculous when it’s time to harvest? To trick him into pulling the weeds, hence pulling up the wheat as well? To lure him into a revenge plan, which almost never turns out as hoped? He doesn’t fall for any of those traps.

Instead, he does the kind thing, the strong thing. He lets the weeds and wheat grow up together, and then, at harvest, throws the weeds into the fire and saves the wheat.

“You’ve got lipstick on your teeth.” “We caught you in a lie.” “I don’t believe that the dog ate your homework.” Insert your own moments of humiliation, when a kind but firm superior told you that you’re not coming off as well as you hoped.

But wait! That same person of authority then hands you your next assignment (or your next paycheck) and you realize that, mess that you are, those around you continually choose to forgive and overlook the weaknesses you’ve carried around all your life.

I’ll bet you, too, have dear ones in your life whose weaknesses you’d love to pluck out so they could be the full and happy people you long for them to be. But plucking never works. It’s the hard work of patient forbearance that eventually brings us all to the place where we can gratefully look back at those who loved us through it all.

So let the hard things about your students and your kids grow up next to the wonderful things we all love about them. Give them the grace the householder gave his field.

What hard things about you did your loved ones overlook as you were growing up?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Hearing the parable of the Sower and the seeds again today, I think of the many scriptures that remind us of what true wealth is. If you want to be rich, love true riches It’s that simple. The true riches of this world are people. The next time you’re sitting on a plane, take a minute to meet the person sitting right next to you. Chances are you’ll be so enriched by your short conversation that you’ll wonder why you didn’t initiate the conversation earlier.

“If you value rank and renown”, wrote Pope Gregory the Great, “hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of the angels”. Now, finding that heavenly court means payingstrong attention to the seeds of discipline and piety that you probably carefully sowed in your youth, but may have let go by the wayside as you grew into adulthood.   

Store up in your minds the Lord’s words which you receive through the reading of the scriptures at Mass, and in your daily reading and prayer. That’s the truest nourishment there is. But if the words you hear aren’t stored away, they are like good seed on rocky soil. There are so many distractions for the attention of our minds. News stories and baby videos (my particular weakness) jump in to steal the Word from our memories.

Be careful, then, that the word you have received through your ears remains in your heart. Be careful that the seed does not fall along the path, for fear that the evil spirit (or endless internet distractions) may come and take it from your memory.

Good seed is sown through perseverance, through following through, through making the best of the field you’ve been given.

In what ways do you tend the garden of your life?

Kathy McGovern  ©2026

Reflecting on Matthew 11: 25-30

My measly six-block walk feels like six miles when I do it in the heat of the day, which somehow it always is. I always start out early in the morning, with a very light jacket and a water bottle. Three blocks in and I’ve got the jacket wrapped around my waist, and by the time I’m home the water bottle feels like a ten-pound barbell.

My fantasy is always the same, that my husband will come along on his bike and carry the jacket, the bottle, and, finally, me, over the finish line. Somehow, I always make it―tiny workout that it is―but I’ve never once done it without wishing someone would come along and make it easier.

What a heavy load the Jews of Jesus’ day carried. They labored long and hard in the desert sun, and a good portion of what they earned went straight to the Romans. They were also loaded down with the burdens of the Mosaic Law, which, although received in joy centuries before at Mount Sinai, had become impossible to fulfill because of the hundreds of additions and legalities imposed as time went on.

What an enormous relief the gospel was for the disciples, and for all of us who are carrying around too much stuff. In the heat of the summer, it’s best to travel light, and there is nothing lighter than the yoke of forgiveness and unconditional love which Jesus wants to place on our shoulders, while removing the weights of regret and remorse.

Are you heavily burdened and praying for relief? I pray that the Body of Christ is on the way, right  around the corner, ready to carry you, and all your stuff, across the finish line.

How do you help carry the burdens of those who are heavily laden?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Look at the interaction between Elisha and the Shunamite couple. Elisha is known as the “holy man of God,” and this couple is clearly warm and gracious to him, to the point where they provide a room for him in their house, so he will be comfortable when he visits.

