Monday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
They hand over the just for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals. Amos 2:6
Throughout this week our first reading comes to us from the prophet Amos. It will not come as a surprise to us as why the Hebrew name Amos means burden.
WHEN THE PROPHET AMOS walked down the main drag, it was like a shoot-out in the Old West. Everybody ran for cover. His special target was the "beautiful people," and shooting from the hip, he never missed his mark. He pictures them sleek and tanned at Palm Beach, Acapulco, St. Tropez. They glisten with Bain de Soleil. The stereo is piped out over the marble terrace. Another tray of Bloody Marys is on the way. A vacationing bishop plunges into the heated pool.
With one eye cocked on them, he has his other cocked on the unbeautiful people—the varicose veins of the old waiter, the pasty face of the starch-fed child, the Indian winos passed out on the railroad siding, the ragged woman fumbling for food stamps at the check-out counter.
When justice is finally done, Amos says, there will be hell to pay. The happy hour will be postponed indefinitely, because the sun will never make it over the yardarm. The cashmere sweaters, the tangerine-colored slacks, the flowered lillys will all fade like grass. Nothing but a few chicken bones will mark the place where once the cold buffet was spread out under the royal palms.
But according to Amos, it won't be the shortage of food and fun that will hurt. It will be the shortage "of hearing the words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). Toward the end, God will make himself so scarce that the world won't even know what it's starving to death for.--Frederick Buechner
I have loved the work of humorist biblical theologian and Lutheran pastor Frederick Buechner (above). Another biblical theologian of a more local sort was Father Eugene Maly, a priest of our Archdiocese and a native of Price Hill on Cincinnati's west-side. He was a scholar on hand at Vatican Council II and taught the bishops scripture at the first session in 1962. And he had a tremendous impact on me as my scripture professor at Mt. St. Mary's of the West. Here's Father Maly's take on Amos:
Amos exploded in Israel like a might force. His strong cry for justice, for concern for the poor, still has meaning for today. Here was a strong, stolid, stern champion of God among a people weak, soft, and pampered. They needed a man like Amos, and God sent him to them. It is interesting that this rough shepherd of Tekoa (Judah) should be the first of the writing prophets, the first to leave a record of his oracles for posterity. Other prophets after him would fill out the picture of an almost unrelieved sense of doom left by Amos. But Amos had a mission to fulfill and he fulfilled it.
Amos has been called THE prophet of social justice. The prophetic spirit that seized this dresser of sycamore trees resides among us as well. As Catholics we are to have a likewise prophetic voice regarding threats to peace, economic hardships, and all troubling social conditions and injustices.
Catholic social teaching may be the Church’s best kept secret. It is surprising that many Catholics do not know that the Church teaches about what makes for a good society.
The mission of the Church includes an assessment of what economies are for, a vision of who the human person is, and a demand that all the faithful labor not only for the salvation of souls, but for a just world that protects the rights and dignity of all persons---envisioned through the prism of the person of Jesus Christ.
Justice is not an addition or extra to our faith. It is at its heart. “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”
And we must do this with the voice and mind of that prophet of all prophets: Jesus of Nazareth.
Let us pray,
God of Amos and of Jesus,
Through the prophets you declared judgment upon Israel because of their treatment of the poor and needy; for over charging them for food and necessities and for using them as things. Your sanctions included a famine not of crops but of the Word of God.
Inspire us through your Holy Spirit and in the name of your divine Son, to bless the poor and the down-and-out. Render us prophetic voices to be champions of justice, to name correct unjust systems, and embrace the truth of your holy Gospel.
Prophet Amos pray for us.
Timothy J. Cronin