Amos 8:4-6, 9-12 / Matthew 9:9-13
We won’t feel a loss or an absence of something until we lose it.
And depending on its importance and significance, we will embark on a search for it.
If it is something that can be replaced without too much difficulty, we may search for a while and then we will settle for a replacement.
But if it is something that is valuable or sentimental, then we will certainly keep searching and searching.
In the 1st reading, the Lord warned His people of a famine, a famine not of bread or a drought of water, but of hearing the Word of the Lord.
They will seek and search for the Word of the Lord and yet fail to find it.
Only then will they realise the importance and the significance of what they have lost.
But it was by their own doing that they strayed and did not want to listen to the Word of the Lord, and hence it is their loss.
In the gospel, it was the tax collectors and sinners who gathered around Jesus to hear again what they had lost or forgotten.
We have the Word of God. We read it in the Bible and we listen to it at Mass.
Let us treasure and cherish the Word of the Lord.
It is the living Word of love, and when we listen and ponder on it, God will bless us with a meaningful and a loving life.