Daily Reflection for Thursday, July 07, 2022
Peace and Blessings, Friends and Parishioners,
We encourage you to reflect on Thursday's readings at this link:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070722.cfm
If you prefer to use your own Bible, the readings are:
First Reading: Hosea 11:1-4, 8e-9
Responsorial: Psalm 80:2ac and 3b, 15-16
Gospel: Matthew 10:7-15
Our reflection on Thursday’s readings:
Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer. (Hosea 11:4)
It really is tough to be human. We are complicated. We are amazingly beautiful. We are compassionate. We cause pain on one another. We love intensely.
Humans are relational. We do not exist in this world solo although it may feel like that some days. We are all connected with other human beings and need to be for our own survival.
In the first reading, Hosea depicts God as parent. A parent-child relationship is familiar to us. The thought of this relationship may connect us to beautiful experiences, trigger great sadness, and can conjure many other feelings. It is a powerful relationship filled with great beauty, complexity, and perhaps great confusion.
Hosea describes God as this ever-loving parent who only wants to love His children. He is a parent who wants to relieve the child’s suffering and to teach him how to face the world’s challenges. He wants the child to recognize that He loves him. Yet despite all of this, the child rejects Him. While it would be understandable that God would respond with anger and violence, God’s only response is love.
It is tough to be human and to make sense of the world we live in daily. Yet the first reading gives me hope that no matter how imperfect I am, no matter how much I reject God’s healing grace, no matter how much I move away from God’s love, God will continue to love and welcome me back home.
May you come home to God’s love today,
Margarita Solis Deal