Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s powerful first reading comes to us from the book of the prophet Hosea. The prominent feature of this book is a description of God and his people Israel in the terms of marriage – husband and wife. God is the faithful lover, who wants to the best for his spouse but also wants to be loved in return. Today’s passage reflects this desire of God; God wants his people to love him passionately and to be faithful to him because of this love. Hosea is addressed to a people who have gone astray from this love for God. The people Israel have worshipped other gods, which Hosea will compare to adultery. In sum, what we see in this passage is that God loves us passionately and the proper return for this is our own whole-hearted love for God.
God’s love, described so beautifully in the Hosea passage, is made incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. This is God’s love for us manifest in the flesh. And in today’s gospel reading, we witness the miracles performed by God’s love incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. In both of the miracles featured in this passage from Matthew, people demonstrate a strong faith. This faith is an illustration of what Hosea described in the first passage. The official whose daughter just died actually kneels before Jesus, pleading with him in a way that demonstrates his belief. Likewise, the woman with hemorrhages single-mindedly reaches out for Jesus, expecting to be healed. This is the kind of response we ought to have to God, who loves us passionately and wants the best for us. The people seeking miracles in this passage are not embarrassed; they are empowered by their faith. And ultimately they are also rewarded for their faith. They have succumbed to love in God and trust in Jesus. They have turned, or we might say, returned to God in a way that shows their complete dependence upon God. They know that they cannot do everything themselves; in their great need they realize their weakness, their fallen humanity. And they use this weakness well. They see it as an opportunity to seek something beyond themselves, to reach out to the God who loves them and will heal them. It is hard to comprehend just HOW much God loves us. It is SO much that we can never adequately understand it. But what we can do is try to be open to God’s love for us and to respond to that love by loving God back in return. The expressions of this love may take many forms, and, as in all relationships, loving God will take commitment and dedication and sacrifice. Today, take some time to think about the ways that your love for God are manifest – in prayer, in Scripture reading, in serving others, and so on. We are invited to a continual conversion of love. God wants us to fall in love with Him, over and over again. He wants us to reach out to him not only in our need, but also in all our joys, hopes and dreams. Let us pray that our love for God will continue to intensify and that this love will shine through in all that we do. - Maria Morrow