Roman Rite
XIV Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A - July 5, 2026
Zec 9: 9-10; Ps 145; Rm 8, 9-11-13; Mt 11: 25-30
Ambrosian Rite
Gen 11: 31.32b-12.5b; Ps 105; Eb 11.1-2.8-16b; Lk 9.57-62
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
1) The importance of being a little one.
Today's Gospel begins with these words of Jesus: "I praise thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for thou hast hid these things unto the wise and the learned, and hast revealed them unto the little ones" (Mt 11:25). Christ is happy not because he is heard by ignorant people. He is happy because he is heard by humble people. The Word made flesh does not condemn science and wisdom, but man's pride and presumption. Indeed, the word "little ones" translates the Greek word "nepioi", which means "infants", that is, those who have no use of the word, as it is the case for newborn children.
Why are the little ones the privileged recipients of the "things of the Father" and are able to understand them? Because in order to learn to speak, the little ones listen and do not replace the Word with the words that the great ones use to assert themselves and not to praise God.
Those who have a wisdom made of meaningless talks are like the rich and powerful of all times. They reject the novelty of the kingdom because they presume to know God, and their social and economic well-being makes them deceive themselves believing to be self-sufficient and not in need of a change of life, grace and forgiveness.
In full harmony with what Jesus tells us today is Mary who in the Magnificat proclaims: "My spirit exults in God because he has looked at the lowliness (= the little ones), he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, He has put down the mighty from their seat: and has exalted the humble and. He has filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he has sent empty away. "
How to become little and be like children? Being humble. That does not mean to despise or to nullify oneself, or to disappear, but to recognize what one is, that is "humus" (= earth). Recognizing that we are "earth", on the one hand means to be aware that "we are dust and to dust we will return" - as the Bible says (Gen 3:19). On the other hand, acknowledging this "humus" is the material to receive the breath of God, his Spirit that infuses life to us as it infused it to Adam. It is the suitable ground for receiving and fructify the seed of the Word of God. Even our own mistakes and our sins, if they are recognized (this is humility), allow us to become the fertile and welcoming ground to receive the gift of God and to make the decisive encounter of life, that is, the one with God’s mercy. This encounter with His "mercy", meaning with his "heart given to the wretched", with his preferential love for the little ones, the poor, and the sinners, allows the creative "hands" of God to shape the "clay" of our heart according to His heart.
2) Christ’s humility
Today’s Gospel also teaches us that it is from Jesus that we learn humility: "Learn from me that I am gentle and humble of heart."
Jesus is the first of the little ones: he comes as the son of poor people, he is born in a stable, he has no power and his revolution takes place on a cross, where he dies between two thieves. But a man is great not on the measure of his intelligence, but how great is his heart. “Learn from me, who am meek and humble of heart”. Let us learn from the heart of Jesus, let us learn from Him by learning about his heart, that is, his way of loving. We learn to live learning the heart of God.
Let us learn from Christ's way of loving: humble, without arrogance, and gentle, without violence. As refreshment of our existence, Christ’s humble and gentle love is the one of the humble Prince of peace, who spreads his peace together with a sense of serenity in the thirst of living. And our life takes heart next to his. Then the discipleship of the heart begins for everyone, children and elders, women and men, for us who feel intelligent, but who run the risk of remaining illiterate of the heart. Officials of the rules and people illiterate of the heart.
A saint who understood the humility of Christ is St. Francis. For the saint of Assisi Christ is humility. This Saint is completely astonished by the contemplation of the Christian mystery as the mystery of supreme humility: the humility of Christ in his birth, in his passion, and in the Eucharist.
St. Francis of Assisi teaches us that Jesus is humble because he lives -because he is a creature- in the total dependence of his human will on the divine Will: "I did not come to do my will, but the will of the One who sent me". One can therefore think of Jesus’ humility because, as a creature, He lives the eclipse of self in respect to the Father. But Saint Francis goes even further. Humility in Francis - and here is the great novelty, the wonderful discovery of Saint Francis - is the revelation of love.
God is love and love can only be humility. Christ reveals this humility of God by incarnating and dwelling among men as the one who serves. Christ’s humility reveals the love of a God who gives himself totally to man, for his redemption. The Son of God chooses for himself silence, the last place: the cross. He becomes "nothing" so that man can be everything. This happens again whenever Christ is present in the Mass under the species of bread and wine to become food and drink for us.
Christ is humble because he is love that empties himself to give himself, because love is a gift. The Son of God reveals himself to man and is made present by giving himself to the point of "getting lost" in each one of us, whom he loves humbly and infinitely. If we can know and understand the humility of Christ in his birth in Bethlehem, in his passion and in his death, we can understand, know and experience him especially in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist he is the humility of a God who, by loving us, becomes annihilated and gives himself to us to be our life now and for eternity.
3) The consecrated Virgins and humility.
