Today
we read from the first book of Maccabees.
This is a story of a people whose faith in God was tested not only
through persecution but also through the prevailing culture then that sought to
water down and even annihilate their faith in God and their way of life. People were made to feel ashamed of their
faith, they were made to feel that their religious traditions and practices
were already passé and that their kind of morality which insisted on following
what is written in scriptures is similarly outmoded. The book of Maccabees is the story of a
people who prevailed and persevered in their faith despite the glamour of
modern life, despite the pressure exerted by society to make them conform to
what was seen as modern, and despite the threat of persecution.
To
conform was the easier and more convenient way.
It was difficult to be different.
And yet there were people who did – they persevered in their religion,
they kept the faith of their ancestors, and this is the same faith on which
Jesus would be born a hundred and fifty years later.
Like
the situation in the book of Maccabees we encounter the same difficulty –
should we conform to the modern world with its modern values which many times
no longer conform to our faith in God or should we persevere in the faith? We see in their struggle our struggle too in
this day and age. May we learn from them
persistence.
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