LOVED, CALLED AND CHOSEN
Good Sunday to you & welcome to our reflections on the readings for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The synopsis of the readings from the Sunday Missal speaks about Our Calling – God has made us his own. He reconciles us in Christ and calls each by name to be a people consecrated to him. As his priestly people we offer the sacrifice today, filled with joyful trust in him.” Let us now unpack the readings of a profound theological journey that traces the movement of God’s grace from communal identity to deeply personal salvation, ultimately culminating in a radical missionary call. Across Exodus, Romans & the Gospel of Matthew, a unified narrative emerges: God initiates a relationship with a helpless humanity, transforms them into a cherished possession & immediately commissions them to bring the experience of that same restorative mercy to a wounded & broken world.
The 1st Reading (Exodus 19:2-6a) anchors this reflection in the foundational memory of the Covenant at Mount Sinai. Here, the Israelites are resting in the wilderness, weary from their escape from Egypt. God speaks to Moses, utilizing the breathtaking imagery of maternal protection: "You yourselves have seen... how I bore you up on eagle’s wings and brought you here to myself." It is vital to recognize the chronology of this grace. God did not wait for Israel to become a holy nation before rescuing them; He delivered them first. The covenantal invitation to be a "kingdom of priests, a holy nation" is not a condition for his love, but a consequence of it. It establishes that to be chosen by God is to be set apart, not for exclusive privilege, but for a specific purpose—to act as a bridge between the Creator and the rest of creation.
I love what St Paul says in Ephesians 1:3-4 that reinforces our privilege: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.”
This theme of unmerited grace is reflected so clearly in the 2nd Reading (Romans 5:6-11). Saint Paul strips away any illusion that human virtue can earn divine favour, writing with stark honesty: "Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly." Paul points out the rarity of someone dying even for a righteous person, contrasting human limitations with the radical nature of divine love: "But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." This text challenges the pervasive modern instinct that we must "fix" ourselves before approaching the divine. We were reconciled to God while we were still counted as enemies. Our worth is not performance-based; it is entirely rooted in the fact that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ.
This profound realization of being deeply loved & unmeritedly rescued provides the necessary framework for understanding the Gospel (Matthew 9:36—10:8). Matthew begins by noting that when Jesus saw the crowds, his heart was moved with visceral pity, indicating a deep, gut-wrenching compassion. He saw the people as "troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd."
Jesus’ response to this intense pain & isolation of the people is not to offer a generic platitude, but to restructure his ministry. He notes that the harvest is abundant, but the labourers are few, and subsequently summons his twelve disciples, transforming them into apostles – a word literally meaning "those who are sent."
The instructions Jesus gives the Twelve are striking in their urgency & radical dependence. He grants them authority to cure diseases, raise the dead & cast out demons, instructing them, "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give." The disciples are being asked to freely distribute the exact same grace that Paul marvelled at in Romans & that God illustrated in Exodus. They are to become the "eagle’s wings" for the lost sheep of Israel, carrying the broken back to the Shepherd.
In reflecting on these readings, do you sense the prompting pf the Holy Spirit to shift how we view our Christian identity? Do you realize that we can’t give what we have not received, but conversely, we can’t truly receive God's grace without it compelling us outward to share it with others? Ordinary Time for us is thus not a period of passive waiting; it is a season of active discipleship. Our upcoming Parish Retreat by Fr Joseph Royan, C.Ss.R. from Wed 15 Jul till Fri 17 Jul, 7.30 pm to 10.00 pm nightly, will sharpen our focus precisely on this aspect of missionary discipleship. We are reminded that we are the modern labourers called to enter the harvest of a world that remains profoundly harassed, dejected & searching for meaning & connection with the divine.
To live out this Sunday’s liturgy, then, is to step into & fully embrace our identity as a priestly people loved, called & chosen by God. Listen to what St John says in his 1st Letter Chapter 4, Verse 10 & 19: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins… We love because he first loved us.” So, accepting that because we have first been loved by God in our woundedness & helplessness, let us now extend that same free, life-giving mercy to the dejected & helpless around us.
Article by Damian Boon, HFC Blog Team Lead