A Message from the prophet Micah

Today's first reading, Micah 1: 1-5,  I believe, applies to us today, as it did to the people of Micah's time.  The prophet Micah utters a warning to us in all segments of society in any part of the world:  Woe to those who plan iniquity, and work out evil on their couches [or behind closed doors]; in the morning light they accomplish it when it lies within their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and they take them; they cheat an owner of his house, a man [woman] of his [her] inheritance.  Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am planning against this race an evil from which you shall not withdraw your necks; nor shall you walk with head high, for it will be a time of evil. On that day a satire shall be sung over you, and there shall be a plaintive chant: 'Our ruin is complete, our fields are portioned out among our captures, the fields of my people are measured out, and no one can get them back!' Thus you shall have no one to mark out boundaries by lot in the assembly of the Lord."

Are we listening to the Scriptures?  Is it possible that persons whom many applaud and trust may, in fact, be planning "iniquity, and work[ing] out evil"?  Is it possible that people's inheritances may be in the process of being squandered by levying heavy tariffs on imported and exported goods--an action that may ultimately result in businesses and farms going  bankrupt?  Is it possible that building walls, demonizing our allies and the canceling of important legislature and treaties that protect our environment and our security may, in fact, result in evil "from which [we] shall not withdraw our necks"?

In today's responsorial psalm, we pray: "Why, O Lord, do you stand aloof? Why hide in times of distress? Proudly the wicked harass the afflicted, who are caught in the devices the wicked have contrived. For the wicked [person] glories in his [her] greed, and the covetous blasphemes, sets the Lord at nought. The wicked...boasts, 'He will not avenge it'; 'There is no God,' sums up his thoughts".

Lord, may we heed the warnings of the prophet Micah and take seriously the prayer of the psalmist!

The Prophet's Call of Baptized Christians

In today's first reading, Amos 7: 10-17, the prophet Amos is rejected, asked to leave Bethel, "for it is the king's sanctuary and a royal temple."  He is told that "the country cannot endure all his words." He is as unwelcome in Bethel as Jesus would later be in his own country.  Amos answers Amaziah, the priest of Bethel by saying: "I was no prophet,...' I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The Lord took me from following the flock and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel."  Tell them the following:  "Your wife shall be made a harlot in the city, and your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword; your land shall be divided...and you yourself shall die in an unclean land; Israel shall be exiled far from its land."

Who wants to hear the consequences that shall follow wrongdoing or that result from rejecting God's Covenant? Most times people do not want to hear the truth that there are consequences to making poor choices, to following the way of evil, of injustice and of violating people's rights!  There will be consequences to separating children from their parents as well as to denying the path of citizenship to "Dreamers," children born here in the States or brought here at a young age, knowing no other home but  here since childhood and now being adults.  There will be consequences to destroying treaties that protected Mother Earth and pulling out of the climate agreement with our allies. There will be consequences to belittling our allies and refusing to work with them for the common good!  There will be consequences to trade wars and whatever other ways are being used or considered "to create more billionaires"and "make America great again"!

Just as God called Amos from being a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores, so, too, does God call you and me from backgrounds others may frown upon! God calls the "weak" to confound the "strong."  How and to what is God calling you?