In this passage from the prophet Hosea, God uses the image of marriage to describe God’s relationship to us.

This week, I invite you to reflect  prayerfully on your experience of marriage—your own experience as a married person, if you are or have been, as well as your experience of other people’s marriages.

How have the marriages  of which you have personal experience embodied right and justice, love and mercy, fidelity?  Or what difference would it have made (would it make) if they embodied these qualities better?

Given your experience of marriage, how does it feel to you to imagine God as wanting to relate to you as a spouse “in right and in justice, in love and in mercy…in fidelity”?  What attracts you and what puts you off about thinking about your relationship with God in this way?