Overview:
Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
A Reflection for Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
“Sow for yourselves justice,
reap the fruit of piety;
break up for yourselves a new field,
for it is time to seek the LORD,
till he come and rain down justice upon you.” (Hosea 10:12)
Find today’s readings here.
We live in a strange era when self-reflection is discouraged, when people can speak with a straight face of things like “toxic empathy.”
The worst kinds of things can be said about neighbors and sojourners among us—and done to them—but expressions of historical contrition are dismissed as useless, woke self-absorption. How can a nation make an honest account of itself and the path it cuts in the world if attempts at a sincere examination of conscience are ridiculed or worse forbidden altogether?
In our times, at national monuments and parks, historical placards and markers, signs and exhibits—those small tokens that once acknowledged historical errors and taught our children of them, dare we even speak of institutional and national sins—are being torn down, painted over and pulled from sight. Our government leaders tell us these small examinations of conscience are maliciously intended to hurt national pride and diminish love of country.
But they often give the game away. It is the historical role of white America, some freely admit, that they wish to shield from historical scrutiny.
When a nation cannot honestly assess its past, can it make morally sound policy in its present? We are in a vast, real-time experiment, exploring that question.
And results so far don’t look great as the United States participates in a preventive war against Iran and rolls over international humanitarian law with high-tech summary executions of alleged drug traffickers on the high seas. In the midst of that war a missile strike on a school full of children took scores of precious lives, a grievous error our civilian and military leaders still have not taken responsibility for, covering themselves in deeper shame.
We act as if we will never be held to account for such acts and, owing to the superior power of the United States, perhaps we won’t be. What power in the world could threaten us? But account-keeping is not limited to temporal authority.
In today’s first reading, Israel appears similarly besotted with its own influence and power. In its own eyes, well, it can do no wrong. It transgresses, sins against the law and carries on as if it will never receive a comeuppance. It neglects to fear God, an act of pride and foolishness that in the time of biblical Israel invites a divine retribution.
But God is good and his mercy crosses all human horizons. There is always time to refrain from doing wrong and to instead sow justice and peace, to make amends. That harvest will be bountiful.