Choosing the One True God and His Will for Us

In today's first reading, Hosea 11: 1-4a, 8e-9, the Lord confronts His people for placing strange gods before Him: "When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the farther they went from me, sacrificing to the Baals and burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like the one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though i stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I  was their leader."

The Israelites abandoned God and followed other nations in their worship of false gods.  They wanted a king, rejecting God as their king, and fell into idolatry like so many others around them.  We, too, have a tendency to worship idols: wealth, pleasure, sex, consumerism, materialism, power and control, technology, TV, entertainment--anything that we allow to consume our attention and occupy our time above God is idol worship.  With what, we need to ask ourselves, do we spend most of our time to the extent that we do not take time to pray, to study the Scriptures,  to meet out responsibilities to build up God's Kingdom on earth, to foster unity among those with whom we live, to save those suffering starvation--starving physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially--in ways we are able to bring relief?  To and from what do I seek comfort and peace more than I do from God, my Creator?

Let us heed the words of today's responsorial psalm: "Let us seek your face, Lord, and we shall be saved"(Psalm 80) from our misguided pursuit of happiness in place of seeking happiness in You above all!  Save us, Lord, from pursuing security in accumulating more and more material things, in increasing excessive wealth, that crowds out our awareness of You and of our responsibilities to love
others as we truly love ourselves and to love them above material comforts.

Choose Life, Not Death

In today's first reading, Deuteronomy 30: 15-20, Moses has a heart-to-heart talk with his people before he passes on to eternal life. He challenges his fellow Israelites, and each of us,  to choose life, not death! How? By keeping the commandments, serving the one true God, loving God, walking with God, listening to His voice, holding fast to God, turning away from idols, and not worshiping false gods,  (and they are all around them and us)! The responsorial psalm, Psalm 1, further instructs on what it means to serve the one true God: follow not the way of the wicked (and they, too, are all around us), walk not in the way of sinners who press us on every side, do not take a seat among the insolent, the lackadaisical, the proud, the arrogant or those who lust for that which causes death to the soul or spirit. Rather, delight in the ways of God and meditate on God's laws day and night!  In other words, stay close to the Lord, cling to Him, love Him, serve Him, worship Him. In  today's Gospel, Luke 9: 22-25, Jesus also shares his concerns with us lest we forfeit that which gives us life and denies us eternal life.  "If anyone who wishes to come after me, he must deny  himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whosoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What prof\it is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?

When you and I, at all costs, run after false gods, sit with the arrogant, the proud, the lustful, the insolent, the wicked, sinners bent on evil pursuits, are we not then refusing to deny ourselves? Are we not then not refusing to "take up [our] cross daily"?  Is it possible that we fall into these traps because we fail to keep our focus on the Lord, who alone can help to make right choices and to remember our vulnerability to make poor choices that do not lead to life but to death?

May we heed the voices of the Spirit in each of the readings in today's liturgy. Forgive us, Lord, when we turn from you and rely on ourselves alone or seek only the help of fellow human beings, who, like us, are vulnerable to worship idols.

Growing Close to or Distancing Oneself from God?

Today's first reading, Exodus 32: 7-14, tells us the story of the chosen people's worship of the golden calf, believing that it was through the power of this molten image that they were brought out of Egypt, where they had been treated as slaves. Concerning the molten image, Aaron says to the people: "This is your God,  O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." 

Imagine God's anger! How insulting to God, who had worked multiple wonders to free them from being slaves to the Egyptians.  How could they abandon God so quickly?  How could they turn away from Him and sacrifice to a molten image? In His anger, God says to Moses, His confidante and personal friend: "I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation." Moses intervenes! So God relents "of the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people."

To this very day, God is abandoned, turned away from, in a variety of ways.  Who, today, invites you to turn away from God, to worship false gods?

