Readings:
Ezekiel 16
2 Corinthians 12-13

Ezekiel 16

God gives a prophecy for Ezekiel to proclaim to the people. It it he makes the point that every single thing that Israel has received, from Abraham until now, was a gift from God and due to his will. He tells a story of an orphan that was cast out at birth, but God took her in and clothed her and fed her, and gave her beautiful gifts.

But things take a turn, and she begins to “play the harlot” with anyone that passed by. This is a euphemism for adulatory and also can refer to cultic prostitution that many Canaanite religions practiced. It seems like it starts as the former and turns into the latter. She takes the gifts of jewelry and makes idols of the silver and gold,she takes the linens and makes shrines and altars, she even takes the food she’s been given and offers it to the idols. Every gift she’s been given is perverted and put to use in service of these false gods. Even her own children she sacrifices for these idols.

Not only with idols, but with all the surrounding nations she has committed adulatory against her husband. So God says he will draw all these nations in to be the ones to destroy her. She has brought more shame upon herself than even Sodom and Samaria, because they’ve all done pretty much the same things, but she knew better and still did it.

Even with all these sins and crimes recounted against her, God says that he will not break his end of the covenant, and will actually make a new and eternal covenant with her when she has repented of her sins. God will restore her to her land and home, and forgive all her sins and be her husband forever.

This is a foreshadowing of the new covenant that Jesus established in his most precious blood. This was sealed when it was poured out for many, just like the mosaic covenant was sealed by the pouring of the blood of bulls and goats. But our covenant is greater than those like we read in Hebrews.

2 Corinthians 12-13

Paul turns from his chastisements over the false teachers fiasco to a vision he had of heaven in the early days of his ministry. He begins by saying it was ‘a guy I know’ who was shown this vision. That might be due to humility and not wanting to be boastful, but the language shifts a little later to more of a first person account and many scholars believe that the person he’s speaking of is himself.

He seems to hint at the fact that he won’t verify that the person is him, because he doesn’t want people to think more of him than they should or listen to his words based on this vision, but they should listen based on the message.

God gives Paul a “thorn” to keep him humble and reliant on him. This thorn might’ve been some kind of injury, an illness or even his persecution by his former friends and colleagues in the Pharisees.

Paul begs for this to be taken away, but God refuses and Paul learns that the sufferings that he went through then, and continues to go through all the way up until his martyrdom, makes him more reliant of God and his graces to make it through.

The Holy Spirit gives to some a special charism of healing so as to make manifest the power of the grace of the risen Lord. But even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses. Thus St. Paul must learn from the Lord that “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” and that the sufferings to be endured can mean that “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church.”

CCC 1508

He then begins closing out this letter by begging them to not be stubborn and obstinate in their opposition to him (the minority who still hold to these other teachers). He asks they they all humbly submit to the Holy Spirit and to his apostolic authority before he comes, so that his visit will be comforting and not severe.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Ezekiel 17-21