Hosea, from the Hebrew hoshe’a, is the shortened form of “Yahweh saves.” This 8th century BC prophet, son of Beeri, a native of the tribe of Ephraim, witnessed the moral and spiritual decline of the people of Israel, a period marked by complacency, injustice, corruption, idolatry and moral collapse.
A noble farmer, a faithful man, holy, and in love with God, Hosea had to be a prophet. Using an analogy based on his personal life, Hosea denounced the unfaithfulness and wrong paths taken by the people of Israel, persuading them to repent and convert; at the same time, with his word and example, he sowed messages of love, mercy, forgiveness, and hope.
God’s designs are unfathomable, and understanding the Lord’s will in our lives can be quite difficult. However, trusting in God and His love means accepting what He asks of us and living our lives according to the Spirit. His love and faithfulness to the Lord’s Word made Hosea agree to marry a sinful woman: “The Lord began to speak to Hosea, saying to him, ‘Go, take a prostitute to wife, and beget children of prostitution, for the nation does not cease to commit prostitution, turning away from the Lord.’ So he went and married Gomer” (Hosea 1:1-2).
UNFAITHFULNESS
Hosea’s relationship with his wife parallels God’s relationship with the people of Israel. Despite the Lord’s love for His people, they turned away from God, became corrupted and worshipped other false gods. There were many social injustices; the people had strayed from the right paths and from their relationship with the Lord. Hosea’s suffering, caused by his wife’s unfaithfulness and their eventual separation, corresponds to the suffering of God, Who loves people who don’t follow His precepts, men and women who don’t love Him in their hearts and their deeds.
Gomer’s unfaithfulness to Hosea, and the people of Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord, should also make us reflect on our relationship with God, on our smallness before the greatness of God’s Love. However, it should encourage us to be faithful to God and to realize that we need the Lord’s living and effective presence in our lives. Indeed, only with God in our lives can we find the strength to face the challenges of this world, which are sometimes so difficult.
This infidelity on the part of Hosea’s wife and the people of Israel could happen to any one of us. In fact, caught up in our daily work, family commitments and social life, we often don’t have time for God. One of Hosea’s important messages is that the people are lost because they don’t know God (Hosea, 4:6).
That’s why it’s so important to have daily times of prayer, listening to the Word, and moments when we are alone with the Lord who loves us so much: a true and sincere relationship with God. And because we need intimate moments with God, He has this desire: I will take you into the desert and speak to your heart (Hosea, 2:16).
The prophet Hosea sought the sincere conversion of the people to the Lord. His love for God and for his people led him to persuade his fellow citizens to convert, to return to the path of the Covenant! In the same way, each of us must be a prophet today, proclaiming God with our lives, from a humble and sincere heart.
STORY OF LOVE
The story of Hosea with his wife, the story of God with His people, is a story of love, of forgiveness. So can our relationship with God. Despite Gomer’s unfaithfulness, Hosea went to rescue her and, as if she were a slave, paid to get her back (Hosea, 3:2). In the same way, God also promises to forgive His people, renew the Covenant and pour out blessings on them (Hosea, 14:2-7).
Hosea’s vocation of fidelity and pure love for a woman who was unfaithful to him also teaches us to forgive and to love. God’s love for us is permanent and eternal!
Jesus, who calls us to follow Him, each according to their specific vocation, knows us and loves us deeply. He invites each of us to live a unique relationship with Him, to love Him and to feel His great love. On the cross, the Son of God bore witness to His complete love for us, giving His life for all humanity out of love!
That’s why, as missionary disciples, we know that love is the engine that drives us to be witnesses of the Good News to the ends of the earth. St. Therese of the Child Jesus understood this: at the end of her vocational search, she said: “My vocation is love!” The patron saint of the Missions realized that the Church does not exist without love and that, therefore, it is impossible to evangelize without love.
