For I Will Re-Establish My Covenant With You

For I Will Re-Establish My Covenant With You

August 17, 2012

Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

By Melanie Rigney

For I will re-establish my covenant with you, that you may know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be covered with confusion, and that you may be utterly silenced for shame when I pardon you for all you have done, says the Lord. (Ezekiel 16:62-63)

God indeed is my savior; I am confident and unafraid. My strength and my courage is the Lord, and he has been my savior. With joy you will draw water at the fountain of salvation. (Isaiah 12:2)

(Jesus) said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:8-9)

Piety

Lord, be my spouse and my best friend. Love me even when you probably don’t like me very much, and when I treat you more like a used tissue than the best thing that ever happened to me.

Study

Let’s face it. We’re pretty much stuck with God.

We all have had or have seen earthly relationships that didn’t work out, where people were unevenly yoked from the get-go, where what started out as a storybook romance ended up in divorce court because of addictions or unconscionable behavior or because of that age-old indefinable “we just grew apart.”

And in our Church, there are specific rules that need to be followed to determine just when and where a marriage blessed by God went wrong should either person desire to seek another sacramental union.

But we can’t divorce God, no matter how unevenly yoked we might feel, no matter how upset we get with him, no matter how unfair we may believe he’s been as we’ve struggled with illness ourselves or seen loved ones die far too soon or wondered how he can let millions of children go to bed hungry or worse each night or just feel we’ve grown apart from or beyond him.

Once our baptisms and confirmations have occurred, we’re Christians. We can turn away from God. We can become murderers or gossips or adulterers or persecutors. We find ourselves so out of sync with Church teachings that we are no longer able to partake of the Eucharist. But there’s always a road back. And when we encounter him on it when we come to our senses or hit rock bottom, we fall silent, in awe and yes, in shame, for his ability to pardon and to love, the best friend or spouse we could ever hope for.

Action

Offer up a love prayer, poem, or song to God.