11th Sunday in OT 2026
Exodus 19:2-6; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36-10:8
It’s there! My favourite word! COMPASSION. A fortnight ago, in recognition of my forthcoming Golden Jubilee, I was asked to preach at the gathering of the priests of the Lancaster Diocese to mark the Feast of Christ the High Priest.
I reflected on the qualities which I felt should be the hallmarks of a priest, beginning with the First Reading of that day, which described Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, and I recalled a Carthusian Novice Conference which I had read years before, the gist of which was that all of us have at least one Isaac which we need to sacrifice. These are excessive attachments, which can afflict any of us, whether we be priests, religious, or members of the lay faithful. Anything which threatens to draw us away from God is an Isaac, which we have to surrender to God. If we do so, however painfully, we will find liberation, and may even receive Isaac back, renewed and purified.
The Gospel described the Agony in the Garden, when Peter, James and John were unable to fulfil Jesus’ request to watch and pray. I emphasised the need for priests to be men of prayer—again, a need which everyone shares—and I warned against arrogance, a fault to which priests may be particularly prone.
There was something else which the Gospel of the Agony revealed to me, in the repeated trips which Jesus made to the three apostles. Three times He stood up from His struggle and His prayer, to make His way back to Peter, James, and John. Each time, He found them asleep, unable to cope with what was asked of them.
It struck me that Our Lord was looking for support, and for compassion, which were not to be found. That compassion is represented in today’s Gospel by the verb splangnizomai, literally “to be stirred in your entrails or bowels, to be moved in your guts, in the very depth of your being”. Jesus, we ae told, had compassion—was moved in the depth of His being—because the people were “harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd”.
In Latin, as you may be aware, the phrase which English renders as “compassion” is cum passio, literally “suffering with”. It is one of the greatest gifts which God gives us, the grace to suffer with others, to be moved in our guts by and with the sufferings of others, to walk in their shoes, to dwell in their skin.
Why do I say that? It is because God is compassionate with us. He literally took on our skin in the person of Jesus, who became one of us, suffered what we suffer, both physically and mentally, went to the limits and beyond, with us.
In my homily, I commented that a priest without compassion is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and probably many other sorts of moron as well. Again, we could say the same about any Christian. Compassion is a beautiful gift which we must use, and which we all possess, if only we realise it.
I mentioned too that, when I was based at the Diocesan Residential Youth Centre (Castlerigg Manor) the lay staff used to claim (tongue in cheek) that I had only one homily which ran “Compassion—cum passio—suffering with”. Afterwards, Fr. Peter Sharrock, with whom had I worked there, commented that at least anyone who had been on the staff at that time knew what compassion meant.
Another word which recurs in today’s liturgy is “reconciliation”. In the Reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we find “reconciled” twice, as well as “reconciliation”. We were “reconciled to God” Paul tells us “by the death of God’s Son”. Can there be any news better than that? Sinners that we are, the Son of God, out of compassion for us, a compassion dwelling in the Father through the working of the Holy Spirit, has died for us, and has brought us back into friendship with God. As Paul writes elsewhere in the Letter to the Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God IS for us, as the death of His Son shows.
Consequently, I would like to leave you with those two words today: compassion and reconciliation. You couldn’t do better than either.
