An Ungrateful Beneficiary (cf Micah 6:1ff)

Daily Reflection Monday 18th July, 2016.
By Rev. Fr Oliver Onah

I once entered into personal retreat after celebrating Holy Mass in one parish church. A very handsome boy with ‘very bad’ bow legs approached me with desperation and asked whether a person with his type of legs could be admitted into the seminary to train for the Catholic priesthood. With that experience, I realized immediately that as often as I pass by persons who are physically challenged, some of them implicitly long to become priests but could not as a result of their deformities. Of course, some of them were born that way. But what extra love did I show God to merit me this favour? In return, what do I offer God? Today, the Lord sobs through the prophet Micah that in spite of all he endured to save us, we have remained ingrates, incorrigible in sin. You plunge yourself in the dungeon of adultery, fornication or masturbation (the only sins that defile the human body) yet, you remain unperturbed. What is worse, and Micah laments is that after committing mortal sin you end up making offering of fat cows and millions of naira or even your first born issue (as a clergy or professed religious) as if these are the very things that committed the grave sins. For our salvation, what God needs is our very selves crucified with Christ. What he asks of us, Micah concludes is: to act justly, love tenderly, walk humbly with God and desist permanently from sin no matter the degree (Mic 6:8). By doing these, we express our gratitude to God, otherwise, we deceive ourselves.