Friday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 8, 2022

Hosea 14, 2-10

Thus says the Lord: Return, O Israel, to the Lord, your God; you have collapsed through your guilt. Take with you words, and return to the Lord; Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity, and receive what is good, that we may render as offerings the bullocks from our stalls. Assyria will not save us, nor shall we have horses to mount; We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’ to the work of our hands; for in you the orphan finds compassion.” I will heal their defection, says the Lord, I will love them freely; for my wrath is turned away from them. I will be like the dew for Israel: he shall blossom like the lily; He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar, and put forth his shoots. His splendor shall be like the olive tree and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar. Again they shall dwell in his shade and raise grain; They shall blossom like the vine, and his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim! What more has he to do with idols? I have humbled him, but I will prosper him. “I am like a verdant cypress tree”— because of me you bear fruit! Let him who is wise understand these things; let him who is prudent know them. Straight are the paths of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them.

“Return, O Israel, to the Lord, your God; you have collapsed through your guilt.”  Words like these ring out through the books of the Prophets throughout the history of both the northern and southern kingdoms.  They are at the heart of the preaching of the Lord Jesus and his Apostles as they crossed through Israel.  If we are wise, we regularly consider if we are acting for ourselves only or for God and perceive how we “collapse” when we rely on our own strength.  God speaks them now at the end of the Book of the Prophet Hosea, who lived some 2700 years ago.  Almighty God calls us to return to him for our guilt has caused us to collapse.  We collapse under the weight of arrogance and complacency.  We make ourselves gods so easily.  At times we act and even believe that we are immortal and that our money and personalities can protect us from all dangers.  We collapse like houses built on sandy foundations: “And every one that hears these my words and does them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof” (Matthew 7, 26-27).   

Once we follow the Lord’s counsel to go to him, we confess our sins to him: “Take with you words, and return to the Lord; Say to him, ‘Forgive all iniquity!’ ”  A song once played during Lent and penance services included the words, “Forgive, Lord, forgive: it was night when we did what we did.”  As with so many modern religious songs, this contains an error.  In fact, the singer makes as excuse for his or her actions: “it was night”, ergo, I had no choice except to do what I did.  Essential for forgiveness is an absolute exclusion of excuses.  Some people who try to present that they are making an apology will also say, “I take full responsibility for what I did”, without a real willingness to make amends or even showing any understanding of what they mean.  It is particularly foolish of us to try to hide or deny any part of our guilt from God just as in the case of Adam, who tried to hide himself from God in the Garden of Eden.  What makes this especially foolish is that God is so eager to forgive us: “I will heal their defection, says the Lord, I will love them freely; for my wrath is turned away from them.”  Far from crushing the repentant sinner, God raises the penitent up as though there had been no sin: “He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar, and put forth his shoots. His splendor shall be like the olive tree and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.”  

In the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass (Matthew 10, 16-23), the Lord Jesus explains to his Apostles how those who do the will of God will be assisted in the trials they undergo for the sake of the Gospel.  The Holy Spirit will even speak for them.  If the Lord raises up repentant sinners, we can only try to imagine how he will treat those who actively seek to do his will.