Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Homily)
September 18, 2016 7:00 am · Father Dan Vanyo
For those of us that don't like political correctness, the prophet Amos is your man. Read Amos if you've never read the whole thing. He calls a spade a spade. You'll love it. In the first reading we hear about just how bad the dignity of the human being, the situation of treating people with dignity, how bad it was in the northern kingdom. This was right before the Assyrians were allowed to come in and take over.
There was a disregard for the Sabbath, of course that's always something the Lord is always talking about. There is manipulation of the currency, let's lower the ephah and raise up the shekel and change our balances. There were many examples given in that very short reading. Manipulation of currency to manipulate trade. And then buying people including their countrymen, for as little as the cost of a pair of sandals. Bad.
Now we can all find examples just of those three examples in our own country. There is a disregard of the Sabbath, avoiding unnecessary work is kind of my favorite thing to give people because you can really get some ideas from that. That takes your own evaluation. Is the work I am typically doing on Sunday really necessary to do on Sunday, and taking that to prayer. Usually that brings things to your mind.
The very common things, we all know about football, you know football gets a big hit. Women's husbands staying home to watch the football game, we've heard that a lot the last 20 years. There's other more common ones, let me give you an example. I hear this a lot. "Well we missed Mass because we were on vacation." "OK, Why?" "Well we were in California or Mexico." "Oh there's no Catholic churches in Mexico?" That's what I usually do. "Yes of course." And when they say "of course there is" usually "Oh, OK."
