Music Notes: The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 28, 2026

June 26, 2026

Music Notes: The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 28, 2026 Dr. John Michniewicz

The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time presents readings that focus on welcome and hospitality, discipleship and the cost of responding to God’s call. Saying yes to God brings fulﬁllment and blessing. The readings explore how generosity and sacriﬁcial love lead to fullness of life.

In the First Reading (2 Kings 4:8–11, 14–16a), a Shunammite woman provides hospitality and lodging for the prophet Elisha, out of kindness and because he is a holy man, she expects nothing in return. Her act of selﬂess giving is met with an unexpected promise of new life: Elisha declares she will have a son within the year. This narrative shows the unexpected blessing of God’s grace.

The Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 89:2–3, 16–17, 18–19, provides a ﬁtting response, with the declaration: “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord” as the responsorial refrain. The Hebrew concept of hesed, the steadfast covenantal love of God, runs throughout the psalm. “For you have said, ‘My kindness is established forever.’” It is a statement of God’s faithfulness. In light of the cost of discipleship, it is a reminder that the God who asks for sacriﬁcial discipleship and true generosity is the same God whose faithfulness will not fail.

In the Second Reading, Romans 6:3–4, 8–11, Paul states that those baptized into Christ are baptized into his death. “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” Paul describes how the faithful actively choose the way of discipleship. “Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”

In the Gospel Reading, Matthew 10:37–42, Jesus gives a challenge: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” The one who does not take up the cross and follow Christ is not a true disciple. The passage continues, stating that: whoever receives a disciple receives Christ, and whoever receives Christ receives the one who sent him. Jesus continues:

“Whoever receives you receives me,

and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward,

and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man

will receive a righteous man’s reward.

And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink

because the little one is a disciple—

amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

The Shunammite woman of the First Reading did not know she was receiving a prophet. She only knew she was receiving a man who needed a place to rest. She showed a faithful response to another’s need. Sunday’s readings reveal a straightforward theme, that God’s covenant faithfulness calls forth a response of radical generosity. That generosity, grounded in baptismal death and resurrection, becomes the daily practice of discipleship.

Sunday’s Entrance hymn: A Living Faith (Worship Hymnal No. 676) is based on the hymn Faith of Our Fathers, published in 1849. In England at the time, English law attempted to suppress Roman Catholicism. This hymn ﬁlled a need for the encouragement of the Catholic faith, sung as a eucharistic and evangelistic hymn. The author, William Frederick Faber, was an ordained Anglican priest who, inﬂuenced by the teaching of John Henry Newman, followed him into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. Faber established the London Oratorians, and it remains an active center of Catholic liturgy and musical scholarship today. Faber wrote Faith of Our Fathers to honor the English Catholic martyrs who suffered imprisonment and death during the Reformation. The opening verse is a declaration of faith held under duress: “Faith of our fathers, living still, in spite of dungeon, ﬁre, and sword.” Many recent hymnals now include verses by Joseph R. Alfred, who in 1981 wrote a text that speciﬁcally also names mothers, sisters and brothers as those who work to build faith as “love revealed” and “bearing oppression’s might, Raising on high, in prisons dark, The cross of Christ still burning bright.” His fourth verse also contains the idea of hardship “Sharing the struggle of your cross Until the world is made anew” before returning to the idea of faith as a vital, ongoing journey: Faith born of God, O living faith,” Each verse is completed with a kind of aspirational concluding refrain: “We will be true, to you, till death.” This hymn shows a direct connection to Jesus’ words in Matthew 10: “whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”

A Living Faith

Faith of our fathers, living still

In spite of dungeon, ﬁre, and sword; Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy Whene’er we hear that glorious word. Faith of our fathers, holy faith,

We will be true to you till death.

Faith of our mothers, daring faith, Your work for Christ is love revealed, Spreading God’s word from pole to pole, Making love known and freedom real. Faith of our mothers, holy faith,

We will be true to you till death.

Faith of our sisters, brothers too, Who still must bear oppression’s might, Raising on high, in prisons dark,

The cross of Christ still burning bright. Faith for today, O living faith,

We will be true to you till death.

Faith born of God, O call us yet; Bind us with all who follow you, Sharing the struggle of your cross Until the world is made anew. Faith born of God, O living faith, We will be true to you till death.

Sunday’s Preparation Hymn is Jesus Promises Communion, (Worship Hymnal, No. 817). This hymn features a text by Adam M. L. Tice (b. 1979) set to the American folk tune NETTLETON. Tice is currently Editor for Congregational Song at GIA Publications and serves as a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. He has written more than 200 hymn texts, widely published across denominational lines, and was named a Lovelace Scholar by the Hymn Society in 2004. His texts show a deeply layered theology, written in the tradition of the best contemporary hymnody.

