Daily Retreat 07/24/08

2008 Jul 24 Thu: Ordinary Weekday Jer 2: 1-3. 7-8. 12-13/ Ps 35(36): 6-7ab. 8-9. 10-11/ Mt 13: 10-17   From today's readings:  "Be amazed at this, O heavens, and shudder with sheer horror, says the LORD. Two evils have My people done: they have forsaken Me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water....  How precious is your mercy, O God!...  Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."   Jeremiah's Gripe   It is tragic enough for one to grow cold and lethargic in the love of God, but it is even worse for one to seek and strenuously pursue an idolatrous love that deliberately disintegrates divine love dwelling within!  This is the heart of Jeremiah's prophecy: not only have so many people grown dispassionate in their love for God, but, worse still, so many are positively passionate in their prostitute's love of idols and other evils.   Jeremiah's outcry is terrifying: "Be amazed at this, O heavens, and shudder with sheer horror, says the LORD. Two evils have My people done: they have forsaken Me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water."  Not only had the people left God ("the source of living waters"), but they had labored ("dug cisterns") to provide themselves with some soulless substitute that would quench their lives' thirst, but all their efforts were in vain.   Without a doubt, there are times when it is hard to go to church, or hard to pray, or hard to live up to our Lord's commandments, or hard to have faith in God at all.  In the lifelong struggle against all temptations, you and I at times feel too little strength within us to put up much of a fight, and so we nibble at temptation, like a drowsy fish that knows there's better food than the worm hanging on the hook, but is too lazy to look elsewhere.    But after one or two careless nibbles, we soon find ourselves hooked on sin, even embracing it and aroused with a pathetic passion for iniquity.  Like the once slothful fish which suddenly has some rush of adrenalin which gives it the boost to dart around for miles dancing with the hooked line, so you and I can find ourselves expending so much energy following the lead of sin - ironically (tragically so!), since often the fall into sin is justified because we had been "so wearied" and "overworked" by the demands of virtue, and even though it might  gradually dawn on us how painful but how essential it is to get free of its barbs.  Pay attention, because Jeremiah (and the whole Bible) teaches us how to get unhooked from sin!