Monday Morning Meditation #113: We Sometimes Have More in Common with False Prophets Than We Would Like to Admit

This week's MMM will have to be brief for two reasons: insufficient time to write much and physical difficulty in writing. We are in the enviable position of having a vet, who lives right here in San Ignatio, who makes house calls. This is especially helpful since two of our cats, Intrepid and Simone, were feral and when caged and taken to the vet's office become feral again. In fact, the only time we have been able to take Simone is when I first caught her. We needed to know that she was free of disease. She was, but the vet got bitten finding that out. Trep (Intrepid) has never been quite as much of a problem. While he will sleep next to us or on top of us and often wants to be petted, he always determines when that will be -- we have no say in it -- and he hates to be held. It is fully impossible to hold him for more than a few seconds. Yet, because he does cuddle, on his volition, we have ceased to think of him as feral. Yesterday, we were vividly reminded of that when he clawed my left forearm into shreds as the vet tried to clip his nails. The vet fixed me up as best as she could, but I do need to have a human doctor look at me as soon as the clinic opens this morning. So, limited time unfortunately for MMM today. I am sure God understands.

This week I continued reading Micah. Moving into Chapter 3, in verse 5 I found the following written:

“As for the prophets
who lead my people astray,
they proclaim ‘peace’ 
if they have something to eat,
but prepare to wage war against anyone
who refuses to feed them."

Hm, I continue to find parallels with our society thousands of years later!

Reading: Micah 3

Meditation:  The verse in Micah would seem to show that the prophets were focusing on themselves, not on God. When all was well with them, they were happy. When they had problems, they set off to pass their problems onto someone else (i.e. create war) rather than to turn to God. I guess that would be the first signal that they were false prophets.

And not just the false prophets. Don't we sometimes feel closest to God when we can see with our own eyes and feel with our own bellies that God is, indeed, taking care of us? When things go wrong, though, it becomes more difficult to maintain faith -- at the very time that we need our faith the most. Yet, we have the example of many martyrs and saints who grew closer to God in the bad times, who trusted God to bring meaning to those times and to take care of them in whatever way God chose to do that. These are good examples for us, and I find it comforting and inspiring to have them.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to praise God being there with us even when we are not with him. I will ask forgiveness for any time that I have expected, wanted, or requested a lightening of any burden just because I thought I deserved better; after all, I really do know that what God ordains is what I should be grateful for, whatever that is. I will also ask God to remind me of this and to remind me through daily experienced that the unfortunate things that sometimes happen to us are not always bad in the long run. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)




For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.