Today’s Reading tells us what happened to two disobedient women in the Old Testament.
Genesis 3:22-24 tells us that Eve was evicted from her joyful life in Eden for following the serpent instead of God. Numbers 12:1-16 tells us that Miriam, whose name means “bitterness” or “rebellion”, led her brother, Aaron, to “speak against Moses on the pretext of the marriage he had contracted with a Cushite (Ethiopian) woman. They complained, ‘Is it through Moses alone that The LORD speaks? Does He not speak through us, also?”
God called Moses and his older brother and sister to The Meeting Tent and told the woman who followed Eve’s example: “Now, listen to the Words of The LORD: ‘Should there be a prophet among you, in dreams will I speak to him; not so with My servant Moses! Throughout My House, he bears My trust: face to face I speak to him. . . Why, then, did you not fear to speak against My servant Moses?”
Then, God made His “anger” clear, leading us to conclude that Miriam, not Aaron, must be punished for disobeying God: “So angry was The LORD against them that when He departed, and the cloud withdrew from the tent, there was Miriam, a snow-white leper!”
When Moses saw this, he did not say: “Thank you, LORD, for your justice!” Instead, “Moses cried out to The LORD, ‘Please, not this! Pray, heal her!'”
“After 7 days outside the camp”, Miriam was healed of leprosy. She seems to have also been cured of being “bitter” and “rebellious”! Such disorders are “leprosy within the mind”.
Catholic men and women apply the lessons of Eve and Miriam to ourselves. We do not justify disobedience to God, Moses, or He Who Fulfilled the Prophecies. Therefore, we are in The Church Jesus died to speak into Being with His Church-Creating Word to His First Catholic Pope: “And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”
May all be cured of the “bitterness” and “anger” that keep many Miriams from obeying Jesus enough to be Catholic and get those “keys”! May no one have to “remain outside the camp” forever.
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: “When leprosy spreads in the mind / it makes God very hard to find. / And, obey.”
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