The Son of God/ humility is incarnated to be the bridegroom who gives himself totally to the bride. The divine design is realized in the covenant. God becomes man to give himself to all mankind, to every man and woman.
An eminent example of a response to Christ, humble bridegroom, is that of the consecrated virgins who give themselves to Him totally as brides, making their own the teaching of St. Clare of Assisi, who in a letter to St. Agnes of Prague wrote: "Happy be the one to whom it is given to enjoy this sacred marriage in order to adhere with the depths of the heart [to Christ] the one whose beauty is always admired by all the blessed hosts of the heavens, whose affection is passionate, whose contemplation reinvigorates, whose benignity satisfies , whose suavity fills, whose memory shines. To his perfume the dead will come to life, and his glorious vision will bless all citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. Since he is the splendor of glory, the candor of eternal light and the spotless mirror, look to this mirror every day, oh queen bride of Jesus Christ, and in it continually scan for his face so that you can adorn yourself all inside and out ... In this mirror blissful poverty, holy humility and ineffable charity shine "(Fourth Letter: FF, 2901-2903).
The consecrated virgins are called to live the humility of and with Christ, accepting to be diminished and to let themselves be carried by Love. Through humble life, they are credible witnesses of Christ up to the total gift of self, becoming "hosts" who imitate the only pure, sober and well-accepted to God host who is Christ.
Regarding this bond between virginity and humility Saint Augustine wrote: " Whence the greatness of this service, unto the undertaking of which we have according to our strength exhorted, the more excellent and divine it is, the more does it warn our anxiety, to say something not only concerning most glorious chastity, but also concerning safest humility. When then such as make profession of perpetual chastity, comparing themselves with married persons, shall have discovered, that, according to the Scriptures, the others are below both in work and wages, both in vow and reward, let what is written straightway come into their mind, By how much you are great, by so much humble yourself in all things: and you shall find favor before God. The measure of humility for each has been given from the measure of his greatness itself: unto which pride is full of danger, which lays the greater wait against persons the greater they be. On this follows envying, as a daughter in her train; forsooth pride straightway gives birth to her, nor is she ever without such a daughter and companion. By which two evils, that is, pride and envying, is the devil (a devil). Therefore it is against pride, the mother of envying, that the whole Christian discipline chiefly wars. For this teaches humility, whereby both to gain and to keep charity; of which after that it had been said, Charity envies not; as though we were asking the reason, how it comes to pass that it envies not, he straightway added, is not puffed up; as though he should say, on this account it has not envying, in that neither has it pride. Therefore the Teacher of humility, Christ, first emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, made obedient even unto death, even the death of the Cross. But His teaching itself, how carefully it suggests humility, and how earnest and instant it is in commanding this, who can easily unfold, and bring together all witnesses for proof of this matter? This let him essay to do, or do, whosoever shall wish to write a separate treatise on humility; but of this present work the end proposed is different, and it has been undertaken on a matter so great, as that it has chiefly to guard against pride. "(Saint Virginity, 31)
11,27).»
Patristic reading
Saint Augustin of Hippo
Sermon XVIII. [LXVIII. Ben.]
On the words of the gospel, Mt 11,25 “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth,” etc.
1). We have heard the Son of God saying, “I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth.” What doth he confess to Him? Wherein doth he praise Him? “Because Thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes.”1 Who are the “wise
and prudent”? Who the“babes”? What hath He hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto
babes? By the “wise and prudent,” He signifieth those of whom St. Paul speaks; “Where is the
wise? Where is the scribe? where Wheree disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world?”2 Yet perhaps thou still askest who they are. They are they peradventure
who in their much disputation concerning God, have spoken falsely of Him; who, puffed up by
their own doctrines, could in no wise find out and know God, and who for the God whose
substance is incomprehensible and invisible, have thought the air and sky to be God, or the sun
to be God, or anything which holds high place3 among the creatures to be God. For observing
the grandeur and beauty and powers of the creatures, they rested in them, and found not the
Creator.
2. These men does the Book of wisdom reprove, where it is said, “For if they were able to know
so much as to aim at the world, how did they not sooner find out the Lord thereof?”4 They are
accused as wasting their time and their busy disputes in investigating and measuring as it were the
creature; they sought out the courses of the stars, the intervals of the planets, the movements5 of
the heavenly bodies, so as to arrive by certain6 calculations to that degree of knowledge as to
foretell the eclipses of the sun and moon; and that as they had foretold, so should the event be
according to the day and hour, and to the portion of the bodies which should be eclipsed. Great
industry, great activity of mind. But in these things they sought after the Creator, who was not far
off from them, and they found Him not. Whom if they could have found, they might have had
within them. With the best reason then, and very rightly were they accused, who could investigate
the numbers of the stars, and their varied movements, and know and foretell the eclipses of the
luminaries: rightly accused, I say, in that they found not Him by whom these had been created
and ordained, because they neglected to seek Him. But be not thou much disquieted, if thou art
ignorant of the courses of the stars, and the proportions7 of the celestial and terrestrial bodies.
