God's Message through Amos

Today’s first reading, Amos 2: 6-10, 13-16, speaks of how offensive it is to God that we worship idols and forget the commandments of love, justice and mercy; how offensive to God that we renege on the commitments we made to God through the sacraments of baptism, First Communion, First Confession, marriage, ordination or first profession of vows as religious.    You “sell the just…for silver, and the poor…for a pair of sandals.  [You] trample the heads of the weak into the dust of the earth (through physical  death or abusive behaviors in word (gossip) and deed)  and force the lowly out of the way. Son and father go to the same prostitute, profaning my holy name….”

That reading applies as much today as in the day of Amos. Children and women are sold for sex, for body parts, for slave labor in sweat shops; babies are slaughtered in the womb—their aborted fetuses “trampled” upon, so to speak.  Those labeled “lowly,”—minorities, handicapped, chronically ill, the elderly, immigrants, the homeless, the mentally ill--are pushed “out of the way,” some are  put in nursing homes and forgotten by many. Members of the LBGT community are gunned down. 

 Some ‘fathers and sons” continue the same promiscuous behaviors before or after marriage.  In today’s responsorial psalm, God says to us: “When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it. Or do you think that I am like yourself? I will correct you… Consider this, you who forget God.”

“Beware,” God says through the prophet Amos, “I will crush you into the ground as a wagon crushes when laden with sheaves.  Flight shall parish from the swift, and the strong [person] shall not retain his strength; the warrior shall not save his life, nor the bowman stand his ground. The swift of foot shall not escape, nor the horseman save his life. And the most stouthearted of warriors shall flee naked on that day, says the Lord.”

All of what happens in our day is a message from God, as in the day of Amos. Will Jesus say to you as he said to the disciples:  “You know how to read the face of the sky, but you cannot read the signs of the times”  (Mt. 16:3)?

What is God saying to you through the suffering and pain in your life or through the joys and satisfactions of your life? Both contains a message from the God who saves you

Fertility: God's Promise to Abraham

 In today’s Gospel, John 8: 51-59, when Jesus proclaimed that anyone who keeps His word will never see death,  the Jews asked Jesus:  “Who do you make yourself out to be?”  The people also shouted at him, saying “Now we are sure that you are possessed.”    We live in a world where people, by their lack of faith and by living immoral or amoral lives,  also question who Jesus is. Another example of doubting who Jesus is  when people scoff at the Catholic belief that Jesus is present in the host following the consecration at a Catholic Mass, even though Jesus, at the Last Supper, “took some bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body which will be given for you; do this as a memorial of me.’  He did the same with the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood which will be poured out for you’”  (Luke 22: 19-20). 

The Old Covenant is referred to in today’s first reading, Gen. 17:3-9,  when God said to Abraham: “My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations….I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you….I will…be your God and the God of your descendants after you,” He was speaking  ultimately  to us.  One of the kings that stemmed from Abraham was Jesus, whose lineage is traced back to King David. Jesus, the Son of God made man,  is our King.   His Kingdom has no end. We are incorporated into that Kingdom in our baptism. Each of us is “rendered exceedingly fertile,” by Jesus’ obedience unto death. Our own fertility comes to full fruition in eternity as proclaimed by Jesus when He said: “…anyone who keeps His word will never see death.”  We bear abundant fruit here on earth when we, by grace, are obedient to the will of our Father as Jesus was. 

Lord, out of your infinite glory, “may…[you] give …[us] the power [fertility] through …[your] Spirit for …[our] hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in …[our] hearts through faith, and then planted in love and built on love, …[we] will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, …[we] are filled with the utter fullness of God.” Yes, may we become as fertile as Christ was fertile!