With what, I need to ask myself, do I occupy my time in such a way that I abandon building a relationship with God, nurturing my faith life, growing in love with both God and my spouse, my children, my community members?  What dominates or controls my life, to what am I a slave, to the degree that I abandon being a responsible spouse, parent, grandparent, community member, family member, priest, deacon, student, employee?

Being Instruments of God's Will

n today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 132, we affirm the covenant God made with David: The Lord swore to David a firm promise from which he will not withdraw: 'Your own offspring I will set upon your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and the decrees which I shall teach them, their sons, too, forever shall sit upon your throne. For the Lord has chosen Zion; he prefers her for his dwelling...In her will I make a horn to sprout forth for David; I will place a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame but upon him my crown shall shine.'"

In today's first reading, 2 Kings 11; 1-4, 9-18, 20, we again encounter how enemies to Israel attempted to put their own kin on the throne or to usurp the throne themselves.  Athaliah did just that when her son lost his life. In retaliation, she killed the entire royal family. She did not realize, however, that Joash, the future  king, was rescued from her slaughter and hidden away in the Temple! At the appropriate time, Jehoiada, a priest of the Temple, brought him forth and had him rightfully crowned king.   Athaliah, the usurper of the throne and worshipper of Baal, a false god, was put to death! This priest of God also had all the altars to Baal destroyed and had the people recommit themselves to the covenant God had made with them.  And, as with Athaliah, "all who worship graven things are put to shame, who glory in the things of nought.... (Psalm 97).

You and I, when we choose false gods, when we put our faith in things or humans in place of relying on the Lord, our God and Savior,  also experience shame.  We do not lose our physical life, as did Athaliah, but, in abandoning God's Covenant with us, we suffer a diminishment of our trust and faith in the Lord. How is it restored? By our turning back to the Lord, our God, or by the intervention of another who calls us back to the Truth. 

 

Faith at Work!

Today’s first reading, 1 Kings 18: 20-39, presents the story of the challenge Elijah puts to the 450 prophets of Baal. He says to them: “I am the only surviving prophet of the Lord, and there are four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. Give us two young bulls. Let them choose one, cut it into pieces, and place it on the wood, but start no fire. I shall prepare the other and place it on the wood, but shall start no fire. You shall call on your gods, and I will call on the Lord,” the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. Nothing happens with for hours while the 450 prophets call upon Baal. But when Elijah calls upon God, fire comes down from heaven within a brief moment and consumes his sacrifice.  “Seeing this, all the people fell prostrate and said, ‘The Lord is God! The Lord is God!”

Elijah lived his faith in the one true God.  He was the witness whom Isaiah speaks about in Is 44: 8:
You are my witnesses. Is there any God except me?” Elijah knew the answer to that question. He lived it! In verse 6 of Is 44, Isaiah says:  “Thus says Yahweh, Israel’s king, Yahweh Sabaoth, his redeemer: I am the first and I am the last; there is no God except me.”

In what ways do you and I witness to the one true God, the One to whom, at every Eucharistic celebration, we offer the sacrifice of praise in memory of the Lord’s expiation for our sins on Calvary?  “You yourselves are my witnesses, declares Yahweh, and the servant [Jesus] whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that it is I. No god was formed before me, nor will be after me. I, I am Yahweh, and there is no other Savior but me…” (Is. 43: 10).

Thank you, Lord, for our faith and hope in You!  May such grow to the depth, the breadth, the height and width of Elijah’s faith!

Firm in our faith

I return to this ministry after an extended medical leave resulting from having  a "brain bleed" in four areas of the brain.  God spared my life for many reasons and one of those reasons, I believe, is to continue sharing faith with all of you.

In today's first reading, Maccabees 2: 15-29, we encounter Mattathias, a Jew who does not give in to the pressures to worship idols, that is, to obey the king's decree to abandon the faith of his ancestors. He risked his life by confronting "the officers of the king in charge of enforcing the apostasy [and who] came to the city of Modein to organize the sacrifices" to foreign gods.

