Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Hosea 11:1–4, 8e–9
Today’s reading begins with one of the most tender lines in the book of Hosea:
“When Israel was a child, I loved him.”
Israel was like a child in Egypt.
Weak. Enslaved. Unable to save himself.
If not for the Lord, Israel would have remained in slavery.
God says:
“I taught Ephraim to walk. I took them in my arms.”
Hosea refers to the journey through the desert toward the Promised Land.
God taught Israel how to live and how to worship.
He protected Israel. He provided for Israel.
If not for God, Israel would never have made it.
But the love was not returned.
“The more I called them, the farther they went from me.”
Instead of loving the Lord with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their strength,
Israel went after idols.
This is the wound at the heart of Hosea.
God loved Israel as a husband loves his wife.
God loved Israel as a father loves his child.
But Israel betrayed that love.
And so Hosea lets us glimpse something astonishing:
the pain inside the heart of God.
God is not indifferent.
God is not cold.
God is not untouched by human betrayal.
His love has been wounded.
His anger burns.
But another movement is present in His heart:
“How could I give you up, Ephraim? How could I hand you over, Israel?”
God’s justice sees the sin.
God’s holiness rejects the evil.
But God’s compassion prevails.
Pope Benedict XVI once wrote that God’s passionate love is also a forgiving love,
so great that it turns God against Himself, His love against His justice.
This is the mystery Hosea reveals.
God does not excuse sin.
But He refuses to stop loving the sinner.
Yet a question remains:
If God loves us so much, why is He so often met with indifference?
Why does the story of Israel repeat itself among us,
we who profess faith in the God who is love?
We may think we love God because we pray, celebrate, build churches, and multiply religious activities.
But Hosea warns us:
worship is not enough if life remains unchanged.
Love is not only a feeling.
Love is a covenant.
Love is fidelity.
Love is obedience.
Jesus gave us the measure:
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
As long as our world is full of injustice,
as long as Christian nations still initiate wars,
as long as our societies are marked by inequality and indifference,
we are still far from loving as Christ loves us.
So the call remains:
return to the Love that never gave up on us,
and learn how to love.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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