Deacon Larry

Thursday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time

Amos 7: 10-17; Mt 9: 1-8

Dc. Larry Brockman

“The truth will set you free”, that is, unless, you are an Israeli prophet in Amos’ time; or John the Baptist in Jesus time, or even a Christian voice in today’s secular world, in which case you will be slandered and people will scheme against you, fomenting all kinds of evil against you.   

But consider this.  Amos was sent into exile, but not before he told Jeroboam the absolute truth.  And over time, everything that Amos predicted came true.  John the Baptist was beheaded, but not before he had accomplished his mission, proclaiming a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and announcing the coming of Christ and his kingdom.  The establishment hated both prophets, preferring not to listen to the Word of God, because it would mean an end to their secular power.   

Even Jesus himself, who dealt with the paralytic in good faith and out of kindness, was berated by the Jewish establishment because he was not up to their standards of training,  and because of an inconvenient truth-  that a simple carpenter had miraculous power to heal not only the body, but the soul as well.  The Jewish establishment was jealous of the truth.     Hopefully, the voices of God’s truth today will get the Word out, the truth, even as they are shouted down, and many of them will be and are being persecuted by the establishment today.  It is an establishment that no longer encourages a national day of prayer; an establishment that allows our taxpayer dollars to fund abortions; and an establishment that is spending way, way, way beyond the means to pay for it.   

Where are you and I in all of this?  Are we like the people of Israel under Jereboam, who hear the truth through Amos the prophet, but stand on the side just listening, waiting, biding time; hoping that their leaders, corrupt and godless as they were, would come to their rescue,  only to be crushed as the words of the prophet came true?  Or will you and I rise to the occasion; put God and His word first; put aside special interests; and seek out and find the truth, the truth that only comes from God, truths like:  I am the Lord your God, do not have strange Gods before me; thou shall not kill; and thou shall not steal.

Indeed, the truth is really the only thing that can set us free, and God’s Word is the truth.   

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 5:51 am and is filed under Holy Family Weekday Homilies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.