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!

Living according to God's Commands

In today's first reading, 2 Chronicles 24: 1-25, we learn that another king of Israel departed from the Covenant made with the people that there is only one God and that they are God's chosen people called to be faithful. No strange or alien gods were to be worshipped or served in God's place. Under King Joash the people "forsook the temple of the Lord, the God of their [ancestors--Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), and began to serve the sacred poles and the idols; and because of this crime of theirs, wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem. Although prophets were sent to them to convert them to the Lord, the people would not listen to their warnings." When "the Spirit of God possessed Zachariah, son of Jehoiada the priest," and he confronted the people's transgressions, asking them why they have been abandoning the Lord, he was put to death. As he was dying, he prayed: "May the Lord see and avenge."

Is it possible that people who are being treated unjustly anywhere in the world, who are victims of wars of any kind, who are being oppressed, abused, hunted down as"prey," treated as animals,  pray" "May the Lord see and avenge"?

May our eyes, and the eyes of world leaders,  be open to times when we abuse others, deny them their rights to be heard and treated with fairness!  May our ears be open to the prophets that God sends to warn us of wrongdoing and to challenge us to return to the one true God, our Lord and Savior.  When we go astray, may we return to the right path, knowing that God, as we pray in today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 89, has "made a covenant" with us, his chosen ones, and that this covenant to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves stands "firm forever."  The psalmist, a prophet of God, so to speak, warns us that if we "forsake [God's] law and walk not according to [God's] ordinances, if [we] violate [God's]  statues and keep not [God's] commands, punishing consequences will follow as the result of our violations of justice, mercy and not loving others as God loves us.