Monday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

Foreword: Please join me this week on a journey, as we follow the Church’s readings through the Book of Hosea, an ancient prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel. I think you and I both will discover that the life and message of Hosea is still relevant and needed today. Reading Hosea can help us to understand and appreciate more God’s love for us in Christ Jesus.

This week the Church journeys through the Book of Hosea (hoe-ZAY-a). This book of the Bible may be unfamiliar territory for many Christians. I myself had never read through it before or given it much study. But if God has something to say to us in every book of the Bible, then we ought to take on the challenge of reading and studying this sacred text from the eighth century B.C. As St. Benedict says, “What page, what passage of the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments is not the truest of guides for human life?” (RB 73.3) So, let us traverse into a time before Christ, so that we may appreciate His coming in the flesh and His rising to new life all the more.

The verses from Hosea today are but snippets from a larger story, going back at least to the Exodus from Egypt. After the chosen people were freed from slavery, God made a covenant with them on Mount Sinai through his servant Moses. And after 40 years of wandering in the desert, the people entered the land God had promised them. But with time, the people began adopting foreign practices and soon forgot the God who saved them and with whom they made a covenant.

Making matters worse, after the death of King David and his son Solomon, the kingdom divided: 10 tribes in the north (called Israel), and two tribes in the south (called Judah). And it is toward the end of the northern kingdom that the word of the LORD came to Hosea, son of Beeri. The LORD has Hosea marry a woman who will be unfaithful to him (cf. Hos 1:2), just as the people of Israel have been unfaithful to the LORD their God. His solution? “I will allure her,” that is, the people of Israel; “I will lead her into the desert,” like that after the Exodus, “and speak to her heart.” (2:16)

Just look back over the past six months. The global pandemic caused the whole world to stop and consider its priorities. Do we not admit that we had gone off track, become distracted, in one way or another? God succeeded, I believe, in leading us into a kind of desert and speaking to our hearts. Let us listen, then, to what he has to say.

Action: Read the first three chapters of the Book of Hosea. Just read it straight through, and, if you have time, read all fourteen chapters. Reading scripture can always be a source of grace.

Reflection by Br. Luke Kral, OSB