The Danger Of Blame Game

 Reflection on Today's Readings, Thursday of 18th Week in Ordinary Time, Year 1, August 5th, 2021
Texts: Num. 20: 1-13; Ps.95: 1-2.6-9; Mtt. 16: 13-23
At this point one cannot but ask whether there was another issue responsible for the way the Hebrews complained. It has never been said that they called Moses to pray to God about their problems, except when their sin made them face death (Num. 21:6-7). Their complaint was always the same. They always blamed Moses for bringing them into the wilderness and that they would have preferred to die in Egypt.  They made it look as if Moses deceived them into following him out of Egypt. They complained as if they followed Moses out of Egypt in error, and they could no longer go back. It is like they used every opportunity to vent their anger on Moses for the mistake of leading them out of Egypt.
However, Moses did not deceive them to follow him nor did he make mistake by leading them out of Egypt. At that time they were in pain and in dire need of freedom, for their male children were massacred. Apart from their hard labour, the killing of their children was enough to put them in pain and make them long for freedom. The killing of their male children was the extermination of their race. They would never mention the killing of their children and hard labour but the fleshpots, cucumbers and others were on their lips. Man will forget the death from which you saved him and blame you for enjoyment he missed while you were saving him.
The people refused to accept responsibility for their condition.  They refused to grow and become better in their relationship with God because they were not ready to accept responsibility. Unless we accept responsibility for our condition we will continue to complain and blame others for our misfortune. When we continue to blame others for our condition we will be expecting them to fix it while we do nothing. Let us learn to accept responsibility and we will become better. When we accept responsibility for our situation, we will look for how to get out of the situation. When we are in difficult times, we are to go to God instead of issuing complaint and blame.

Lord God,  give us the spirit of prayer and remove far away from us the spirit of complaint. Amen.

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke