Homily: July 10, 2026 Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Promise of Healing)

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 "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." 

God expresses His promises to His chosen people on various occasions and many ways in Sacred Scripture. What we have just read in today's first reading from prophet Hosea is beautiful and very assuring.

It is beautiful because God is expressing His love so affectionately, it is assuring because it was addressed to a people whom He should be angry with, yet He was still showering love.

The Book of Hosea was written just before the Assyrian exile of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The people had turned away from God. They worshipped idols, had forgotten the covenant and lived unfaithfully to the Lord. As a result, they began to experience the painful consequences of their sins. Eventually, the Assyrians conquered them, they were exiled from their homeland, the Promised Land, and never returned.

Yet, before this tragedy, God saw the impending downfall of His people and spoke through the prophet Hosea with words of extraordinary mercy. He pleaded with His people to turn back to Him. He assured them, "I will heal their defection... I will love them freely... I will be like the dew for Israel."

God wanted to save them from the destruction that would arise from their own sinfulness, He wanted to restore them to greatness and make them flourish again.

Sadly, they paid no attention, they did not take Hosea’s prophecies seriously and continued their sinful ways, denying God’s presence and ignoring His warnings. Finally, they had to bear the painful consequences.

Today’s message is not for Israel only; it is for every one of us. We, too, sin against God. We fall. We are distracted from God’s teachings and attracted by the world’s pleasings. We drift away. Yet God did not, does not and will not ever walk away from us. He continues to woo and invite us, "Return to me. I will heal you. I will love you freely. You will blossom like the lily."

God's greatest mercy is that He wills to restore what sin has damaged. And He never gives up on that. Even with our hardened hearts, He keeps coming to us.

So let us listen to His call. Let us keep returning to Him. Every time we come to Him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we receive exactly what God promised to Israel. He heals. He frees. He restores. From being wilted and withered, He blossoms us back to life like the lily.

Amen.


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