The tune NETTLETON ﬁrst appeared in John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music around 1813. Its composer remains uncertain; the tune has been attributed variously to numerous persons, including Wyeth himself and to the revivalist Asahel Nettleton (1783–1844), for whom the hymn tune was eventually named. The tune is best known in American hymnody as the setting for Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, with which it was ﬁrst paired in 1852. Its gently lilting meter lends itself naturally to texts of invitation and promise.

Tice’s text draws together the themes of hospitality, unity, and the paschal mystery. The opening promise, “Jesus promises communion,” has a dual focus: the communion of the

table and the communion and unity of believers. The text’s concern with gathering those who wander and breaking down division speaks directly to the hospitality of the Shunammite woman in the First Reading, and the welcome of Matthew 10:40–42, where the reception of even the smallest disciple is the reception of Christ. The hymn’s paschal language, centered on the same Christ who died and rose, mirrors the baptismal theology that is shown in the Second Reading from Romans 6.

Sunday’s Communion Hymn: Here I Am Lord (Worship IV, No. 783) is one of the most widely sung and widely loved hymns of the post-Vatican II Catholic tradition. The text and music were composed by Daniel L. Schutte (b. 1947), a founding member of the St. Louis Jesuits, who wrote the hymn in 1979. Schutte was a 31-year-old Jesuit studying theology in Berkeley, California when a priest friend knocked on his door on a Wednesday and asked for a song for a diaconate ordination Mass taking place on that coming Saturday. Schutte was also ﬁghting a severe case of the ﬂu. He accepted the commission, turned to the prophetic call narratives of Isaiah and Samuel, and produced the hymn in two days, still revising it as he delivered it. In 2004, a survey conducted by The Tablet, the international Catholic magazine, named Here I Am Lord as the favorite hymn of its readers worldwide.

The structure of the hymn is written in the form of a dialogue. The verses are sung in the voice of God: “I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry.” The refrain is the believer’s response: “Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.” Schutte originally wrote the refrain as “Here I am, Lord; here I stand, Lord,” but changed it after reﬂection on the prophetic texts, where those called by God at times express hesitation and self-doubt.

Isaiah cried out his unworthiness and Samuel did not even recognize the voice of God. The question “Is it I, Lord?” captures the real humanity of a disciple who answers the call of Matthew 10.

Here I Am Lord

I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry.

All who dwell in dark and sin My hand will save.

I, who made the stars of night,

I will make their darkness bright. Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?

Refrain

Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord,

if you lead me.

I will hold your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have borne my people’s pain. I have wept for love of them. They turn away.

I will break their hearts of stone, Give them hearts for love alone. I will speak my word to them.

Whom shall I send?

I, the Lord of wind and ﬂame, I will tend the poor and lame.

I will set a feast for them. My hand will save.

Finest bread I will provide Till their hearts be satisﬁed. I will give my life to them.

Whom shall I send?

Here is a heartfelt performance of Here I Am Lord, by the Luther College Cathedral Choir as arranged by Ovid Young: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W4gABkEGHA

Sunday’s Closing Hymn is To Be Your Presence. The text was written by Delores Dufner, OSB (b. 1939), a Benedictine nun of St. Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Dufner holds Master’s Degrees in both Liturgical Music and Liturgical Studies, is a Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and has published more than 200 hymn texts.

The tune is ENGELBERG, composed in 1904 by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924), a leading ﬁgure in English music of the late Romantic era. Born in Dublin, Stanford was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge while still an undergraduate, became one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music in 1882 at the age of twenty-nine, and later held the chair of Professor of Music at Cambridge. His students included Ralph

Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, John Ireland, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a generation of composers who would deﬁne English music in the twentieth century. Stanford composed ENGELBERG as a setting for William Walsham How’s For All the Saints, but two years later Vaughan Williams composed SINE NOMINE for the same text, which became the preferred hymn tune for that text. The hymn tune ENGELBERG then found new life paired with Fred Pratt Green’s When in Our Music God Is Gloriﬁed, and later paired with Dufner’s new text as well.

Dufner’s text is a sending hymn, direct in its charge: “To be your presence is our mission here.” The second and third verses name that presence in concrete terms: to be a voice for those who have no voice and to be the hands of Christ in the world. The fourth verse grounds the mission in the Eucharist itself: “We are your body, formed and fed by grace.” Stanford’s ENGELBERG, with its three-bar phrases and repeated alleluias, provides a musical architecture that is at once stately and has a strong forward momentum. The repeated alleluias give it a cumulative energy. As the Mass ends and the sending is given, the hymn insists that what has been received should be carried into the world.

To Be Your Presence

To be your presence is our mission here, To show Compassion’s face and list’ning ear, To be your heart of mercy ever near, alleluia!