Homily: July 28, 2026, Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time (Compassion)

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 “Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest, over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people.”

We heard these words from the prophet Jeremiah in today’s first reading. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet because while sending messages of the Lord to warn his people, he also wept for them. He lived during a difficult time of drought, famine, and great uncertainty, and as a prophet, he foresaw the coming Babylonian exile.

Jeremiah knew that because of the sins of the people, great suffering was coming down upon the whole nation. Even with that knowledge, he did not escape for his own safety and condemn them from a distance. He stayed on, suffered with them, lamented and prayed for them.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about the good seed and the weeds growing together. The good seeds are the children of the Kingdom of God, the weeds are the children of the evil one. Good and evil exist side by side in the world, not in harmony, but in conflict. 

And often people who do good would suffer because of people who do evil. Their suffering, when united with Christ’s suffering, becomes a prayer, and when offered for the good of others, becomes a blessing.

The exile of Israel ended eventually, but Jesus reminds us that our exile in this earthly life will end at the final judgment. After the final judgement, it will be either eternal life with God or forever separation from Him. Our choices now have eternal consequences. Which would you choose today?

Like Jeremiah, let us have compassion for those who are far from God, including ourselves if our hearts are still at a distance. Let us pray that we will all make choices that will lead to life with God, now and forever.

Let us pray with love, and even with tears, for the conversion and salvation of all souls.

Amen.


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Homily: July 19, 2026 Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Holy Spirit -Praying for us.)

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