25th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
September 18, 2022

Mother Theresa at Rome: “The service we are called to give is love for Christ in all our actions. Christ is our bread of life. We should be Christ’s bread for the hungry.”

Faith in action – not just words that have depth. And this is the point of our first reading. Amos was one of the most powerful voices ever to challenge hypocrisy and injustice. Amos traveled to the Northern Kingdom to condemn the inequalities, the injustices, and the hollowness of their religious practices. The people Amos spoke to never made any connection between their outward religious practices and their scheming treatment of others. Amos spoke of the day when greed, injustice, and apathy toward God would cause the collapse of the Kingdom of Israel. Amos words came true in the year 787BC.

The story of Amos is also a story for us today. It is the perfect story we want to keep in mind as we debate issues affecting our own economy – inflation, fuel prices. Most disturbing, just as the North had kept its religious prejudices yet had no depth, we are witnessing a decline of Christianity. The words of Amos are still true.

Amos challenges us to make the connection between faith, what we have, and what we do. To see the connection between how we pray at mass and what we do during the week.

We cannot have a split life: we are either with Jesus or we are not.