The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Exodus 19:2-6a  +  Romans 5:6-11 +  Matthew 9:36—10:8
St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Garden Plain, KS
June 14, 2026

In the First Reading, God makes a promise to the Israelites.  If they listen to His word and keep their covenant with Him, He would hold them as a special possession. 

But then God’s promise went further.  He promised that they would be dearer to Him than all other people, though all the earth is His. 

Finally, He concludes His promise with a surprising statement.  He declares “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”  This statement is as true of the Church today as it was of the Israelites in their day.  The Church to which you belong is “a kingdom of priests”. 

We owe it to ourselves to unpack this phrase:  “a kingdom of priests”.  In the Church, Jesus is our High Priest on the Cross.  From the power of the Cross flow two forms of priesthood:  the ordained priesthood and the baptismal priesthood.

+     +     +

It’s true that ordained priests play an important—and, in fact, essential—role in the life of the Church.  However, it’s also true that every Christian, by virtue of her or his baptism, is a priest.  This baptismal priesthood is central to living in the world as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

St. Paul in the Second Reading reminds us that Christ Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us on the Cross.  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Christ is our High Priest.  He is not like the priests of the Old Testament who offered goats and bulls as sacrifices.  Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice.  This is a key difference between the Old Testament priesthood and the priesthood of Jesus.

Jesus offered Himself on the Cross as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.  So in imitation of Jesus, every baptized Christian offers herself or himself in sacrifice out of love of God and neighbor.  As the members of Christ’s Mystical Body—the Church—we are all together a kingdom of priests.

We learn how to sacrifice through the example of those who guide us in our lives.  Chief among these examples is Christ, of course.  The Church looks to the example that Jesus Christ gave us on the Cross.  However, the Cross is not the only example which Jesus gives us.  In fact, the entire life of our Lord shows us the love He has for us. 

In today’s Gospel Reading, we see that Jesus was not willing to let any need go untended.  Jesus couldn’t stand to see the suffering experienced by those with unclean spirits and diseases.  So he gave His twelve apostles a share in His own authority, so could share in His work of healing.

In giving His healing power to the apostles, Jesus showed the same concern that He shows today in the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  Only ordained priests may confer the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  However, every baptized Christian is called to carry out the corporal works of mercy. 

God calls the baptized to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, to visit the sick and imprisoned, and to clothe those who are without.  He calls us to shelter the homeless, and to bury the dead.  By means of these sacrifices, we imitate our Lord Jesus.  The corporal and the spiritual works of mercy are key ways in which we live out our baptismal priesthood.  We make a sacrifice from the heart in order to care for the needs of others.

But consider another reason why we need to take the baptismal priesthood so seriously.  Our lives—for good or ill—set examples for others, most especially for our youth.  Christ did  not only give His followers a mandate to care for others.  He also commanded them to pray that others down the road would join the work of God’s harvest. 

That latter command is addressed to us in our day and age, as well.  Jesus declares:  “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  Clearly the “vocations crisis” is not something unique in Church history.  It was even present in Jesus’ own day.

Of course, the most important source of strength for living out the baptismal priesthood is Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  We cannot fully carry out God’s will for our lives without the strength that comes from the Eucharist.  That leads us to the importance of the ordained priesthood.

We are blessed in our diocese when it comes to vocations to the ordained priesthood.  Many bishops from other dioceses have asked why our diocese is so blessed.  You might say that—in a good sense—it’s a matter of the chicken and the egg.  Which blessing comes first?  Is the stewardship of rank and file baptized Christians so strong in our diocese because we have such an abundance of ordinations?  Or do we have such an abundance of vocations because of the examples of sacrificial stewardship that young people see growing up?  The answer is “Yes”, and “Yes”.

It’s also important to note the sacrifice of time that so many members of our diocese make in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.  The prayers offered in Eucharistic Adoration throughout our diocese are an essential reason for the blessings in our diocese.  This is especially true of the vocations to the ordained priesthood that God is perpetually calling forth from our parishes.

When we care for others, and when we pray to God, we recognize that we are small.  We exist and we live in this world in order to serve others.  That service prepares others and ourselves to see more clearly that this world here below is not all there is.  In this world, we prepare others and ourselves for the life to come, which God wills to be our eternal inheritance.  Every gift that we have received, we are to give as a gift.