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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."
"Meek, and riding on an ass"
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, on a donkey instead of a powerful warhorse. And 'meek', the prophet said. Is there a word in the language more poorly understood than this: 'meek'. The synonyms that come to mind: soft, insipid, simpering, like lukewarm milky tea.
So 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 poor sod, not just down on his luck but pretty well beaten, with nothing going for him, his lowly mount plodding doggedly along, its head down as donkeys do, a picture of misery.
Maybe that's taking it too far, but we need to note that the accent is not on gentleness but lowliness. And yet the image vibrates with power. He shall banish the chariot and the horse; the warrior's bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations. This is God's power in action through him and it's interesting to look closely at the prophet's thoughts: war will be eliminated by the arms race being 'banished'. Horse and chariot, bow and arrow, and no doubt sword as well - all banished. We can't even banish nuclear bombs; not even cluster bombs and poison gas: between the ban and the banish the world is packed with armories reading, waiting, poised to kill.
What is clear is that in God's plan war is not the way to go. We've got to stop making war because of some exceptional circumstance. There is no place for war and therefore no place for an arms industry. How did King Jesus act when threatened by violence? "Meekly", we say, but it was not softly, apologetically, with acquiescence. It was with strength, the calm unyielding strength of God.
When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded. “If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?” (Jn 18:22-23)
Somewhat at odds with the self-righteous proclamations of today's war-mongers: "If we're attacked we have no choice but to respond." That seems to be where Christ's standard challenges the world: you do have a choice; you can respond to evil with good, and answer angry aggression with calm strength. Our king has shown us how.
Over the past four Sundays, following the calling of the twelve apostles, we have been confronted with a steady flow of hard teachings, characterised by the theme of opposition that is to be met by the apostles as it is daily by Jesus himself. Suddenly we are treated to a selection of comforting readings, as if the original catechists realised people needed a break. Typically it is Jesus himself who is presented as the Comforter.
Some folk find it a little difficult to know how to take these comforting words. They don't want their religion to be a soft option, an escape from life's hard realities, which is too often the way it comes across in some situations. To get a perspective on these verses at the end of chapter 11, I went back to the start of chapter 9 and skimmed through, just to get an idea of what's been going on leading up to this sudden comfort. Actually it's a tough read. Jesus meets criticism and opposition st every step, and then he chooses his apostles and warns them in graphic detail how bad things sill get for them. "If they tresat the master this way, what should the disciples expect?" It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, for the slave that he become like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul,* how much more those of his household! (Mt 10:25)
There's a bit of resistance these days to the idea of the follower of Christ being ideally a gentle and humble soul. We feel that a healthy pride has its place, while excessive self-effacement is unhealthy. Fair enough, but we need to be careful not to let that adjustment blind us to the image portrayed by the gospel writers. We might well ask: what did the writer intend when he included his passage in his narrative? Or perhaps, what was the context in which this was seen as relevant to the catechesis?
The first thing I notice is the unusual interpretation we find in the Amplified Bible where the "infants" are seen as new believers or those seeking God's will and purpose, i.e., those making a fresh start rather than the ones less gifted intellectually.
>You have hidden these things [these spiritual truths] from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants [to new believers, to those seeking God’s will and purpose].
Applying the same angle tot the other part of the comparison, we would see the "wise and intelligent" as those who hold to their fixed ideas, convinced that they know everything, and that what they know is all there is to know. By contrast, those who hunger and thirst for justice [righteousness] are forever looking for what's missing; those who have ears to hear, in the language of the gospel.
So this must be a day for us to avoid too much 'wise and intelligent' analysis and instead, sit very quietly allowing ourselves to feel the hunger, the poverty of our thinking, the uncertainty of our convictions. Anyone writing a reflection on the scripture readings or a homily for Sunday will be familiar with that moment when all the words seems empty and the argument missing the point. That's when you prepare to jettison the whole thing and start over, and sometimes find a better idea and sometimes not. So we learn to wait for the Spirit to show the way. We learn to wait with the hungry, with what patience we can muster.