July 9, 2026 // Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time // Optional Memorial of Saint Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs

Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Hosea 11:1-4, 8e-9

Reflect on the Word // 

I left the confessional and dropped to my knees in my choir stall. Gazing at the monstrance, my heart was pouring out gratitude for the beautiful mercy flowing from the Sacrament I had just received. Then the question surfaced in my heart: Lord, how can You be so patient with me? Time after time I have gone to Him with the same sins, the same weaknesses, the same failures, and again and again His grace has flooded my soul. His forgiveness brings peace as the words of absolution wash over me.

Sure, I’m not sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols as we read in today’s First Reading. Or am I? How often has the Lord called to me, and I have responded by running farther from Him? There are so many areas of my heart where I run from Him and reject my identity as His daughter, though He “[draws me] with human cords, with bands of love”(Hosea 11:4).

I  have known His love—I know His love even now—and I have heard His call, not out of Egypt, but out of the world, to belong to Him. And yet, like Israel I sometimes still rebel. He has fed me, He has healed me, and still my heart desires to direct itself and fails to surrender.

But His love is patient, it is unending, “[His] heart is overwhelmed, [His] pity is stirred” (Hosea 11:8). It is His heart that is so patient, His Divine Love that draws us, fosters us, and raises us to His cheeks again and again (see Hosea 11:3).

Daughter, no matter how far we wander, no matter how often we fall or turn our hearts from Him, He welcomes us back. He is a patient Father, a Divine Lover, for “[He] is God and not man . . . [He] will not let the flames consume you” (Hosea 11:8). 

Relate to the Lord // Make a plan to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation this week. Receive His patient love.