WORD 2day: Tuesday, 17th week in Ordinary time
July 28, 2020: Jeremiah 14: 17-22; Matthew 13: 36-43
Rescue us, O Lord, for the glory of your name - the response for the psalmody inspires us to pray today, words that would mean so much in today's context. Tears, fears, death, sickness, hunger, unemployment, migration, terror, wickedness, enmity, slandering, sledging and all that is happening all around us - how tiring it has become to live our human existence today! Who has been the reason for all this: is it true that God has abandoned us? Or is it that we have abandoned God, and God's ways?
All that God sowed into our lives has been good and nothing but good; where does this hatred, exploitation, greed, manipulation, violence, vengeance and the rest of the evils come from? All from within us; from our evil thinking, from our evil tendencies, from our evil choices, from our abandoning of God. And if we want things to be set right, there is only one way out - that we leave this way of the evil one and return to the Lord, in hope, faith and love!
And when do we do this? Wait for the last minute possible? It is fine so, if we are ready to face and endure all these evil till that last minute and remain still strong enough to cling to the Lord. That is what the world seems to think today: there is time; there is time for thinking about God and all that pertains to God. We can always make it up to God, there is no hurry - people think - because God is loving and merciful and at anytime that we turn to the Lord, God will receive us into God loving mercy!
Yes, it is true...God is loving and merciful, ready to forgive and ever willing to reach out to us in embrace. That is on God's part. But imagine, if I go so far away from God that it would be so difficult for me to return to the Lord! In my thoughts and choices, attitudes and actions, decisions and priorities, if I am so far away from God... even if I decide to turn to God - it would be a herculean task to return. That is the experience of so many today, people wriggling under the pains and slaveries that they wish to get away from, but unable to. Should we wait for that last moment? Is it not time to return to the Lord, today and now?