Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Can you imagine today’s leaders, people in positions of great power, especially on the national level, publicly praying this prayer with utmost humility?: “Justice is with the Lord, our God; and we today are flushed with shame…that we, with our kings and rulers and priests and prophets, and with our ancestors, have sinned in the Lord’s sight and disobeyed him.” (Baruch 1:15-17) Can you imagine?! I hardly can.
Yet, this is the prayer of those in exile during the Babylonian captivity (today’s first reading from the Prophet Baruch). And not just blaming those in power, but acknowledging everyone’s part in disregarding God’s voice, “For we did not heed the voice of the Lord, our God, in all the words of the prophets whom he sent us, but each of us went off after the devices of his own wicked heart, served other gods, and did evil in the sight of the Lord, our God.” (vs 21,22) What humility, what repentance! Can you imagine?!
Turning now to today’s gospel passage (Luke 10:13-16) we hear Jesus exclaiming “Woe to you (Chorazin)!” and “Woe to you (Bethsaida)!” (Later in Luke, Chapter 11, we hear the “Woes” to the Scribes and Pharisees) And lest we exclude ourselves from Jesus’ warning, I share with you some words of reflection from Pope Francis:
Today can be a day for us to make an examination of conscience, with this refrain [from Jesus]: “‘Woe to you, woe to you,’ because I have given you so much, I have given you Myself, I have chosen you to be Christian, and you prefer a life by halves, a superficial life: a little bit of Christianity and holy water, but nothing more.” When this kind of Christian hypocrisy is lived, what we end up doing is casting Jesus from our hearts. We pretend to have Him, but we have cast him out. “We are Christians,” [we say] “We are proud to be Christians.” But we live like pagans. (Pope Francis, Santa Marta, 5 October 2018)
Let us pray with the psalmist today, “May your compassion come quickly to us, for we are brought very low…For the glory of your name, O Lord, deliver us.” (Psalm 79) For our country and our world, let us pray with humility. Amen.
—Eileen Miller