Gospel: July 2, 2025

July 2, 2025 (Wednesday)

13th Week in Ordinary Time

Psalter: Week 1 / (Green)

Ps 34:7-8, 10-11, 12-13

The Lord hears the cry of the poor

1st Reading: Genesis 21:5, 8-20a

Gospel: Matthew 8:28-34

When Jesus reached Gadara, on the other side, he was met by two men, possessed by devils, who came out from the tombs. They were so fierce that no one dared to pass that way. They cried out, “Son of God, leave us alone! Have you come here to torment us before the time?” Some distance away there was a large herd of pigs feeding. So the demons begged him, “If you drive us out, send us into that herd of pigs.” Jesus ordered them, “Go!” So the demos left the men and went into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and was drowned. The men in charge of the pigs ran off to the town, where they told the whole story; and also what had happened to the men possessed with the demons. The whole town went out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.

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Reflection:

“God renews our hope in him.”

What at first seems to be a story of rivalry and rejection becomes an occasion of God’s care. Hagar and her son are sent into the wilderness with only some bread and a skin of water, hardly enough or a short journey and certainly not enough to cross the wilderness. Are they being sent away to die? It seems so at first, when the water runs out first, since Hagar lays the child under the shade of a bush as a last act of comfort and retreats, unable to watch her child die. Her hope has gone, but then God gives it back to her by promising that her child would become the beginning of a great nation, a promise which is given new life by the water of the well. Hagar sees the well and sees new hope and possibility. Sometimes we can’t see any way forward. We feel abandoned and hope seems to have dried up like Hagar’s waterskin. Then God comes to us and helps us to make the next step on our journey. When we are struggling, may God reveal new possibilities to us and renew our hope in him.