Behold the fair beauty of the world and praise its Creator’s counsel. Behold what He has made,
and love Him who made it: be this thy greatest care. Love Him who made it; for He made thee
also after His own image, that thou mightest love Him.
3. If then it is strange that those things of which Christ said, “Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent,” were hidden from such wise men as these, who, occupied wholly about
the creatures, chose to seek the Creator carelessly, and could not find Him; still more strange is it
that there should even be found some “wise and prudent” men who were able to know Him.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of
men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”8 Perhaps thou dost ask, what truth do they hold in
unrighteousness? “Because that which may be known of God is manifest among them.” How is
it manifest? He goes on to say, “For God hath manifested it to them.”9 Dost thou still enquire
how He manifested it to them to whom He gave not the law? How? “For the invisible things of
Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made.”10 There were then some such, not as Moses the servant of God, not as many Prophets
who had an insight into and knowledge of these things, and were aided by the Spirit of God,
which they drew in by faith, and drank with the throat11 of godliness, and poured12 forth again
by the mouth of the interior man. Not such as these were they; but far unlike them, who by
means of this visible creation were able to attain to the understanding of the Creator, and to say
of these things which God hath made;13 Behold what things He hath made, He governeth and
containeth also. He who hath made them, Himself filleth what He hath made with His own
presence. Thus much they were enabled to say. For these Paul also made mention of in the Acts
of the Apostles, where, when he had said of God, “For in Him we live and move and have our
being”14 (forasmuch as he was speaking to the Athenians among whom those learned men had
existed); he subjoined immediately; “As certain also of your own have said.” Now it was no trivial
thing they said; “That in Him we live and move and have our being.”
4. In what then were they unlike the others? why were they blamed? why rightly accused? Hear
the words of the Apostle which I had begun to quote; “The wrath of God,” saith he, “is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness” (even of those, namely, who had not received the law);
“against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”
What truth? “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them.” By whose
manifestation of it? “For God hath manifested it to them.” How? “For the invisible things of
Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even His Eternal Power and Godhead.” Why did He manifest it? “That they might be
without excuse.” Wherein then are they to be blamed? “Because that when they knew God, they
glorified Him not as God.”
5. What mean these words, “Glorified Him not as God?” They did not give Him thanks. Is this
then to glorify God; to give God thanks? Yes, verily. For what can be worse, if having been
created after the image of God, and having come to know God, thou shalt not be thankful to
Him? This surely, this is to glorify God, to give God thanks. The faithful know where and when
it is said, “Let us give thanks unto our Lord God.” But who gives thanks to God, save he who
“lifts up his heart unto the Lord?” Therefore are they blameable and without excuse, “Because
when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, nor gave Him thanks. But”—what? “But
they became vain in their imaginations.” Whence did they become vain, but because they were
proud? Thus smoke vanishes away by rising up aloft, and a flame burns the more brightly and
strongly in proportion as it is kept15 low; “They became vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened.” So smoke, though it rise higher than the flame, is dark.
6. Finally, mark what follows, and see the point on which the whole matter depends. “For
professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” For arrogating to themselves what God
had given, God took away what He had given. Therefore from the proud He hid Himself, who
conveyed the knowledge of Himself only to those who through the creature sought diligently
after the Creator. Well then did our Lord say, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent;” whether from those who in their manifold disputations, and most busy search, have
reached to the full investigation of the creature, but knew nothing of the Creator, or from them
who when they knew God, glorified Him not as God, nor gave Him thanks, and who could not
see perfectly or healthfully because they were proud. “Therefore Thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes.” What babes? To the lowly. Say on
whom doth My Spirit rest? “Upon him that is lowly and quiet, and who trembleth at My
words.”16 At these words Peter trembled; Plato trembled not. Let the fisherman hold fast what
that most famous philosopher has lost. “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes.” Thou hast hid them from the proud, and revealed them to
the humble. What things are these? For when He said this, He did not intend the heaven and
earth, or point them out as it were with His hand as He spake. For these who does not see? The
good see them, the bad see them; for He “maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good.”17
What then are these things? “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father.”18
1 (Mt 11,25).
2 (1Co 1,20
3 Sublimiter eminet.
4 (Sg 13,9
5 Itinera.
6 Vid). Conf. 5,3 (4).
7 Numeros.
8 (Rm 1,18
9 (Rm 1,19
10 (Rm 1,20
11 Faucibus.
12 Ructuaverunt.
13 Vid). Conf. 7,9 (13-15).
14 (Ac 17,28).
15 Humilius apprehendendo.
16 (Is 66,2
17 (Mt 5,45
18 (Mt 11,27
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