Word to the Wise
Monday, July 18, 2022 - Monday in the 16th Week in Ordinary Time
[Mic 6:1-4, 6-8 and Matt 12:38-42]With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with claves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God. [Micah
The last line of the passage from the prophet Micah as translated in the Jerusalem Bible, first published in 1966, caught my attention when I was a Dominican student brother (seminarian). That translation read: "...to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God." When I was about to be ordained in 1971, I had that line printed on one of the souvenir cards that are customary at the event. Micah's words seemed then and now to sum up what Jesus would teach us to do. I often send them to couples I know who are preparing to marry.
Discipleship demands a sense of justice as well as love and these must spring from faith. The loss of a sense of faith erodes whatever reasons we might have for acting justly or loving anyone. These are at the root of the two greatest commandments, as Jesus preached: love of God and love of neighbor. If our worship of God, described in temple terms by Micah, is elaborate without our lives displaying justice, love, and humility before God [cf Luke 18:9-14], our worship is then an empty display of empty piety. Micah's question is a good one to remember: "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high?" AMEN