Malachi 3:1-12. God is asking Israel to prepare, to be ready for God's messenger to come. He wants to come and to avenge them, but when he comes he will be like a refiner's fire, so God's chosen people must be ready to withstand that. For God does not change, he is just waiting for Judah to return to his promise. They do not even realize how they have strayed from him and are robbing him, they ask "How shall we return?" and "How are we robbing thee?" God answers that they are not tithing properly, they are withholding something (they are clinging to their earthly attachments!). They are cursed with a curse. All they need to do is bring full tithes to the house of the Lord. By doing so, they will put God to the test and they will see that by giving freely, by not holding back, the Lord will pour down an overflowing blessing upon them and will rebuke the devourer. Then their fields will be abundant and their vines will not fail. Then all nations will call them blessed.

We must give everything to God and trust him! It is in this complete surrender and faith that he can work freely in our lives to bless us the way he wants to. It is when we hold on to something, some earthly good or some sense of control over some aspect of our lives, that we lock him out and tie his hands. Once we give everything over to him absolutely amazing things happen! This is true at a personal level, I know from experience, but here God is talking to the nation of Israel. So this is true on a communal or national level as well. And, again, the Church in our time can be used as a stand-in for Israel in the Old Testament, so this is saying that the Church itself must not stray or hold back. And I think it is - we have become too secularized, we are not trusting God to make our differences as followers of Christ beautiful and attractive to the world, instead we want to be like the world, and we are becoming ugly like the world.

So let's stop doing this! As members of the Church, let us encourage each other to fully let go of our sense of control and give everything to God. I pray that the Pope and the bishops lead us by example in this and that they stop trying to cater to secular, untrue values and teach the people the truth, as difficult as it may be. When the faithful fully embrace the truth and live by giving everything to God, then God will be able to work in the Church that he created. He will pour down his blessings upon us so that all nations will see that the Church and its members are holy and favored by the Lord. This is how it will attract the confused and misled people of the world!