Needing God's Intervention

In today's first reading, 1 Kings 19: 9b-11, 14-21, 31-35a, 36, Hezekiah, king of Judah, receives a letter from Sennacherib, king of Assyria, reminding him that Assyria has destroyed any city or nation into whose territory they enter and Judah will be no exception.   Hezekiah takes the letter from the messengers, goes to the Temple, lays out the letter to the Lord and says to the Lord:  "O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned upon the cherubim!  You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens and the earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and listen!  Open your eyes, O Lord, and see!  Hear the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taught the living God. Truly, o Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and cast their gods into the fire; they destroyed them because they were not gods, but work of human hands, wood and stone. Therefore, O Lord, our God, save us from the power of this man, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God."

WOW! the wisdom, faith, and surrender of Hezekiah!  Like Hezekiah, you and I know that God is God alone. There is no other. Do we, like Hezekiah, when faced with threats of destruction, go immediately to God? Do we spread the situation out before the Lord, knowing that God is listening? As we listen to the news each night, each week, each month, do we go to the Lord and spread out  before him the issues  that threaten to destroy earth by poisons being put into it because we want
to make billions of dollars in profits? Do we take to the Lord the fact that animals, fishes, and birds of the air are becoming extinct as the results of the air and the water and the vegetation needed for survival being depleted? Do we spread before the Lord the legislative efforts to deprive individuals of their basic human rights to secure jobs that enable them to sufficiently provide for their families' right to education, to housing, to adequate food, to freedom from violence by the very people who are to protect them?  Do we spread before the Lord the fact that persons seeking asylum from  life-threatening situations in their own countries are being sent back to face abuse and even death?  Do we spread before the Lord the ways in which the basic human rights of persons of color, of other sexual orientations and of different beliefs are being challenged in our courts?

What would my list, your list, look like that we take to the Lord in prayer each day on behalf of a suffering, wounded world, a world as in danger of destruction as was the country and the people of Israel. The ways in which we are threatened may be different from real just the same! Are we seeking God's help? Remember, He is waiting for us to be honest with Him about what is going on in the world, not covering it up, and not trying to "fix it" alone--that is beyond our ability. We need God's intervention!

Wake Up; Call upon God

In today's first reading, Jonah 1: 1-2: 2, 11, the Lord said to Jonah:  "Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; their wickedness has come up before me."   The wickedness in today's world also comes up before God.  Is it possible, as in the case of Jonah who fled to Tarshish "away from the Lord,"  that many people today are also fleeing from God, doing whatever possible to escape following God's will to address the corruption, the deception, the wickedness of sin-laden humankind?  Is it possible that the turbulence in any part of the world--natural or man-made "storms" --are the result of our having abandoned God?   Do we need someone, as did Jonah, to confront us with the question: "What are you doing asleep? Rise up, call upon your God. Perhaps God will be mindful of us so that we may not perish"  in our wickedness!

With the psalmist, in today's responsorial psalm, we pray:

Out of [our] distress [we call] to the Lord, 
and he [answers us]; 
From the midst of the nether world [of corruption, deception, and violation of law and of people's rights  [we cry] out for help,
and you [hear our voices].for you cast [us] into the deep [of sin-infested behaviors], into the heart of the sea [of an abundance of lies and abuses of power],
and the flood [envelops us];
All your breakers and your billows
[pass over us].
Then I said, 'I am banished from your sight!
...When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord; 
[Our] prayer reached you...'"

Lord, God, have mercy upon us who have strayed from the path of righteousness, truth and justice in the search for wealth or an abundance of material things and pleasures of all kinds, especially pleasure at the expense of the innocent.  Forgive us, Lord, for wanting things our way instead of Your way and the way Jesus modeled for us!

God Fights for Us against Satan

God Fights for Us against Satan

In yesterday's reading from  Exodus 14: 21-15:1, "the Egyptians sounded the retreat before Israel, because the Lord was fighting for them against the Egyptians."  The same is true for us. Enemies may be pursuing us on every side and especially from within our own beings: pride, selfishness, gluttony, idolatry (God substitutes such as compulsive use of alcohol, drugs, food,  pleasure, relationships,  sex or whatever we use to distract ourselves or as sole means to meet insatiable needs, calm excessive fears, and avoid feeling whatever pain is beckoning us to look at the truth of what is going on in our lives). As with the Israelites, God fights for us as well.

By our use of God substitutes, we are likely to deafen ourselves to God's voice and develop a  blindness to God's presence and action in our lives.  How do we keep our ears and eyes open?  How do we maintain our focus on God, realizing and discovering that God is on our side and that God is enough for us? By calling upon the Holy Spirit or reverently uttering Jesus' name, asking God to help us.  It is at those times that Satan sounds his "retreat" from us,  because he knows then that the Lord is fighting for us against him in the same way as the Lord fought for the Israelites, His Chosen People.

Our Vulnerability and Need for God's Help

In today's Gospel, Mark 6: 14-29, the evangelist shares with us the tragic story of King Herod, his daughter and his wife Herodias, all involved in the murder of John the Baptist.  Mark tells us that "Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. John had said to Herod, 'It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.'" Herodias held a grudge against John the Baptist and wanted him killed. She got her chance when Herod, on  his birthday,  held a banquet, to which he invited "his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. At this party his daughter danced in his honor. Herod was so delighted in her dance that he offered her anything she wanted, including half his kingdom.  She asked her mother what she should request and her mother said: "The head of John the Baptist." Not wanting to go back on his promise of giving her anything she wanted, he ordered John the Baptist murdered in prison and the head brought to his wife on a platter, just as she had requested!

"Gross," you and I say. "How could he/she/they do such a thing? How horrible.  What depravity! What immorality! What kind of persons were they?" And all we have to do each day is turn on the news and some where, some place, at some time, this same scenario is played out before our very eyes! Some times the issue is romantic involvement with another person, that is coveting another man's wife or woman's husband. At other times, its greed for money or coveting material possessions that belong to another person! Or some other incomprehensible reason also conjured up by distorted thinking and out-of-control passions.

I pray: Lord, save me from myself; save us from ourselves!  How vulnerable we can be to the very emotions that blinded and deafened Herod, Herodias and their daughter!  We are not immune to harboring anger. We can become consumed by our grudges and resentments. And these can lead us to hurting others, maybe not to the extent of the persons in today's Scripture reading, but, nonetheless, to doing that which we will deeply regret.

What kind of thoughts am I, are you entertaining, and are they such from which we need to be saved!  Let us call upon Jesus to save us from ourselves.  I did that today, as I was focusing on negative  issues: a relationship problem, the state of our country and government, my fatigue and my lack of energy, and some health issues. I needed to change course. So I asked Jesus to save me from myself! By days end God helped me turn my focus back to Him!