Monday 7-27

Monday July 27, 2009 of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: Exodus 32: 15-24, 30-34 Psalm 106: 19-23 Matthew 13: 31-35
Psalm Response: “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!”

After Moses had received the stone tablets from God which He had formed and etched with His Commandments, he started down the mountain with Joshua at his side. From the camp came a din alerting both Moses and Joshua of something ominous. Joshua though it was from a battle; but Moses discounted war, as it sounded more like revelry to him.

Upon entering the camp, Moses spotted the calf and was so incensed, he threw the tablets to the ground and they smashed to smithereens. Moses confronted his brother Aaron as to the reason why he would do such a dastardly thing. Aaron tries to justify his action by blaming the insistence of the people.
After 400 years in Egyptian land where cows, calves and other bovine animals were adored and bowed to, Aaron thought if he fashioned a calf from the melted gold they had supplied, it would placate them as they though Moses wasn’t coming back, he was gone so long.

Moses re-climbed the mountain and implored God not to destroy the people and cross them from His book of the just. God relented but reserved the judgment until they have been settled in the land He had promised them.

We don’t make idols of gold or silver but gold and silver become our idols when things are more important to us than God. In the final analysis, when God calls us to Himself, He isn’t going to be interested in how much wealth we have accumulated; but, how many souls were influenced to believe in Him due to our charity and love of neighbor.

The psalmist reminds us of the folly of the Jews in the desert. It is easy when things are right by us to set aside our consciences and be self-serving. God wants us to be aware of the problems of others and when we are aware DO something!

The parable of the mustard seed is often taken as representing a faith infused by us into someone whom we love enough to share it with them. The Mustard seed was much like the Mesquite seed. The seed was sown by birds flying over a tilled land. Upon germination it grew into a huge shrub which housed the birds who had planted it before. The corn or wheat sown in the field became their food and they were scorned by the farmers.
Mesquite seed was sown by cows trailing from Mexico to the slaughter houses to the north. As they went there way, defecating, the Mesquite seed became Mesquite trees the scourge of the West.
Jesus was pointing out there are two sides to the story,. One was of the good and one of the bad results of the mustard seed. We have to be the good seed results by our love.