Enduring Joy

In the  first reading of today’s liturgy, Baruch 4: 5-12, 27-29,  Baruch tells the people not to fear but to remember that the reason that they were conquered by other nations was that they had abandoned the covenant God made with them.  This did not happen, Baruch tells them, because God wanted them to be destroyed, but that they had provoked God by sacrificing to “demons, to no-gods; you forsook the Eternal God who nourished you, and you grieved Jerusalem who fostered you.”  Further on in the reading,  the holy city of Jerusalem—where God dwelt, as God dwells in our Tabernacles--says that with “joy I fostered them; but with mourning and lament I let them go.”

I could not help but think of the times the Lord is directing us and we simply ignore the Spirit’s direction and do our own thing. “With joy,” God says, “I fostered them; but with mourning and lament I let them go.”  God deeply respects our free will and does not ever force us to embrace His will.  God lets us  go to experience the emptiness, if you will, or the frustration of not having followed the way to which God was calling us. It may be as simple as calling a friend, reaching out to someone we slighted and saying “I’m sorry,”  spending some leisure time in the evening with family or community members, listening with an open mind and heart or taking time to study the Scriptures or to do some substantive reading that nurtures our spiritual lives. Or, it may be more serious, like not getting involved with the wrong crowd that leads us into selfish pursuits  or that leads us into violating the rights of another person or of doing that which violates our own personal integrity.  Baruch says to us, then:  “As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God turn now ten times the more to seek him; for he who has brought disaster [frustration, emptiness, pain] upon you will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy.”

God's Tender Love and Deep Compassion

Today’s readings abound with statements of God’s love, a love that is eternal and is practical. God’s love brought us into existence, put us together in our mother’s womb, taught us to walk and talk, to think and understand, to feel and respond with compassion.  “I fostered [you] like one who raised an infant to his cheeks; …though I stooped to feed [you, you] did not know that I was [your] healer’( Hosea 11: 1, 3-4, 8c-9).  God goes on to say “My heart is overwhelmed, my pity stirred…I will not give vent to my blazing anger” when I see you walk away from Me, the Source of your life. I will not blaze out in anger toward you when I see you worshipping false gods, looking for fullness of life in empty cisterns; mocking Me, beating me, abusing Me, cursing Me,” as you do whenever you do these things to your family members, loved ones, strangers, your neighbour, persons different from you because of race, gender, or culture (cf. Mt. 25: 40). God seems to be reminding us that He is as hidden in the other person as He is in the Sacred Host.   My faith tells me that every human being, all of creation, is a sacrament, a sign of God’s  love for me, of  God’s Presence, of God’s life-giving Spirit, for in God,  “we live and move and have out being” (Acts 17:28). What does your faith tell you?

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the feast of God’s love. The second person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Son, in total obedience to the Father assumed human nature to show us the way back to the Father, that is, the way of obedience to our God.  In total self-giving, Jesus becomes the unblemished Lamb sacrificed to redeem all of humankind and so we pray at every Mass, the Lamb’s Supper, when the heavens open up and the Son of God comes down upon our altars:  “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”  Such love! What sacrifices am I willing to make in return for this love?