And what becomes of all that generosity? The great gift of their lives: in one year, Elisha promises, they will have a baby son.

This, of course, is the greatest gift God could bestow on them in their old age, and the story is paired with today’s gospel from Matthew 10, which says: “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”

But, it turns out, our generosity of a cup of cold water to any disciple of Jesus, no matter how “little” or unknown, will bear a reward that can never be lost.

Here’s a quote I love, from James Blanchard Cisneros “You touch the world on a much deeper level than you currently perceive. … knowingly or not, you change the world with every interaction you have with a fellow being.” 

I really believe that we carry interaction we’ve ever had, somewhere in our hearts. As William Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Even if we don’t remember all those sweet, loving words the lunch ladies said to us in first grade, the effect of all that kindness never leaves us.

Every cuddle with our parents, every kindness of a coach or a teacher, burrows a home in our hearts, and we find ourselves providing safety and shelter to other “little disciples” whom we meet in life.

What are your fondest memories of interactions with particular people?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

I love to watch YouTube videos of babies with their (exhausted) and thrilled parents.

They can sit for long periods of time, just gazing at their new baby, cheering at the slightest signal that their newborn recognizes their voice. They lovingly stroke their baby’s hair, and I’m confident that, should a single hair on baby’s head go missing, they would search for it and put it in the Baby Book.

Babies grow into adults, of course, but never forget this: Each of us is adored in the same way. Jesus assures the disciples today that Even all the hairs of your head are counted. Drink that in for a minute. Just as new parents know every strand of their newborn’s hair, so our Heavenly Father knows every strand of ours.

And yes, our aging male friends will ruefully observe that those strands of hair are fewer and fewer, and we can all rue our rapidly greying hair. But it’s a comfort to know that God is in the process.

But what of the real fears in our lives—bodies that can’t retrieve the strength of their youth, illness, loss of dear ones, and the random violence that terrifies us all?

What a comfort to take in Jesus’ words to his disciples as he sent them out into the frightening Roman world: Do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Take Jesus at his Word every day. Wrap yourself up in the promise that you are a beloved child of an endlessly loving Heavenly Parent.  

Hold us tight, loving God. Touch the wounds that bind and betray us. We gaze at you, God, as you gaze upon us.

In what ways this past week did you experience the warm embrace of God?  

Kathy McGovern ©2026      

Reflecting on Matthew 9: 36-10:8

My heart always hurts a little when I read that sentence from today’s gospel: Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.

Nine months ago, our lives changed, and in all the good ways. My husband’s cousin’s 29-year-old daughter came to live with us while  finishing her Masters in Engineering. Immediately, phones began to ring in our house again, and it was always HER phone, and always a new friend, and always hours of chatter.

How intoxicating it is to listen to her, on a summer night, out on the back porch, laughing and making plans with the actual friends (not fake Facebook friends) she makes every day.

I think the answer is in identity. She knows she’s smart. I assume she knows she’s beautiful. But her core identity is as a daughter, and sister, and granddaughter and, yes, second cousin.

In the nine months she’s been in Denver I’ll bet she’s driven back to Salt Lake eight times to see her grandparents. It’s extraordinary to see a young person realize, so early in life, that it’s family that forms you, and, hence, gives you the building blocks to go out into the world to be a wonderful and engaged friend.

In the first reading today (Exodus 19: 2-6a), God tells us who we are:

“My special possession, dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.”  Because they knew who they were, the apostles had the strength and spiritual background to say YES when Jesus called them. It hurts that so many people don’t know that they are God’s special possession. Tell somebody today.

How are you getting that Good News out to the world?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on John 6: 51-58

My friend John’s story about going to the football game with his dad comes back to me every year on this feast day. “I’ll never give up my season tickets. I go to every game. It’s the place where my dad and I have our best talks.”

His dad died nearly thirty years ago. Growing up, John and his dad enjoyed the entire Game Day ritual―Mass, breakfast, driving to the stadium, firing up the grill, hamburgers, and football. They talked, and ate, and shared in the triumphs and humiliations of the game. And the next week, if the team was in town, they did it all again.

