Friday, XXVI Week of Ordinary Time
(Baruch 1:15-22, Luke 10:13-16)
In the Gospel Jesus laments that the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida have not repented. In the reading from Baruch the people demonstrate the repentance he expects. He wants sinners to recognize that they have erred not in judgment but in heart. Repentance is based on memory. The Babylonian Jews recall God’s goodness: how He led their ancestors out of captivity in Egypt and gave them the Law to live as a free people. To be precise the Book of Deuteronomy records how Moses set before the people a blessing if they follow the ways of God and a curse if they pursued their hearts’ whims and fancies. Now the people recognized how they chose the latter and have paid dearly for their sins.
Our society also has wandered from God’s ways with similarly disastrous results. Preachers typically bemoan how present times do not measure up to former ones, but how else is one to see the degeneration in morals cast before the public? True, our society is not expressly Christian, but Jewish-Christian values and traditions ground Western civilization.
The other day a newspaper article told of Hollywood possibly prohibiting all smoking in pictures that youth might see. This sounds like a sensible restriction, but it is only ironic with all the sexual promiscuity that Hollywood projects. Immoral sexual gratification creates much more serious personal and social problems. But few are willing to curb its public expression. More than protect youth from the dangers of smoking, we should guard them from sexual licentiousness.
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