Thursday of 7th week in ordinary time, Yr. II: reflection

Theme: A message to employers.

Readings: 5:1–6; Mk 9:41–50

Many employers of our time, both in the public and private sectors, have advanced from the capitalist mentality of paying meagre salaries to workers on whose labor industries and businesses ride to greatness, to non-payment of workers’ wages. They are no longer satisfied with paying peanuts to workers; what appears to give them joy presently is seeing their workers go unpaid.

Every day comes with news of workers complaining about non-payment of salaries and other benefits for months. If these workers dare to protest or strike, as we have seen, they are threatened with contract termination or other harsher measures, such as forfeiture of salaries for the months they are on strike. Workers in some Nigerian states, who have been owed many months of salaries, for example, are forced to sign off more than half of what they are owed in order to be paid, while others are subjected to endless verification processes by each new government.

In today’s first reading, St James tells you, rich men/women, government officials, industry owners, and labor hirers, who subject your workers to untold sufferings, unnecessary salary reduction and denial of rights/wages to weep and howl for the miseries that await you. He says all the treasures you acquired with the money belonging to your poor workers will rot before your eyes and their rot will serve as evidence against you. He says the wages you stole from your workers will continue to cry against you from wherever you have hidden them, just as Abel’s blood cried against Cain when he was murdered. He says you will not know true peace and happiness, because if justice is not observed, true happiness in society will never be achieved.

In addition to the alarm raised by St James, in today’s gospel, Jesus warns everyone to detach themselves from whatever will deprive them of eternal bliss. If it is your riches, your beauty, your friends, your job or any other thing that will deprive you of eternal life, Jesus wants you to know that it will be better for you to live your life without it and gain eternal life at the end, than to enjoy it to the full and miss out on heaven because of it.

May God’s grace be abundant in your life as you carry out the activities of this Thursday. Amen

Fr Isaac Chima