Hosea 2:16-22 NRSVue

¹⁶On that day, says the Lord, you will call me “my husband,” and no longer will you call me “my Baal.” ¹⁷For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. ¹⁸I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground, and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. ¹⁹And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. ²⁰I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.

²¹On that day I will answer, says the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, ²²and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel,^,

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Further reflection

We celebrate a Jewess who became a Catholic nun and was murdered as a Jewess by the Nazis. Her journey led from Judaism through atheism through philosophy to a Carmelite convent. Like her fellow-Jewess Simone Weil in France, she searched and suffered every inch of the way, always conscious of sharing the race of Jesus. As she was carted off to Auschwitz, she comforted her distraught sister: /Come, Rosa, we go for our people./

Lord Jesus, I marvel at the integrity and justice of this your kinswoman. I love the heritage we share with your people, children of Abraham, our cousins under God.