Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A
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