Wednesday, July 18, 2012

God never abandons us


As we read today’s first reading, Is 10: 5-7, 13b-16, we might want to imagine how Jesus would say this to us. I came up with the following imaginative conversation parallel to Isaiah’s message to those who brought harm to Israel:



             Dorothy Ann, nations rose up against my people Israel. They boasted of their of
             crimes against my people: raping women, killing those left as orphans following
             a hostile, bloody takeover. They destroyed sacred vessels and confiscated treasures.
They boasted of their military prowess, their domination and destruction of all
that survived the massacre. These same abominations persist throughout the
world of today and have been a reality of one nation putting down another, one
ruler putting down his people, one violent individual putting down another.

 My inheritance you inflict:

 Widow and stranger you have slain in your wars,
the fatherless you have murdered with violent weapons
 or with violent words of gossip;
women you have raped; young girls and boys you have sold into the sex slave;
young men and women you have killed for drug money
or by the fleeting pleasure of gossip;
unborn infants you have slaughtered in the womb.

 And you have the audacity to say, as Assyria said:

 “By my own power I have done it,
And by my wisdom, for I am shrewd…
(L)ike a giant I have put down the enthroned….”  (cf. Is 10: 5-7, 13b-16)

 God’s response to us is contained in today’s psalm (Ps. 94: 7-8, 9-10, 14-15)

                 “Understand, you senseless ones
                of my people;
                and, you fools, when will you be wise?

                 “Shall he who shaped the ear not hear?
                Or he who formed the eye not see?
                Shall he who instructs nations
                not chastise,
                he who teaches [human beings] knowledge?

                 “For the Lord will not cast off his people
                nor abandon his inheritance;
                but judgment shall again be with justice,
                and all the upright of heart shall
                follow it.”

My response: O God, have mercy.

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