Monday of Week 17 in Ordinary Time
Exo 32:15-24,30-34
Mt 13:31-35
What has this people done to you, for you to bring such a great sin on them?
We’ve all heard Aarons before, haven’t we?
Let not my lord’s anger blaze like this…You know yourself how prone this people is to evil. They didn’t think you were coming back, they were scared. They wanted me to make them a god. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. So I said to them, ‘Who has gold?’ and they took it off and brought it to me. I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf .
Yes, we all know people who are full of excuses for their behaviour, never their fault, always throwing the blame on someone else. And crowds yelling and screaming and demanding. Yes, we all know people like the Israelites and like Aaron.
And sometimes, we are them, aren’t we?
Following the crowd and allowing the ‘gang mentality’ to ‘get us’ to do things that on our own we wouldn’t. And today, that often happens because we are allowed to be quite loud, proud, smug, self-righteous and demeaning; hiding behind a keyboard (or maybe we’re the ones talking about all those loud, proud, smug, self-righteous, demeaning people commenting…) Our social media world often breeds a feeling of superiority and power. It can easily and quickly produce an environment which unleashes the enemy. We may not have personally created this environment, but it is one we ‘play’ in. Everyone plays in this loud crowd mentality; well…almost everyone. But none of us have to — it is a choice.
Did you know that we all walk through our days holding two buckets? We do. One is a bucket of water, the other a bucket of kerosene. These buckets never empty and we use them in every conversation. Every conversation we start or join allows us to grow the dialogue, the banter, or to stop it, it just depends on what we throw on it -– water or kerosene. We have the ability to grow goodness with our words and to any conversation that opposes holiness. And we have the ability to do the opposite, to encourage the profane (the beginning of any of the seven deadly sins) or extinguish the good (the virtues and fruits of the spirit).
Today’s first reading ends with the Lord answering Moses with these words, “Him only who has sinned against me will I strike out of my book.” This surely can be a reminder for us today to focus on Him and not the crowd, to look to Christ and toward the glory of eternity, and not the glitter of this world. Each day, we are either leading a crowd, or walking with a crowd, and our words decide the path. Pray that our words are of His glory and not the earth’s glitter.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Gina Ulicny)
Prayer: Father in Heaven, we praise and bow to You alone and ask that You light the path that leads to You, so that we don’t follow the path of self.
Thanksgiving: Thank You, Father God, for those You place in our path to guide us and challenge us to be the saints on this earth You have created us to be.
OXYGEN 
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