John grieved horribly when his dad died in the spring of 1990. He was his best friend. They had built so many memories. He would never see him again.

Except, of course, on Sunday afternoons, in the sun and wind and cold, and the hot dogs and beer, and the cheering and the booing, and memories so real that John feels his dad next to him at every game. He goes to see his dad, to really feel his presence.

There are many sensory triggers that can transport us. Think about pipe smoke. Can you smell it? I can, and suddenly my grandpa is with me. A Beach Boys song on a summer day can bring childhood friends right into the room. These cues make the past Really Present.

As Catholics, we get that. Every Sunday we place ourselves in the position to Re-Member the One who loved us to his death. In the Eucharist the Beloved Past becomes the Real Presence. This is the feast that tells us who we are.

What sensory experiences bring the past right back to you?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

One of the many touching things I’ve learned through the years of writing this weekly column is how seriously Catholics take the gift of their faith.

Catholics today read, and pray, and are constantly learning about the faith they love. When we arrive at the Solemnity of the Trinity, for example, I’m always inspired by the deep and intuitive reflection in which today’s Catholics have invested in order to come to their own understanding of what it all means.

For example, if you asked an adult practicing Catholic today what the first part of that closing blessing St. Paul offers in today’s second reading—“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ”—means to them, you’ll get a rich reflection on the ways grace has directed their lives.

The second half of the blessing—“the love of God”—is probably the easiest, because all Catholics can tell you how the love of God is living and active in their lives.

The third part of the Trinitarian formula—”and the fellowship of the Spirit”—will be easy too, especially since we are smack in the post-Pentecost octave. I can’t imagine active Catholics who can’t relate the ways in which the Holy Spirit lives in their hearts and spirits.

We don’t need theological explanations for what we’ve experienced through lifetimes of prayer and attentiveness to the liturgy and scripture. Grace, and love, and intimacy. That’s the meaning of the Trinity.

Why do you think one of the Persons of the Trinity might attract you more than the Others?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Pentecost Sequence, 2026

Reflecting on Acts 2: 1-13

At first we understood them not at all.

      What were these utterances―

         This glossolalia pouring off their tongues

                  And into the street                  

And into the world?

In time, though, our clogged ears opened.      

We saw enemies begin to speak to one another

            And those who were estranged                  

Join hands in friendship.

We saw hospitals built, and the sick healed.     

We saw Francis and Clare, Vincent and Louise,

Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal, Benedict and Dominic

and Ignatius, Catherine and Jeanne and Elizabeth,            

The contemplative Johns and the powerful Teresas,

And ourselves―yes, ourselves! ―Radically forgiving

Radically listening

Radically understanding 

           Those who don’t see things the way we do.

And then, like a mighty wind, a new heaven and earth began to take shape.      

And from then on there were no “foreign” languages.                     

From then on we all spoke just one language

           The Holy Spirit’s language                        

The first language, the only language

The language of Love.

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on 1 Peter 3: 15-18

Last year we resolved to begin our Pentecost novena either last Thursday, or today. Imagine that all the readers of this column around the country are praying together, right now. Our prayer is that we would be ready to give a reason for our HOPE.

It’s hard to find HOPE at times, I know. As I read back on last year’s novena, I see heartfelt prayers for a swift end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. We prayed that Vladimir Putin would have a conversion experience. We prayed that those who were trapped in Ukraine would find a safe way out.

We prayed this novena for nine days, right up to Pentecost of last year. I’m going to pray it again this year, and for as long as it takes. But I want to suggest another novena that’s closer to home this year.

It was so inspiring—so HOPEFUL—to see the lines of cars lined up last month in our parish parking lot. They had come to surrender any weapons from their homes. We recovered 108 guns, several of which were assault weapons. It’s a drop in the bucket, of course, but there’s no stopping a moment whose time has come. And so, I offer this Novena Prayer:

O God of peace, save us from ourselves.

This year has brought another terrible war, and so much suffering.  But this is the reason for our HOPE: hearts can be changed. Change our hearts this day. We pray in Jesus’ Name. AMEN.

Who are you praying for in your Pentecost novena?

Kathy McGovern ©2026