Friday 1 July 2022

Today is Friday the 1st July, in the 13th week of Ordinary Time.

The monks of Pluscarden Abbey sing the Benedictus: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel! He has visited his people and redeemed them. He has raised up for us a mighty saviour in the house of David his servant, as he promised by the lips of holy men, those who were his prophets from of old. A saviour who would free us from our foes, from the hands of all who hate us.
So his love for our ancestors is fulfilled and his holy covenant remembered. He swore to Abraham our father to grant us, that free from fear, and saved from the hands of our foes, we might serve him in holiness and justice all the days of our life in his presence.”

Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel; quia visitavit et fecit redemptionem plebis suae
et erexit cornu salutis nobis, in domo David pueri sui,
sicut locutus est per os sanctorum, qui a saeculo sunt, prophetarum eius,
salutem ex inimicis nostris, et de manu omnium, qui oderunt nos;
ad faciendam misericordiam cum patribus nostris, et memorari testamenti sui sancti,
iusiurandum, quod iuravit ad Abraham patrem nostrum, daturum se nobis,
ut sine timore, de manu inimicorum nostrum liberati, serviamus illi
in sanctitate et iustitia coram ipso omnibus diebus nostris.
Et tu, puer, propheta Altissimi vocaberis: praeibis enim ante faciem Domini parare vias eius,
ad dandam scientiam salutis plebi eius in remissionem peccatorum eorum,
per viscera misericordiae Dei nostri, in quibus visitabit nos oriens ex alto,
illuminare his, qui in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent, ad dirigendos pedes nostros in viam pacis.


Today’s reading is from the Prophet Amos.
Amos 8:4-6,9-12

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, ‘When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practise deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’
On that day, says the Lord GOD,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.
The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.

The writer of today’s passage was a straight-talking shepherd called to become God’s spokesman. He delivers a passionate speech conveying God’s outrage at injustice, exploitation, and greed. Can you hear the tone?

The shepherd-prophet warns of ‘a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.’ Silence. The inability to hear God’s voice. A ‘blocking-out’. How does that kind of silence affect us? What blocks our hearing?

As you hear this vivid passage again, place the words in a modern setting. Where do we see unjust practices today? Are they closer to home than we think?

In these closing moments, give space for God. Lean in to “hearing the words of the Lord.”

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.