Homily: 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 14, 2026
My dear brothers and sisters, the first reading and especially the gospel reading of today invite us to reflect on vocation, the call to labor in the vineyard of the Lord. In the gospel reading of today, Jesus showed compassion to His sheep who do not have a shepherd, He exclaimed, “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. If the shortage of evangelizers was true at Jesus’ days on earth, it is even hundred percent truer today. The Church needs priests and religious men and women; the Church needs missionaries. The problem of shortage of evangelizers is not a problem that should worry only the bishop and those working with him. It is a problem that should concern everyone, for without priests, religious and consecrated persons, how can the Church carry out her mission? If this ministry of God should die out, what will become of the Gospel, and what will become of the salvation of souls. God needs us, God needs men and women to further the good news of salvation.
Even from the beginning, God has always chosen men and women for this ministry of evangelization. We heard the word of God in the first reading of today to the Israelites, “Indeed the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” In the gospel, we heard how Jesus selected the twelve and gave them the instruction to go to the lost sheep of the house of Isreal. In the words of Jesus, “as you go, proclaim the Good News, the kingdom of heaven has come near, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” The urgent need for the proclamation of the Good News of the kingdom of God remains valid in our time. Curing the sick, casting out demons, cleansing the lepers all stand as images of the work that we disciples are called upon to do in fighting anything that could ruin people’s spiritual and physical lives. We all must not become priests and nuns before we labor for the increase in vocation, there are many ways that we can help in evangelization of the world.
It is a fact of life that a young boy or a girl from a dysfunctional family may not have the desire to enter the seminary or the convent to become a priest or a nun. This is because He or she did not receive a healthy blueprint from home, he or she cannot produce what was not introduced into him or her by his or her parents. We remember proverbs 22:6, “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” When parents and grandparents do not go to Mass, when parents and grandparents do not pray, when parents and grandparents do not live out the gospel values, will the child perform magic to make it to the priesthood.
Our becoming a priest did not start with going to the seminary or with priestly ordination. It started from the parents and grandparents. They led us in night prayers and woke us up for early morning prayers. They took us to weekday Masses and Sunday Masses. You see Jesus said in the gospel, “pray to the Lord of the harvest,” Jesus knew that the good disposition to do God’s holy will begins in prayers. We have to pray not necessarily to change God but that we may be transformed internally. Parents and grandparents encouraged us to join altar servers group. From serving at the altar, we started desiring to do what the priests were doing and indicated our interest to enter the seminary and our parents allowed us and from going to the seminary we ended in the altar of God. In essence, the parents were the instruments that God used to call us and mold us.
Brothers and sisters, we must know that modern life does not offer easy conditions for vocations to thrive in our time. However, we cannot fold our hands and yield to the anti-Christian culture of our time. We all are called to the task of fostering vocation. We can draw men and women to have the desire to serve God by our exemplary lives. We can motivate young men and women by our humble and good advice and words of encouragement. Parents and grandparents, I encourage you to remember that you have some personal authority over your kids, even though you are getting older and they are big and full of life, but they are not yet big enough to swallow you. Sometimes fearlessly confront them with the truth. Sometimes fearlessly tell them that Jesus wants to see them in the Church. Paul urged Timothy in 2 Tim. 4:2, to proclaim the Good News, convince, rebuke, encourage with patience, accepted or not accepted, insist on it.
