It pays to follow Christ. Application is free! Identification must be Christ-like!
Let’s Run and win the heavenly race together!
The expression of Matthew in Caravaggio’s painting has been an inspiration for centuries. Matthew gesture here seems to be saying, “ am I qualified to be in the list of your team? Do I deserve such a great privilege? Can I do it? I am not the first to be chosen then what can I offer?
We can presume that Matthew was ecstatic at this recognition by Jesus.
He immediately gets up from his “customs post” to follows Jesus and equally invites his Master to dine with him and his friends. And of course, such actions earns a rebuke of Jesus by his religious opponents: “Why,” they ask Jesus’ disciples, “does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus’ response today echoes the words of the prophets from of old. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:24; Micah 6:8) We all have sinned and failing short of the glory of God and yet the desire of our God is to pour out His saving grace and endless mercy upon those who listen to His call, in order for them to gain salvation. We must always recognize and attune ourselves to the mercy of our God who has brought us back from sickness to health, from unrighteousness to holiness and from being lost to being saved.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus reaches out in compassion to the poor, the lost, and the despised and given to us today is Amos, the eighth-century prophet, who is known as one of the most powerful voices in the Bible calling for social justice. A herdsman and a dresser of sycamore but God drafted him to be a voice for social justice. His blistering attack on the rich and powerful who exploit the poor for their own gain and his indictments have an eerie contemporary quality.
He accuses them of reducing the size of the containers for the wheat and fixing the scales and the weights that measure out the food of the poor. They are willing to sell out a poor man “for a pair of sandals.” Such cruelty and injustice, Amos warns in blunt words, will earn the wrath of God, the one who cares for the poor and needy.
The great saints of our Catholic tradition have exemplified this same spirit of compassion and care for the poor, from the first martyr St. Stephen to the popular St. Martin of Tours, the iconic medieval Saint Francis of Assisi to the not yet canonized Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic worker movement and Blessed Tansi It is a constant theme of Pope Francis’ teaching and example as it comes to us too daily in the Holy sacrifice of the Mass.
Happy New Month
Osho
Credit:
This article is written by Rev Fr. Joseph Osho OSJ. Please visit his personal blog @ https://www.blogger.com/profile/10377666931103644634
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