Word to the Wise
Monday, July 31, 2017 - Monday in the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
[Exod 32:15-24, 30-34 and Matt 13:31-35]As he [Moses] drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing. With that, Moses' wrath flared up, so that he threw the tablets down and broke them on the base of the mountain. Taking the calf they had made, he fused it in the fire and then ground it down to powder, which he scattered on the water and made the children of Israel drink." [Exodus]
JULY 31 ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, s.j. (founder of the Jesuits)
The story of the "Golden Calf" and Moses' reaction to the idolatry is one of the most vivid of the whole cycle of Exodus' accounts of the journey in the desert. Grinding a statue to dust and making a kind of kool-aid of it to make the people drink is a rather imaginative and dramatic reaction, but it does underline the seriousness of idolatry. Aaron's lame account of what had happened while Moses was up on the mountain illustrates the way any of us can think about God when we get impatient or unrealistic in our expectations. There is a "What have you done for me lately?" attitude. If the God of revelation isn't meeting my expectations, maybe I need to find a "god of my own designs and convenience."
This is a serious question. The way we pray can tell us a lot about our expectations of God and, indeed, the image we have of God in our hearts and minds. Are we faithful to the God revealed in our tradition of faith as enshrined in the creed? Or have we lost patience and made up a god of our own design and convenience? Is there a Moses somewhere who can call us back to the real God of salvation? Isn't Jesus the best way (Moses)to straighten out our expectations? AMEN
Comment on Reflection
<< Previous Date [Back to List] Next Date >>
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
123 ms
4
