Thursday, June 30, 2016



Thursday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Amos 7:10-17; Matthew 9:1-8)

The other day the journalist George Will made the news himself.  He announced that he was leaving the Republican Party.  He said that he could not tolerate the nation’s leading Republican’s endorsement of Donald Trump for the presidency.  Will explained that he still sees himself as a conservative but judges the Republican Party as leaving conservatism behind.  He may feel like Amos in today’s first reading.

Amos has long preached reform in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  He has tried to persuade the king as well as the people to give up flirting with foreigners.  He believes that salvation comes from the God of Israel alone.  Now he is being told to return to the Southern Kingdom where he was born.  He knows that Israel is rejecting the principles which made them a chosen people.

We rightly talk about God as having unconditional love for us.  But this truth should not delude us into thinking that we are free to do whatever we wish.  God has given us His Spirit so that we may become loving like He is.  The Spirit often requires sacrifice of personal desires to accommodate God’s ever-gracious will for us.