To See the Troubled and Abandoned

This Sunday's Mass readings: First Reading: Exodus 19:2-6a Second Reading: Romans 5:6-11 Gospel: Matthew 9:36–10:8

Jesus sees the crowds.

These are people living under Roman occupation, crushed by taxes collected by their own neighbors on behalf of an empire that considered them expendable. Told by the religious establishment that their poverty was a sign of God's displeasure. No advocates. No protection. No one is standing between them and the weight of the world pressing down.

"At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd" (Mt 9:36, NABRE).

The Greek word Matthew uses — splanchnizomai — refers to the inner organs, the gut, the bowels. It describes what happens in the body before what Jesus sees reaches the mind. The stomach tightens. Something pulls at the chest. A response that arrives before a decision has been made.

The feeling cannot stay inside. It becomes action — healing, feeding, forgiveness, and mission. It becomes the sending of twelve ordinary people into the harvest.

He turns to his disciples. The harvest is enormous, but the laborers are few. Before he sends anyone anywhere, he tells them to pray. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers.

Pray first. Then go.

He sends twelve ordinary people — fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, and a man who will betray him — into the towns of Israel. He tells them to start close, not everywhere at once. The harvest begins where you are standing. The person already in front of you. The neighborhood you already live in.

He tells them what to say when they get there: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mt 10:7). Not someday. Now. Here. In the healing of the sick and the finding of the lost.

Two thousand years later, the troubled and abandoned are not hard to find. The faces change. The conditions do not. Poverty. War. Economies that grind whole populations into the ground. People in every city on earth who are exactly what Matthew described — troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.

In 1965, the Second Vatican Council — a gathering of Catholic bishops from around the world, convened by Pope John XXIII to address the Church's relationship to the modern world — produced a document called Gaudium et Spes, Latin for Joy and Hope. It opened with a sentence that named exactly what Jesus named when he looked at the crowds:

"The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ."

Those griefs are ours. The Church looked at a world in turmoil — the Cold War, poverty the Church could no longer ignore, and the threat of nuclear destruction — and refused to look away.

Sixty years later, the world remains troubled. The griefs have not quieted. The wars have not stopped. The economic systems that leave whole populations behind have become more entrenched. The harvest is larger than it was in 1965, not smaller.

The laborers are still few. Not because there aren’t enough Christians. But because not enough of us have been moved the way Christ was moved — in the gut, before the plan, toward the person in front of us.

Pray. Go.

Not someday. Not when the timing is better.

Pray. Go.

Jesus sent twelve ordinary people. Not the most gifted. Not the most prepared. Just those who said yes when he said go.

He is still looking at the crowds. He is still saying go.

The question this Sunday poses to each of us is not whether the harvest is there. It is. The question is whether we will pray and go.

Let us pray. Lord, your heart moved at the sight of troubled and abandoned people — before you had a plan, before you organized a response. Move ours. Open our eyes to the harvest already in front of us — not somewhere else, not someday, but here, in the specific face of the person who needs someone to show up today. Send us. Amen.

Next Friday: For the Life of the World — 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 21.

For Further Reading

A note on sources — Scripture quotations use the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), the translation used at Mass in the United States. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) is available free at vatican.va. Church documents cited are also available at vatican.va. Dates in this post use CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before Common Era) rather than AD and BC.

Scripture — The Gospel, Matthew 9:36–10:8, opens a long section on mission that runs through Matthew 11. Read the full mission discourse in Matthew 10 — the instructions Jesus gives are demanding and specific. The note about not going to Samaritan towns reflects the sequence of the mission: Israel first, then all nations after the Resurrection (Matthew 28:19). Not exclusion — sequence. Start close. The harvest begins where you are standing. The second reading, Romans 5:6-11, names what this kind of love ultimately costs: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The heart that moved at the sight of the crowds moved all the way to the cross.

Catechism — On the mission of the Church as participation in Christ's own mission, see CCC 849-856. On the call of all the baptized to join in that mission, see CCC 900-913.

Church Documents — Gaudium et Spes (Second Vatican Council, 1965) is the Church's formal refusal to look away from the world's suffering. Paragraph 1 is worth reading slowly. The full document is at vatican.va. It was written sixty years ago in a world in turmoil. Read it and ask whether the world has become less troubled — or more.

Points to Ponder

For Group Discussion

Jesus sees troubled and abandoned people, and his heart moves before he acts. Gaudium et Spes said those griefs belong to the Church. What would it mean for your parish to live that sentence — not as a mission statement but as a daily practice? Whose griefs has your community actually claimed as its own?

The laborers are few, not because there are not enough Christians, but because not enough have been moved as Christ was moved. What is your community praying for — and has that prayer moved anyone toward the harvest yet?

For Individual Discernment

Jesus sent twelve ordinary people — not the most prepared, not the most gifted, just the available ones who said yes. Are you available? What is the harvest already in front of you — the specific person, the specific neighborhood, the specific need — and what is one step toward it this week?

The heart of Christ moved before he had a plan. Think of the last time something moved in you at the sight of suffering. What happened next? What would it mean to follow that movement rather than wait until you feel more ready?

Glossary

Splanchnizomai (splangk-NITZ-oh-my) — The Greek word Matthew uses when he says Jesus' heart was moved with pity. It comes from the word for the internal organs — the stomach, the gut, the chest. In first-century Greek, it described the kind of response that happens in the body before it reaches the mind. Not sympathy from a distance. Something physical. Something that moves before you have decided to move. Matthew uses this word deliberately — he wants the reader to know that when Jesus saw suffering people, his whole body responded.

Gaudium et Spes (GOW-dee-um et SPEZ) — Latin for Joy and Hope. One of the most important documents produced by the Second Vatican Council, the Church's formal statement that the world's sufferings belong to the followers of Christ. Published in 1965. Available in full at vatican.va.

Second Vatican Council — A gathering of Catholic bishops from around the world, called by Pope John XXIII and held in Rome from 1962 to 1965. Often called Vatican II. It produced sixteen documents addressing the Church's relationship to the modern world, including Gaudium et Spes.

Kingdom of Heaven — The phrase Matthew uses throughout his Gospel for what Jesus proclaims and makes real — God's reign breaking into the world now, wherever the suffering are served and the lost are found (CCC 541-542).