Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Hosea 2:16, 17c–18, 21–22
The Bible begins with marriage.
Adam sees Eve and says:
“This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”
And the Bible ends with marriage:
the wedding feast of the Lamb.
Between these two moments, the prophets often use marriage as an image of the relationship between God and His people.
“For your Maker is your husband,” says Isaiah.
In the New Testament, this image becomes the mystery of Christ and His Church.
God does not want only obedience.
He wants love.
He does not want only sacrifices.
He wants the heart.
But love can be wounded.
Marriage can be betrayed.
And this is what Hosea saw in the life of Israel.
Hosea was the prophet of God’s wounded love.
He preached in the prosperous days of Jeroboam II, when the northern kingdom of Israel was strong and wealthy.
But beneath the prosperity, something was broken.
The people were running after idols.
Hosea saw idolatry as adultery.
Israel had betrayed her husband, the Lord.
Even Hosea’s own life became a living parable of this tragedy.
At the command of the Lord, he married Gomer.
They had children.
But Gomer left him.
She ran after another love.
And finally, she ended in slavery.
Then God told Hosea to look for her and bring her back.
What kind of love is this?
A love wounded, but still searching.
A love betrayed, but still calling.
A love humiliated, but not yet finished.
Through Hosea, God reveals His own heart.
He says:
“I will allure her. I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.”
The desert, for Hosea, was also the place where Israel first learned to belong to the Lord.
It was the time of first love, the honeymoon between God and His people,
when Israel came out of Egypt and followed the Lord through the wilderness.
Now God wants to begin again.
God does not deny betrayal. He does not pretend that sin does not matter.
But He still calls.
He still searches.
He still hopes to win back the heart that has wandered away.
Did Gomer respond to Hosea’s faithful love?
We do not know.
Did Israel respond to the Lord’s call?
Only a remnant did.
But the invitation remains.
God still leads us into the desert,
away from false loves, away from idols, away from noise,
so that He may speak to our hearts again.
And there, if we listen,
love can begin again.
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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