Don't know the meaning of the word

Agent: I don't know the meaning of the word ‘fear.’

Chief: You'll parachute from six thousand feet.

Agent: I think I just learned it.

This dialogue from a classic television show, in which the protagonist protests he does not know the meaning of fear, is intentionally comical.

It is deeply tragic, however, that too many of us in this world today seem not to know the meaning of the word “faithfulness.”

The prophet Jeremiah says it in today’s first reading (Jeremiah 7:23-28) and it could also be said of ourselves today.

But they obeyed not,
nor did they pay heed.

They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts
and turned their backs, not their faces, to me.

From the day that your fathers left the land of Egypt
even to this day,
I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets.
Yet they have not obeyed me nor paid heed;
they have stiffened their necks
and done worse than their fathers.

When you speak all these words to them,
they will not listen to you either;
when you call to them,
they will not answer you.

Say to them:
This is the nation that does not listen
to the voice of the LORD, its God,
or take correction.

Faithfulness has disappeared;
the word itself is banished from their speech.

Lord God, forgive me my sin
and by your grace restore in me a spirit of faithfulness
in the name of Jesus.