May our relationship with God, so wax day by day that we help in establishing the Reign of God not only by building up the Christian community but also by doing God’s will at any given moment of our life. Happy Sunday!
+ John I. Okoye
DOCTRINE AND FAITH(Isaiah 49, 14-15; 1 Cor 4, 1-5; Matt 6,24-34; 8th Sunday of the Year A, 2017)
Today’s first reading consists of two short verses. The first is a lament from Zion, the nation of Israel while the second is a word of comfort to the nation by God himself. Why did Israel lament? Jerusalem, was sacked twice in a space of ten years (597 and 587). The nation was disillusioned in not having any political allay that could help her and, as well, was disappointed in the comportment of God whom they thought had forgotten them in their destiny and completely abandoned them, so they lamented thus: The Lord has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me. The lament is quite terse, a piercing cry in the midst of desolation. In his response to their lament, God uses the mother metaphor to characterize the extraordinary love He has for the people. God’s love for His people is compared to the love or relationship between a nursing mother and her child. God vows that even if a nursing mother abandons the child of her womb, he will never abandon his people. This statement first depicts the intimacy of the bond that unites God and his people. Again the child in the mother’s breast suggests that Zion finds its sustenance in God, but it should not be forgotten the suggestion that Zion’s origin was from God. In summary, the short passage is saying that it is improbable, though possible, that a woman would forget the child of her flesh, God still will never forget his people. The people of God may feel abandoned and forgotten, it is only a feeling: it is not a fact, for God’s attachment to his people will never be severed.
We the present people of God, the Church, often find ourselves in the mental situation similar to the people of Israel, the first elect people of God. We are sometimes discouraged or loose confidence as we see people work against the church, abandon the Catholic faith, our youth find it difficult to embrace the faith, and moreover, within our own fold, there are divisions and discriminations among us. People disobey the Pope. We feel lost and ask, how long will this last and how will the situation be solved? We listen to the same word of God where he indicates that he will never abandon or forget us. Certainly the word of God neither deceives nor does his faithfulness wane. We need to reanimate our confidence in his help and assistance even though he allows temptation that seems to put the life of the church in danger.
Even our personal lives as individuals are fraught with disillusions: we often imagine that we are tested beyond our capacity; we find ourselves in a vicious cycle with our weakness and we are unable to initiate any action that would lead us out of them. The word of God is addressed to us in our concrete situations and assures us that God will not abandon, nor forget us, just as a mother will not forget her own child. Using the metaphor of mother (a metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable) depicts God’s total commitment to our needs than a mother suckling her child of her womb. The intimacy here cannot be compared with anything else; there is complete giving of oneself. This is the kind of bond with which we are attached to God. This bond is the basis of our trust.
We know in realty and faith that our intimacy with God goes far beyond the extent the mother-metaphor will lead us to. This is because through our baptism our intimacy with God is beyond limits, we are even living the life of God, sanctifying grace. He wishes us to deepen that intimacy and relationship by heeding the words of his Son, Jesus who admonishes us in several ways in today’s Gospel reading. First of all we are not to make the material possession of this world to be our top priority. God should top our priorities. We have to serve God rather than mammon. The second point is that we are neither to serve, nor be slave of, money and, at the same time, we are not be over anxious about what we need in life as sustenance, clothing and shelter. If we are anxious about them, it all means that we do not trust the providence of God and his commitment to be of help and assistance at any given moment. The other side of the coin is that it would give the false impression that in our weakness that we are able to do something. What we are to do as our top priority is, rather, to seek in all sincerity and with all the strength of our being the Reign of God and its justice. The establishment of the reign of God would mean taking up the duty of living according to the will of God. This duty of establishing the reign of God, be it the building up the church of God as a community of the faithful or be it as the living example that God rules and reigns in every heart, is to take precedence of any other duty in the Church. May we therefore, pray in today’s liturgy that our intimacy with God continue to wax stronger day by day and may it manifest itself in plunging all our being into establishing the reign of God. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye
pictures by chukwubike
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