1 July 2022
Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
The prophet Amos again, near the end of his prophecy, itemizes the questions which greed puts in the hearts of many in his day. They are impatient to be finished with religious observance of the sabbath rest so that they can get back to defrauding the poor who come to the marketplace. And he finishes by proclaiming two punishments for continuation in this sin: darkness and hunger. It is a truth that sin is often its own punishment, and we hear this in the prophet: those who have turned from the light of the Lord who would shine the sun of justice upon the land, and instead turn themselves solely to the glimmer of the wealth they might obtain, they are given over to the darkness to which they have turned. Those who have stoked their appetite for wealth which does not satisfy are left in their hunger. Only the word of the Lord would satisfy, but as they have fasted from this word in their rejection of the Lord’s law and prophets, they are left to wander in this spiritual hunger after.
In the Gospel, we see how Jesus comes to defeat sin and to redeem those who are suffering from its punishments. In many ways, Matthew as a tax collector was the sort of person who continued to meet Amos’ criteria, even 800 years after Amos prophesied: Matthew would have been greedily seeking to exploit others in his collection of Roman taxes and then extra for himself. In the midst of Matthew’s spiritual darkness and hunger, the Word of God enters his customs post, and speaks to Matthew the word which will actually satisfy: “Follow me.” May we too let the light of the Word of God show us what truly matters, what is worthy of our desires and pursuit, what truly satisfies the hunger of our hearts. Let us allow Christ to come to us, even in the midst of our less worthy pursuits, and call to us once more: “Follow me.”