16 July 2026 - Thursday of the 15th week
Isaiah 26:7-19; Matthew 11:28-30
Homily
We continue our reading of Matthew's Chapter 11, in which he has gathered together various brief sayings of Jesus. Some of these words have been placed elsewhere by the other Evangelists; others, like the one we have just read, are unique to Matthew. It would be futile to try to find the precise situation in which these words were spoken by Jesus. They are small, isolated texts or stories that circulated in the early Church before being grouped together in our Gospels. They have value and force in their own right, independently of any context.