Monday in the 14th Week of Ordinary Time, July 8, 2024

Hosea 2, 16; 17-18; 21-22

Thus says the Lord: I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt. On that day, says the Lord, She shall call me “My husband,” and never again “My Baal.”  I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord.

The Prophet Hosea prophesied in the northern Kingdom of Israel in the late 700’s, some fifty to seventy years before this kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians and the population deported to eastern lands from which most never returned.  Threats from both within and outside hung over the little kingdom.  The worship of pagan gods flourished during this time, especially the worship of the Canaanite god Baal.  Hosea’s prophesies were directed at the king, his court, and the people of the kingdom, but they should also be understood as directed at the Judeans as well.

Almighty God shows his passionate love for Israel in speaking as a groom to his bride.  This is a love which Israel has rejected time and again through idolatry, and yet God does not abandon his bride.  This, almost desperate love, arouses both admiration and pity in us because it is so thorough and so wholly undeserved.  We listen to God, as though he is speaking aloud to himself: “I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth.”  The God of all creation who holds the universe on the tip of his finger acts as a love-sick youth, dreaming of starting over with someone who has walked off on him.  God says that he will “speak to her heart” in the desert as he did when he first loved her — the Sinai, during the Exodus, when God “married” his people through the covenant he made with Moses who acted on their behalf.  “She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt.”  Love has so affected him that he seems to forget entirely that the whole forty years Israel remained in the Sinai they were disobedient and rebellious.  At times, God had threatened to destroy them utterly, and they were saved only through the intercession of Moses.

“On that day, says the Lord, She shall call me ‘My husband,’ and never again ‘My Baal.’ ”  The desert to which God says he will lead Israel is the land of Assyria, for the people of the Kingdom of Israel, and the land of Babylon for the people of Judah.  By and large, the deported people of Israel assimilated to the people among whom they were settled and did not return to their ancestral home.  The exiles from Judah, however, did return to God.  Their faith became so steadfast that never again did they exchange the worship of God for the worship of Baal.

“I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord.”  The espousal of God and Israel is a sign that would be fulfilled when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, espoused the Church to himself on the Cross.  This is the true Espousal which is renewed every day throughout the world at Holy Mass.  You and I are brides in the Bride, espoused to the Lord Jesus.  May we excel in our faithfulness as we await the day when our Groom will lead us to his house in heaven.