THE DAILY GOSPEL AND READINGS 11 JULY 2026

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Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot

Lectionary: 388

Reading 1

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:
with two they veiled their faces,
with two they veiled their feet,
and with two they hovered aloft.They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook
and the house was filled with smoke.Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.He touched my mouth with it and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 93:1ab, 1cd-2, 5

R. (1a) The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty.
The LORD is king, in splendor robed;
robed is the LORD and girt about with strength.
R. The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty.
And he has made the world firm,
not to be moved.
Your throne stands firm from of old;
from everlasting you are, O LORD.
R. The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty.
Your decrees are worthy of trust indeed:
holiness befits your house,
O LORD, for length of days.
R. The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty.

Alleluia

1 Peter 4:14

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
for the Spirit of God rests upon you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 10:24-33

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“No disciple is above his teacher,
no slave above his master.
It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher,
for the slave that he become like his master.
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul,
how much more those of his household!“Therefore do not be afraid of them.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

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The Boat Without Oars

A Spiritual Break Reflection

In the year 891, three Irishmen washed ashore on the coast of Cornwall, England in a boat made of hide stretched over a wooden frame. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was not given to sentiment, thought the event strange enough to record. What made it strange was not that they had arrived. It was that they had set out, deliberately, without oars. When they were brought before the court of King Alfred and asked why, their answer entered history in a single sentence: they wished to be pilgrims for the love of God, and they cared not where.

I am the son of Irish parents, and I confess that when I first met this story, it did not feel like history. It felt like family. Because I recognized the move: the extravagant, slightly alarming gesture that turns out, on closer inspection, to be theology. Those three men were not being careless. They had simply decided, with their whole bodies, that God was a better navigator than they were — and then they built a boat that made the decision irreversible.

They were not alone. The early Celtic monks had a name for this: peregrinatio pro amore Dei — wandering for the love of God. It was pilgrimage with the destination removed. Columba left Ireland for Iona in c.563 not knowing what his mission would become; the island claimed him as much as he chose it. The Voyage of St. Brendan tells of monks who sailed wherever wind and current carried them, trusting the steering to Someone else. This was how mission and location were often discerned in that world. Not by strategy. By drift.

Now look at your own week. Count the oars.

The calendar is an oar. The GPS is an oar. The to-do list, the fitness tracker, the itinerary, the five-year plan — oars, every one. We are the most thoroughly rowed generation in human history. Even our leisure has an agenda now; we optimize our rest and measure our sleep. And if we are honest, even our prayer can become another form of rowing — twenty minutes, timer set, technique applied, progress quietly assessed. There is nothing wrong with oars. But a life that never ships them has made a decision about who is steering, and it is worth noticing what that decision is.

So here is a practice I have come to love, and one we now offer on retreat at San Damiano in the late afternoon, when the light goes gold on the hills. We call it a Drifting Prayer. The invitation is short enough to memorize: The Celtic monks used to set out to sea in small boats with no oars. They let the current decide. For the next while, the grounds are your current. There’s nowhere to get to and nothing to bring back. Walk, or don’t. If something finds you, let it.

You do not need a retreat center to pray it. You need a coracle — which is to say, a boundary. Thirty minutes. The park near your office. The road home taken slowly. A Saturday afternoon you refuse to schedule. The boundary is the only decision you make; it is the little boat that holds you. Then you ship the oars: leave the phone, drop the errand, release the outcome. If it helps, borrow the pilgrims’ own prayer of consent — Lead me; I care not where — which may be the most honest six words ever said to God.

And then you drift. You follow what gently draws you — a turn in the path, a bench, a birdsong, a doorway, a memory that rises unbidden. You steer only for safety. And when you catch yourself reaching for the oars again — planning tomorrow, evaluating the walk, quietly converting the hour into something productive — you notice, you smile, and you let the current have the boat back. That reach for the oars is not failure, by the way. It is the practice. Every time you release the handle, something in you learns a little more about trust.

Somewhere in the drift, something may arrest you. Stop there. You do not need to name it, photograph it, or turn it into a lesson. If something finds you, let it. And if nothing finds you — if the whole hour is just wind and footsteps and an ordinary sky — then the drifting itself was the prayer, and it was enough.

I want to say a particular word to those in a drifting season of life, because some of you did not choose your coracle. Retirement chose it. Recovery chose it. The empty house, the waiting room, the long stretch between what ended and whatever comes next. Our culture will tell you that because you are not doing anything, nothing is happening. The three men in the boat say otherwise. Being led is a form of prayer — perhaps the oldest one. And notice this, because it matters: the monks did not drift to relax. They drifted to be sent. Columba’s drift ended at Iona, and Iona changed the world. If you are in a season when the way forward is unclear, the drift is not the opposite of discernment. It is discernment, conducted at the speed of trust.

The other prayer forms will still be there when you come ashore — the chair, the sacred word, the Scriptures, the chapel. A Drifting Prayer replaces none of them. It simply consecrates the hours they cannot reach: the in-between ones, the unplanned ones, the ones we were about to waste by filling.

This week, then: one oarless hour. Choose your coracle. Say the six words. And let the current decide.

Where in your life are you still gripping the oars — and what might find you if, for one hour, you let the current decide?

Reflection Copyright 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS

 

THE DAILY GOSPEL AND READINGS 10 JULY 2026

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Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 387

Reading 1

Hosea 14:2-10

Thus says the LORD:
Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;
you have collapsed through your guilt.
Take with you words,
and return to the LORD;
Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,
and receive what is good, that we may render
as offerings the bullocks from our stalls.
Assyria will not save us,
nor shall we have horses to mount;
We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’
to the work of our hands;
for in you the orphan finds compassion.”
I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.
His splendor shall be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.
Again they shall dwell in his shade
and raise grain;
They shall blossom like the vine,
and his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

Ephraim! What more has he to do with idols?
I have humbled him, but I will prosper him.
“I am like a verdant cypress tree”—
because of me you bear fruit!

Let him who is wise understand these things;
let him who is prudent know them.
Straight are the paths of the LORD,
in them the just walk,
but sinners stumble in them.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 51:3-4, 8-9, 12-13, 14, 17

R. (17b) My mouth will declare your praise.
Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.
R. My mouth will declare your praise.
Behold, you are pleased with sincerity of heart,
and in my inmost being you teach me wisdom.
Cleanse me of sin with hyssop, that I may be purified;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
R. My mouth will declare your praise.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. My mouth will declare your praise.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
R. My mouth will declare your praise.

Alleluia

John 16:13a; 14:26d

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
When the Spirit of truth comes,
he will guide you to all truth
and remind you of all I told you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 10:16-23

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.
Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel
before the Son of Man comes.”