Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Ezekiel 16:1-15.60.63; Matthew 19:3-12)
Today’s first reading is all about ingratitude. Ezekiel, in fine poetic fashion, describes
how God showed mercy to Israel. According
to the prophet, God adopted the abandoned nation as his own. When the nation came of age, God married her. He made her beautiful and rich, but the
nation betrayed Him. Looking at her own
beauty and forgetting her husband’s love, she gave herself to others.
In a sense all sin is ingratitude. God has bestowed uncountable blessings on
every human, beginning with life itself.
But humans continually see themselves as their own masters and forget
about God. Many give themselves to idols,
be they physical like money or spiritual like the devil.
We owe God continual thanks and praise. When we perform these acts of justice, we
will overcome our inclination to sin.
