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"Meek, and riding on an ass"
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 5, 2026
Thus says the LORD:
Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion,
shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king shall come to you;
a just savior is he,
meek, and riding on an ass,
on a colt, the foal of an ass.
He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim,
and the horse from Jerusalem;
the warrior's bow shall be banished,
and he shall proclaim peace to the nations.
His dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R/. I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.
I will extol you, O my God and King,
and I will bless your name forever and ever.
Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The Lord is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
Let all your works give you thanks, O Lord,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might.
The Lord is faithful in all his words
and holy in all his works.
The Lord lifts up all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.
Romans 8:9, 11-13
Brothers and sisters:
You are not in the flesh;
on the contrary, you are in the spirit,
if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
the one who raised Christ from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also,
through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Consequently, brothers and sisters,
we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die,
but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body,
you will live.
At that time Jesus exclaimed:
"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to little ones.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."
"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."
King of Peace
After a lengthy treatment of the opposition Jesus met, and the warnings that his disciples would fare no better, Matthew offers some comforting thoughts.Though the battle is real enough, the way of Jesus is not one of overbearing power but of gentle persuasion. But first, we're going to spend some time with the opening reading from the prophet Zechariah. It is familiar, since it underpins the Palm Sunday event, but we may never have looked at it in itself:
See, your king shall come to you;
a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.
He shall banish the chariot and the horse; the warrior's bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations.
His dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
What an extraordinary image this is: your king coming as kings do, in solemn procession..., but riding on an ass, riding a donkey instead of a powerful warhorse. And 'meek', the prophet says. Is there a word in the English language more poorly understood than this 'meek'. The synonyms that come to mind: soft, insipid, simpering, like lukewarm milky tea.
We need to get real about this word. In the Greek it was praus [prah-ooce]: a primitive word meaning gentle, humble.
The text of Zechariah was of course in Hebrew and there the word is aniy, variously translated as afflicted, humble, lowly, needy, poor. Take a moment to picture this loser, with nothing going for him, his lowly mount plodding doggedly along, head down, as donkeys do...
Can this be God's way of being 'king'? We need to note that the prophet puts the accent, not on what we might call "meekness" but on lowliness. Earthiness, if you will. There's nothing artificial about this man, no display of wealth, no pretense of being self-sufficient, no high and mighty airs. Yet the image vibrates with strength. He shall banish the chariot and the horse; the warrior's bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations.
*****
So the theme of this Sunday is PEACE. In his recent encyclical, "Magnificent Humanity", Pope Leo XIV has taken issue with the traditional teaching about the 'just war'. The theory, he says, is out of date and no longer valid, given the enormous destructive power now available for warfare and on the other hand our highly developed capacity for reconciliation through dialogue.
In the final section of this letter to the whole world the pope actually calls upon every person, every one of us, to work for peace. "No one is without responsibility", he writes. "We all have our own areas for action, and it is precisely there — and nowhere else — that we must choose whether to fuel the mentality of force (even if only through indifference, cynicism, lies or hatred), or to preserve the mindset of peace (with truth, moderation, closeness and care)."
Not content with a general exhortation, he goes on to list five ways in which individuals can make a difference. I feel we could do well to look closely at these to help us overcome what the pope calls a 'subtle temptation' and 'a polite form of resignation', namely the common excuse that the problems are too big and we are too small.
The first of these five things we can all do is about the way we speak, and the attitude behind our words.
“Let us disarm words and we will help to disarm the world.” [...]“Peace begins with each one of us: in the way we look at others, listen to others and speak about others.[..] We must say ‘no’ to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war.”
The second way is by building peace through justice:
"All of us, at every level, can contribute to building the foundation of peace, which is justice. We do not merely seek any kind of peace — such as an absence of conflict at any cost — but instead, the true peace born of justice."
“There exists a very close connection between the justice of the individual and the peace of everyone.”
