6 July 2026 - Monday of the 14th week (even year)
Hosea 2:16...22; Matthew 9:18-26
Homily
The Gospel account we have today in Matthew's version is the same as the one we had in Mark's eight days ago, on the 13th Ordinary Sunday. We saw then how the two healing stories in this account convey a message about life and its restoration. It is about physical life, which the woman is called to give. The two women in this gospel are restored to the capacity to give life.
The first reading, from the prophet Hosea, also speaks of life, but in a much more poetic way. Hosea describes God's relationship with his people using the image of a husband's unfailing love for his wife, even though she has deceived him and gone to the idols, the Baals. He wants to take her into the desert and speak to her heart. It is a story full of tenderness, very much in the line of the Song of Songs. It was therefore quite normal to have, as a psalm refrain, after this reading, the verse from Psalm 144: "The Lord is tender and merciful".
For the prophet Hosea, as for Pope Francis, who often uses the word "tenderness", this has no character of weakness. On the contrary, it has a transforming power. It is because he loves his people with tenderness that God can transform them, convert them. By establishing an unbreakable covenant with his people, he makes them capable of loving him for days on end, like a faithful wife. This bond between God and his people will then be marked not only by duration, but also by justice and righteousness, by faithfulness and loyalty.
The one who receives this gift is enabled to "know the Lord". This knowledge is a form of love for the Lord.
During this Eucharist, let us open ourselves to this gift of conversion, which will transform us and make us know in an ever more existential way the tenderness of our God.
Armand Veilleux