Last week, we heard from the book of Joshua in our first readings of daily Mass. This week, we hear from the book of Judges, which comes directly after the book of Joshua in the Old Testament. We have four readings from the book of Judges at our daily Masses this week. But we should not confuse the judges in the Old Testament with the judges we have in our modern society presiding in a court of law. The judges in Ancient Israel were military leaders and deliverers of the people. They had different personalities and different characters, but each one of them was called by God to work on his behalf with the people. But we also hear a familiar story in our reading from Judges today. After the death of Joshua, the people bread their promise with God. They begin to serve other pagan gods from the surrounding nations, Being disloyal to God, he no longer defends them and protects them. They fall into the hands of their enemies. We who are leaders in the Church are concerned about what is going on in society today. We see people drifting away from the faith. We see people using the pandemic as an excuse in not returning to Church, even though they still follow through with their athletic and social activities. Maybe they were not fully engaged or fully catechized before. Maybe they never truly made a commitment to their faith before. The trends are concerning. Truly, we have a lot to learn from the stories we read in the Old Testament.
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