Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Micah 6:1-4.6-8; Matthew 12:38-42)
My sister, brother, and I used to ask our mother what she
wanted for Christmas, her birthday, or Mother’s Day. It didn’t matter the occasion, our mother
always had the same answer, “good kids.”
She sounds like the Lord God in today’s first reading.
In one of the most cited passages of the Old Testament, the
prophet Micah describes a showdown between the Lord and His people. They are prepared to bring Him all kinds of offerings. But He does not want, and much less need, anything
human-made. He wants their souls, which
he crafted, back. He wants His people to
follow the Law He gave them. He desires a righteous, loving, and humble nation.
We should take care that we become the kind of people the
Lord wants. We must go beyond saying the
rosary or even attending Mass to striving to live the Beatitudes. Of course, receiving the Eucharist, we bring
into our lives the one who most perfectly lived them. We need to listen and to do
what he tells us.
