The Divine Pedagogy of Formation XIV - Formee As The Incarnated Form of God’s Passion

Abstract

Passion and compassion – these are two essential poles in the art of formation. Hosea’s divine vocation was to mirror the passionate and compassionate personality of Yahweh. God infatuated him and forced him to live this strange vocation. He had to suffer a lot to live this most enigmatic call. Hosea has to become the living symbol of the Lord’s mental anguish in being constrained to punish his beloved people. What Hosea had to suffer was a mere tiny trace of the intense agony that Yahweh had experienced in His relationship with Israel, His wife. Rejecting his passionate and emotional affection and devotion the unfaithful and adulterous Israel ran after Canaanite deities, not only once, but again and again. The prophet-disciple was asked to portray in his own personal life this tragic and heart-rendering emotive figure of his Master.