Coping with the loss of a loved one during COVID-19 pandemic
July 13, 2020
Fr Rochard’s golden jubilee
July 14, 2020

July 14th: How would Jesus Judge us as a Nation?

And thou Capharnaum, shalt thou be exalted up to heaven?

Matthew 11: 20-24

In this Sunday’s Gospel we heard Jesus, on the beach of Galilee, give the thought provoking parable of the sower,in which he speaks of the yield of fruit, on hearing the Word of God, depending on one’s heart’s ‘richness of soil’. Today he condemns the same towns, on the periphery of the Sea of Galilee, where he spoke those words. Apparently they proved to be rocky ground.

I think of our own towns in Trinidad and Tobago where God has worked his miracles and spoken his words, to the extent that we say God is a Trini(ty) and rightly so. Have we borne the appropriate yield of fruit that Jesus expects? Shall we be exalted up to heaven? Have we kept the Ten Commandments? Have we demonstrated the eight Beatitudes? Or do we need to do penance in sackcloth and ashes?

The recent widespread riots, 50 years after the riots of 1970, should be a cause to reflect on Jesus’s judgement. What would he say?