Adopting the perspective of victims is the third thing to think about, and it fits well with the image of the King of Peace coming in solemn procession, mounted on a donkey. It is not surprising that the letter expands on this issue at greater length; nor is it remote for anyone. You have only to watch Al Jazeera news or pay attention to the plight of Venezuelan earthquake victims to know what it is to be a victim. The question is, have I the courage to enter into their pain? Our own world has its victims - victims of random violence, of domestic violence, the homeless, children abused by churches and other institutions. How will we bring peace to this world of ours? Not by law enforcement alone. A priority must be through compassion for victims, leading to getting them just compensation.
There are times when, in order to remain human, we must set aside our reservations and take a stand. In some conflicts, it is unjust to remain neutral, nor is it enough merely to claim that we are not complicit. When we witness the bombing of civilians, attacks on hospitals, schools or vital infrastructure, and violence that affects children, we are confronted with scandals that wound humanity itself.
For this reason, we cannot limit ourselves to the level of abstract analysis. Pope Francis encouraged us to “touch the wounded flesh” of those who suffer, look at their faces, listen to their stories and acknowledge their wounds. Painful events require both history and memory, the former to recount the facts, the latter to bear witness to lived experiences.
Next comes a healthy realism.
Pope Leo has no time for a kind of idealism that chooses facts selectively, distorting and renaming them. Nor for a debased form of realism that confuses observation with resignation, arguing that since force prevails, it will always prevail.
Authentic realism does not give up on changing the world; indeed, it starts by clearly identifying interests, fears, constraints and power dynamics, precisely in order to determine what can be achieved, and the measures needed to achieve it. It does not reduce politics to morality; neither does it surrender to violence. Instead, it seeks viable paths for making peace more than a mere word, through credible institutions, verifiable guarantees, patient negotiations, conflict prevention and the protection of civilians.
And finally dialogue.
At the political level, there is an urgent need to shift from the “culture of power” to a genuine “culture of negotiation,” in which dialogue and diplomacy become the standard means of resolving conflicts, for dialogue is the primary means of coexistence between people and nations, and it is the alternative to open conflict.
Addressing those in government positions, the pope recalls something he said last year: “The peoples of our world desire peace, and to their leaders I appeal with all my heart: Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate! War is never inevitable. Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them.
"Those who make history are the peacemakers, not those who sow seeds of suffering. Our neighbors are not first our enemies, but our fellow human beings; not criminals to be hated, but other men and women with whom we can speak. Let us reject the Manichean notions so typical of that mindset of violence that divides the world into those who are good and those who are evil.”
There's a lot more in the letter on international relationships. I will reprint this section of the letter in a further post, with referral to the whole encyclical and some commentary from the press. For now, we should return to the readings.
A close look at the prophet's thoughts shows a strategy, a causal link: war will be eliminated by virtue of the arms race being 'banished'. Horse and chariot, bow and arrow, and of course sword and spear as well - all banished. We can't even banish nuclear bombs; not even cluster bombs and land mines and poison gas. Between the ban and the banish the world is packed with armories ready, waiting, poised to kill. But in the kingdom of God there will be no killing of each other. No war!
*****
Coming back to the gospel passage, its most striking feature is the way it shows the humanness of Jesus. After being treated over the past four Sundays with a series of hard sayings and warnings of opposition and persecution to come for anyone who takes up the cross of following Jesus, we are served a corrective - in case we've become discouraged. "Learn of me," he says, "for I am gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." After all those severe warnings about carrying one's cross our first reaction might well be: "You've got to be kidding."
But that would be to miss the point. The gospel demands serious investigation to mine all the teaching. Did we find those warnings and demands hard sayings? Is that because we have not heard them right? The human Jesus who knows what it feels like to be an ordinary man, limited - even weak, vulnerable, afraid, is telling us now to be careful not to take his instructions as harsh demands or strict commands, but as words of encouragement words from our best friend.