WORD 2day: Tuesday, 14th week in Ordinary time
July 7, 2020: Hosea 8: 4-7, 11-13; Matthew 9: 32-38
In the first reading, Hosea points out how despicable the people were getting. The dwindling faith, the blatant compromises, deliberate choices for what is ungodly, absolutisation of human autonomy, justification of a lawless economy... wait! are these not the experiences that the society is grappling with even today?
Is there a way out of these? Surely no, as long as the idolising tendency of the human person does not disappear. Today we make idols out of money, possessions, our own ego, power and position, status and social image, sometimes so ironically, even of our own religiosity, forgetting the actual epicentre of true meaning of our existence! How many values, persons and principles we sacrifice in the bargain! As if that is not enough, the society is ever ready to demonise those who stand for justice and truth, those who speak up for God, those who stand for God's people. The so-called mainstream society ostracises those persons as anti-socials, conservatives and anti-progress individuals.
Jesus presents himself to us as a motivating role model, inspiring us to stand for God and for the values of the Reign, inspite of the world that threatens us. Jesus is absolutely compassionate even when he finds that the people were not ready to understand him totally, some of them in fact were calumniating against him. Nothing would perturb Jesus... and it was so because, it was his passion to make people feel the compassion of God. Yes, the theme we reflected on yesterday...being the compassion of God and being compassionate with suffering children of God. The challenge today is, can we be still compassionate, even though we find those around, not really worthy of it!