11th Sunday of Ordinary Time, June 14 Homily

June 14, 2026

Homily in English

I thought that since school has already been out for at least a week, many of the students are probably going through test withdrawal.  So, everyone, if you would please take out a sheet of paper, fold it in half, and number it from 1-25, we’ll begin.  OK.  I’ll cut you a break, we’ll narrow it down to just 1 question, and it’ll be multiple choice.  So all you have to do is choose which one of the following statements is true.  Ready?  A) God wants most people to be saved.  B) God wants no one to be saved.  C) God only wants Catholics to be saved.  D) God wants all people to be saved.  So, which is the correct response?  Option D – God wants all people to be saved.  Since He loves each one of us as His children, He doesn’t anyone to be separated from Him – either in this life or in the life to come.  

And the Scriptures today prove that to us.  We hear in the first reading, that all the people of the earth belong to God, and in the second reading: “God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  So, it’s true.  In as much as we are all sinners, the Father desires that no one be lost to a life of sin and eternal separation from Him.

So how does He save us?  Well ultimately through Jesus, who by dying on the cross, has redeemed us by His blood, and pleads for us before His Father.  But, while salvation has been brought to its completion in Jesus, it didn’t begin with Him.  Really it began with the people God called His own – the Jews – Jesus Himself being one of them.  But did you ever wonder why God started with the Jewish people, beginning with Abraham?  I mean, did Jesus have to be born as a Jewish man?  Why didn’t He send Jesus earlier so that more people could have known Him?  Well, the short answer is that it’s all part of God’s plan.

As we hear again in our first reading today, God made Israel “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation”.  And this is the key.  God picked the Jewish people to form of them the ministry of the priesthood in the world.  The Hebrew concept of priest is one who offers sacrifice to God, interceding on behalf of others with Him.  So, for example, there were certain Jews, people called the Levites, who were called to offer important ritual sacrifices up to God of behalf of the people, to beg God’s forgiveness for sins.

But in a very real way, the whole collective people of Israel was also priestly.  They were priestly in the sense that they offered sacrifice to God and interceded for others with Him.  They were God’s specially chosen witnesses to the nations of the one true God of love and mercy.  They offered the sacrifice of their lives as they wandered for 40 years in the desert.  They interceded on behalf of the Gentiles, because by their example of obedience to God, they showed others what God wanted.

And then Jesus was born.  As God made man, He was born a Jew, and born as the one great high priest, who would offer the sacrifice of Himself on the cross, interceding on behalf of all people before His heavenly Father.

My friends, God does want all people to be saved.  And not only did He begin the process by choosing one people to form them as a people peculiarly His own.  Not only will He bring it to completion in His Son on the Day of Judgment.  But, He is carrying it out right now in our own day and age – because in a very real way, each one of us shares in the priesthood of Jesus.  

Way back when we were baptized, we each became members of the Church, the very Body of Christ.  And as His disciples, we share in His priestly ministry of offering sacrifice in order to intercede for others.  Ordained priests, such as Fr. Pray and myself, share directly in Jesus’ ministry of offering the one sacrifice of the cross of Calvary during the holy sacrifice of the Mass. 

But as Christians we all share, in a general way, in that call to offer sacrifice and intercede for others.  It’s not just the ordained priests who are called to serve Christ – we all are called to do so.  In fact, when the priest proclaims the words of the preface – “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours, may be acceptable to God the almighty Father” – you are invited to offer your intentions of the paten with the bread and your petitions in the chalice of wine.  You are interceding on behalf of others with our Father in heaven, as you offer with the priestly sacrifice of bread and wife, that which becomes the very Body and Blood of our Savior – Jesus, who is the Mediator between God and man.  In Him as Christians, you seek to sanctify the world by this priestly act of sacrifice and intercession for the world out there.  And this is the key, with which I’ll close.  It is in this way, and through your witness to the world, that others come to know the one true God of love and mercy.  As God’s specially chosen people, we are all called to labor in His vineyard for the salvation of the world.  God bless you.