Thursday of
7th week in ordinary time, Yr. II: reflection
Theme: A message to employers.
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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 labour 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 labour 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
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