Every day, like Mattathias,  we are given opportunities to stand firm in the faith of our ancestors. We may be challenged to profess Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior by not lying, cheating, gossiping about our neighbors, berating those who we do not understand, refusing to respond to the cry for help of those fleeing persecution and the violence in their homelands and so on.

Another way to look at this faith challenge is to realize that we might be asked, at any given time, to do for others what we would want others to do for us or to take the time to listen to someone we may prefer to avoid, or, in fact, to go out into "the desert," as Mattathias and those determined to "live according to righteousness and religious custom" did.  It is in that "desert," alone with God, that we are more likely to hear God speaking to our hearts, strengthening us to choose righteousness and reject Satan's temptations to fit it with whoever and whatever is inviting us to "worship idols" or to choose false gods.

The Journey to the Promised Land

In today’s first reading, Jos 24: 1-13, Joshua gathers all of the tribes of Israel and  reviews for them all that the Lord has done on their behalf, tracing God’s presence in their lives all the way back to Abraham’s father Terah. He shows them how God stopped the Egyptians in their pursuit of them, delivered them from nations far more powerful than they,and thwarted a curse against them.  “It was not your sword or your bow”; it was not your military might, Joshua reminds them.  “I [the Lord,  Yahweh] gave you a land which you had not tilled and cities which you had not built, to dwell in; you have eaten of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.”

The same is true for us.  As with the Israelites, we are on our way to the Promised Land. As our inheritance as adopted children of God, God has given us a new Jerusalem, a city we did not build, vineyards we did not plant. On our journey here in the wilderness of this earth, God goes before us, leveling “cities,” overcoming powers that  lure us into worshiping false gods:  narcissism, atheistic materialism, consumerism, hedonism,  wealth for its own sake,  the glorification of the body as something to be worshiped, absolute freedom to do whatever we so choose even to assuming that it is okay to violate the rights of the unborn, of the poor and oppressed, of women and children, of immigrants, of persons viewed as minorities, of the earth itself and all that lives on it. 

If you and I gathered our families around us, going back several generations, what would the list of   blessings look like, I ask myself.  What false gods are we following? From what powerful “nations ”-- snares of the devil--has/ is God  rescuing us?  

The miracles God worked for the Israelites God will work for us in the 21^st century. I believe that! What is your belief? I pray for the grace that you and I have the courage and the wisdom  to cooperate with the Lord in bringing about the salvation of the world in some small way by our efforts,to avoid evil and  lead people to Jesus at the foot of the cross.

The Source of all that is Good

In today’s first reading, Acts 14: 5-18, Paul and Barnabas leave Iconium to escape being put to death and go to Lystra.  In Lystra Jesus heals a crippled man through their intercession and are believed to be gods. The people prepare to worship them, to their dismay! “…W]hy are you doing this. We are of the same nature as you, human beings.  We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from…[your] idols to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.”  Then, Paul and Barnabas, make a powerful statement:  “In past generations…[God] allowed all Gentiles to go their own ways; yet, in bestowing his goodness, he did not leave himself without witnesses, for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filled you with nourishment and gladness for your hearts.”

Hear God say to you through Paul and Barnabas: “I, your Creator and Redeemer, bestow goodness upon you. I plant it within you and around you, within others and within all of creation." The good we do, Jesus reminds us in today's Gospel, comes from God, as it did when Paul and Barnabas healed the man crippled since birth.  Anyone who keeps God's commandments  and believes in Jesus, in God alone,  does good here on earth. That good flows from the Trinity dwelling within them and at work in the world through them.  "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him[her], and we will come to...[that person] and make our dwelling with him[her]," we read in today's Gospel.  Yes,  those who follow God's ways, who do  not create false gods as the people of Lystra wanted to do,  will become one with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. Good blossoms  from  Goodness!  And that Goodness is God Himself.  God alone is good, Jesus tells the rich young man in Mark 10; 18.