Sixteenth Monday in Ordinary Time
“What does YHWH require of you? Only this: To do justice, love tenderness, and walk humbly with your God” (NJB). These words from the prophet Micah (6:8) are among the most beautiful and efficacious in the whole of the Bible.
The Jerome Biblical Commentary says of Micah, “he was a fearless champion of the oppressed, who called a spade a spade: the priests were hypocrites, the merchants greedy, the prophets false, the landowners cheats.”
Micah confronted unjust structures and institutions. To the prophets, a right relationship with God must include justice for the marginal, the rejected, the powerless, those on the fringe.
THE cornerstone of Catholic justice teaching is the dignity of the human person. Our bishops point to “the preferential option for the poor.” How do our boardrooms, our chanceries, our politics, our schools, our governments, our families, our workplaces, our parishes, indeed all structures of society impact the poor?
But even the most ardent advocates for the poor can forget that the prophets, including Jesus, ran on the fuel of a deep relationship with YHWH. Making time with God was absolute —periods of prayer and stillness so as to listen for the Lord. Mother Teresa advised, “If you are too busy to pray an hour a day then pray two hours a day.”
In 1973 as he began his service to the Church of Cincinnati, Joseph Bernadine met with small groups of his priests in order to get to know them. Bernardine admitted that in that early period he was over-worked and spiritually empty. While dining with some younger clergy, they advised him to meditate for an hour at the start of each day. The archbishop credited these young clerics with changing his life.
Action without contemplation is a recipe for burnout. Servant of God Dorothy Day blended a life of activism with a rich interior life. She would say, “As breath is to the body, prayer is to the soul.” Daily mass was absolute as well as praying the Liturgy of the Hours. The psalms permeated her everyday. And that was key.
Cincinnati native and renowned scholar Fr. Eugene Maly, who hailed from Price Hill beyond the mythic “sauerkraut curtain” of the westside there, taught the bishops scripture at the first session of Vatican II. He said of Micah and his contemporaries Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, “The prophets were not so overwhelmed by the sins of the people that they forgot the divine will to save. YHWH is a God of restoration and redemption.” Salvation is what God does.
Another well known passage from Micah concures. It is proclaimed by the church in late Advent: “You Bethlehem-Ephrathah, tiny among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth the one who is to shepherd my people Israel; whose origin is from of old, from ancient times'' (5:1).
Christ, the ultimate redemptive act of YHWH, modeling Micah 6:8 in the flesh—just, gentle, and humble. God grant that we be likewise.
-Timothy J. Cronin