Good Morning. It's early. Today's first reading is Amos 3:1-8; 4:11-12

The wrath of God continues in today's reading. Thing is, it's kind of understandable. I know, I know, it's not popular to sympathize with the Angry-God stuff. We are supposed to act like that behavior is either not there in the old testament or that it doesn't mean anything, but come on! It's all over the place! The way I see it, God kinda has his feelings hurt that the people that he has chosen to reveal himself to are, well, human. Maybe I'm projecting, because God probably doesn't really have the kind of emotions that we do, but I see him really fostering, indulging, and loving this whole tribe, in a very parent-favorite son kind of way. But it seems to him that every time he turns his back for a second, they are sniffing around foreign temples and worshipping those other gods. Not even those other Gods, but poles of wood and altars of stone. They are wasting all of their adoration on objects. Even though it's easy to see this in a jealously context, God is mad because his people are doing stupid things that are only harming themselves. Kind of like when you get mad at your new puppy for eating rocks. You don't want him to keep hurting himself.



The gospel for today is Matthew 8:23-27

This reading is a nice, soothing balm after the Amos passage. Jesus is on a boat with his disciples, crossing the Sea of Galilee I guess, and a "violent storm" breaks out. I've been on a boat in a violent storm, and it can be terrifying and nauseating, and make you feel completely helpless. To make matters worse, the footnotes say that the word actually translates to earthquake. Really? Earthquake in a boat? Doesn't that cause tidal waves and stuff?

Anyway, the disciples are freaking out, and wake Jesus, begging him to save them. I imagine the scene a little like this: Jesus slowly wakes up, rubs his eyes, and says "What's wrong with you? Can't I go to sleep for a minute without you jerks thinking you're gonna die? Do I have to do everything around here?" He gets up, calmly prays and does some storm-directing with his hands, and the weather clears instantly. He goes back to his original spot, lays down, and goes right back to sleep, completely unconcerned.

This is seriously one of my favorite gospel stories because it kind of cracks me up every time that I read it.


The news story of the day is old, but it was a slow news day this morning: Don’t abandon drug addicts, says president of Chilean Bishops’ Conference

Good Morning. I slept in a little, so this is running late.

Today we start off with Amos 2:6-10, 13-16

I scanned around Amos a little, because I've never read it before. It spent all of Chapter one outlining other crimes against other tribes or nations. It looks like they were all pretty bad, (murder, treason, slavery), but God was the most angry at Israel because they disregarded his laws, took advantage of the weak and poor, sold their own people into slavery, heedlessly worshipped other idols, and something weird about father and son visiting the same prostitute. There are probably multiple laws broken on that prostitute thing. My study bible says that the crimes are "infidelity and idolatry". And we thought we lived in a corrupt society today.

At the end of verse six, where God, through Amos, says "I will not revoke my word," I thought that meant that God was going to stand by Israel, but apparently not. According to everything that came up with when I googled it, it means that he "will not withdraw his threat of punishment." Ouch. He goes on to tell Israel the great things that he's done for them, with the destruction of the Amorites, the being led out of slavery, and giving them the promised land. And then, tells them that they are really in for it because they have ticked him off. "Really in for it" doesn't exactly cover it, right? He's about to crush them. It is basically a very scary "I brought you into this world, I can take you out" kind of dad-speech. I don't know any more to say. Let's see what the next reading is:

Matthew 8:18-22

I don't understand how these tie together at all. I also think that Jesus is really tired in this passage, and maybe a little cranky. First of all, he sees that he's drawing a crowd, and he just wants to get in a boat and go across the lake, away from them. When a scribe tells him that he wants to follow him anywhere and everywhere, Jesus just basically tells him that he's got nowhere to go, and nowhere to rest. Then, when one of his disciples asks permission to go and bury his father, Jesus denies him in what even today sounds shocking and uncaring. “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.” Maybe the tie in for these two passages is that God gets real ornery sometimes. The New American Bible says this: "Let the dead bury their dead: the demand of Jesus overrides what both the Jewish and the Hellenistic world regarded as a filial obligation of the highest importance. See the note on Luke 9:60." Still very harsh.

So I googled around again, and I found this article: Holy Spirit Interactive: Fr. Francis Jamieson: The Hard Sayings of Jesus: Let the Dead Bury the Dead. This article basically says that Jesus is trying to demonstrate that following him and seeking the kingdom of God overcomes every earthy obligation, no matter how pious or important.

Now for the news of the day, in case you were interested in what the pope said about the new Pauline year: Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul links missionary and unitive dimensions