Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

On Sunday we heard these dreadful words from 2 Samuel:

Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me.

In today’s reading from the 1 Kings, we hear how the curse hung over the House of David: For this, the Lord says: In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, the dogs shall lick up your blood, too.’”

In both stories, God forgives the king when he repents of his wicked deed, but his curse persists. In today's more secular parlance, we call the effect "consequences." 

Parents must continually teach their children that every act has its consequences. They are often astonished at how short-sighted their (other-wise brilliant) children are. But small children cannot even follow the ins and outs of a simple story. They don't put two and two together to make four. 

Recent studies of the developing human brain indicate that, well into our teenage and young adult years, human beings have a hard time thinking of consequences. Under the influence of alcohol, marijuana or cigarettes, not to mention sexual desire, it is almost impossible to “stop and think it over.”

More frightening are the long term effects of this misbehavior: psychological and spiritual maturation effectively stops when a child starts using recreational drugs. It will not resume, if ever, until he sobers up.

King David, eying Bathsheba in all her splendor, never supposed his grandchildren might suffer from his impulsiveness.

But there is good news too. Our good deeds also live on through eternity.

For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishments for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation but bestowing mercy, down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.