GOD IS INDEED A LOVING FATHER

⏰Thursday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time 2 (11 July 2018)

📖Hos 11:1-4, 8c-9; Ps 80:2ac and 3b, 15-16 (R.v.4b); Matt 10:7-15

It is as if the more the people sinned and turned away from God, the more he loved them. One gets this picture from Hosea 11:1-9. The prophet starts off with an obvious intention: presenting God as a loving parent who meant so well for his child (cf. Hosea 11:1). This loving gesture was always repaid with rejection from man (see Hosea 11:2) but that did not deter God from loving them and trying to lure them back to himself (cf. Hosea 11:3ff).

Remember that sin is seen, among the Jews, as the direct cause of sickness and many kinds of ailment. That belief is contained in the question the disciples asked Jesus concerning the blind man, “Master, why was this man born blind? Because of his own sins or those of his parents?” (John 9:2). Even Hosea mentioned that God was going to punish the people for their sins (cf. Hosea 8:13).

Flowing from that therefore, we see Jesus in Matt 10:7-12 manifesting that parental principle of beating a child with the right hand and drawing him back with the left. He asks his disciples to carry the good news from our loving Father to those who are suffering in any way.

Nobody is forced to receive the good news but it would offer peace to those who receive it. As for those who do not, it would spell doom because it would be a direct rejection of the love of God. Which camp do you want to belong?

May God give us the grace of always making the fundamental option to follow him and share in his love so that we may enjoy the peace which the world cannot give. Amen.

Have a loving and peaceful day before God the loving Father. Peace be with you dear.