In today’s first reading, Hosea 14: 2-10, the prophets prays
that God will “forgive all iniquity, and receive what is good, that we may
render as offerings the bullocks from our stalls [whatever we offer in
sacrifice and praise to our God]. Assyria,” Hosea reminds his fellow Israelites,
“will not save us, nor shall we have horses to mount; we shall say no more, ‘Our
god,’ to the work of our hands; for in you [in God] the orphan finds compassion.” The people are then reminded that God “will
heal their defection,… [and that God] will love them freely.”
Hosea says the same to us today. We are in need of being forgiven our
iniquities—whatever they may be—and receive what is good for us as individuals,
as a society, as a family, as a
church. For what good do we long? Is it something that will bring the best out
of ourselves and out of others? Is it a
good that builds up the Kingdom of God—a kingdom of justice and truth, a
kingdom of righteousness and joy? Is it a good that makes us stronger in God’s
love, in loving ourselves as children of God and thus loving others? Is it a
good that leads us to be respectful of ourselves and our neighbor? Or is it a
false good, an inauthentic good, namely that which promotes disharmony and
hatred, that pits us against them, that feeds attitudes of superiority and
inferiority, that alienates us from others and from our God?
Do we realize that “Assyria” will not save us, that we do
not have horses to mount but that we need to come off our “high horses” and mingle with
the poor and the lowly, the needy and the orphans of our land, realizing that
we are not different from other human beings in need of salvation and mercy,
love and forgiveness?
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