GOD’S WORD FOR THE DAY (based on Catholic Liturgical Readings)
DATE: 14TH FEBRUARY 2017
TUESDAY OF THE SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
MEMORIAL OF SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS
FIRST READING: Genesis 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10
PSALM: Psalm 29:1-4, 9-10
GOSPEL: Mark 8:14-21
THEME: WHEN LOVE RUNS DRY
I felt suspicious about the man’s character the very first day he entered my office with his fiancée. They were planning to marry and had come to request for counselling. After months of counselling, I asked the lady, “Do you really know the man inside out?” She responded, “Yes father! He is the best thing that has ever happened to me”. With that firm statement, we proceeded with the celebration of the marriage.
Few months after marriage, the lady walked into my office one afternoon with tears in her eyes. She looked miserable. I knew something had gone wrong. With difficulty she said, “Father, I married a monster. He has torn our marriage certificate into pieces and turned me into a punching bag.” What appeared to be love at first sight had turned sour, and what was meant to be beautiful had become ugly.
Adam and Eve’s story of love in the garden of Eden was wrecked when they believed the deception of the serpent. It led to a blame-game and finally an expulsion from the state of paradise. The relationship between two brothers, Cain and Abel, was also wrecked by jealousy and ended up in murder.
The God of love did not intend creation to go this way. In our First Reading, we are told, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Gen. 6:5-6). The subsequent account of the flood and Noah’s Ark is a story of the Creator who moves into action to recreate a world that had run out of love. God detests wickedness.
What defines a person of worth is not what he or she has but the love he or she gives. Many relationships are suffering today because love has run dry and wickedness has been let loose. Whenever we love, we fulfil the purpose of our being here on earth and whenever we fail to love, we “grieve God to the heart.”
PRAYER: Eternal Father, pour into my heart an abundance of selfless love and let it show forth in all my relationships. For the sake of Christ, I pray. Amen.
Andrews Obeng, svd
DIVINE WORD MISSIONARIES
BIBLICAL PASTORAL MINISTRY
(Ghana Province)
“May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the light of the Word and the Spirit of grace. And may the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all people” (St. Arnold Janssen).