The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to be missionaries of hope through our relationship with Christ in situations of suffering and despair.
Solidarity with sorrow
The reading from the Book of Job expresses the sentiment of suffering without end.
* [7:1] Drudgery: taken by some to refer to military service; cf. also 14:14.1
Psalm 147 offers praise for God’s care for Jerusalem.
* [Psalm 147] The hymn is divided into three sections by the calls to praise in Ps 147:1, 7, 12. The first section praises the powerful creator who restores exiled Judah (Ps 147:1–6); the second section, the creator who provides food to animals and human beings; the third and climactic section exhorts the holy city to recognize it has been re-created and made the place of disclosure for God’s word, a word as life-giving as water.2
The reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians shares how he has become all things to all people.
* [9:19–23] In a rhetorically balanced series of statements Paul expands and generalizes the picture of his behavior and explores the paradox of apostolic freedom. It is not essentially freedom from restraint but freedom for service—a possibility of constructive activity.3
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus heals many at Simon’s house and begins a preaching tour in Galilee.
* [1:21–45] The account of a single day’s ministry of Jesus on a sabbath in and outside the synagogue of Capernaum (Mk 1:21–31) combines teaching and miracles of exorcism and healing. Mention is not made of the content of the teaching but of the effect of astonishment and alarm on the people. Jesus’ teaching with authority, making an absolute claim on the hearer, was in the best tradition of the ancient prophets, not of the scribes. The narrative continues with events that evening (Mk 1:32–34; see notes on Mt 8:14–17) and the next day (Mk 1:35–39). The cleansing in Mk 1:40–45 stands as an isolated story.4
Eileen Wirth shares that for the past year, we have been living the Book of Job. “My life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.” No one is unscathed. She thinks especially of the husband of her dear friend Jane who died a couple of weeks ago. He spent the summer in agony because her nursing home banned visitors due to Covid. We’re all mourning someone. However, as people of faith, we believe that despair isn’t the last word. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds,” says Psalm 147, which immediately follows Job in the Mass readings.
I’m no Pollyanna but I believe in the resurrection. I do NOT believe that a loving God inflicts suffering on the innocent for some cosmic reason. That would be cruel. However, since suffering is inevitable, we can learn lessons about empathy and resilience from it. As a young reporter, I wrote a lot of stories about tragedies – it goes with the territory. And I wrote still more stories about people who had emerged from their own tragedies determined to give their horrors meaning by doing something good for others. Given the choice, they would never have been sexually assaulted, lost a child, been paralyzed or had to flee their homeland. But they refused to believe that they would “not see happiness again.” Instead, they became God’s instruments for healing other brokenhearted people.5
Don Schwager quotes “The habit of prayer,” by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD).
"Jesus prayed and did not pray in vain, since he received what he asked for in prayer when he might have done so without prayer. If so, who among us would neglect to pray? Mark says that 'in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed' (Mark 1:35). And Luke says, 'He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray,"' (Luke 11:1) and elsewhere, 'And all night he continued in prayer to God' (Luke 6:12). And John records his prayer, saying, 'When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you"' (John 17:1). The same Evangelist writes that the Lord said that he knew 'you hear me always' (John 11:42). All this shows that the one who prays always is always heard." (excerpt from ON PRAYER 13.1)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on Job 7:1-4, 6-7 urges let’s not gloss over Job’s melodramatic words. They provide a glimpse into not only how he was feeling in the midst of his devastation but how he was working through it. He teaches us an important lesson when we’re going through something difficult: keep the lines of communication with God open!
So if you find yourself complaining about your circumstances or getting caught up in self-pity, try to follow Job’s example. Vent to your friends if you must, but turn to God as well. Tell him your frustrations. Tell him about the injustice of your situation. Don’t hide the way you feel. Ask him hard questions. That kind of honesty gives him something he can work with. But then go further and listen for his answer. Eventually, Job heard from God. He didn’t get an immediate explanation of why he lost everything. He did, over time, come to a deeper understanding of God’s greatness. He didn’t get a vindication of his own righteousness, but he did go from being someone who only knew about God to being someone who had seen him directly. That’s what God can do when you’re honest and keep talking to him. Eventually, you will hear him. “Lord, may my setbacks help me to open my heart more deeply and honestly to you.”7
Friar Jude Winkler comments on the drudgery and misery in Job’s life. Our reward for preaching the Gospel is the ability to preach the Gospel. Friar Jude reminds us that the Word of hope needs to be proclaimed with love and generosity.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that although most Sunday church services don’t foster it, the essential religious experience is that we are being “known through” more than knowing anything by ourselves. An authentic encounter with God will feel like true knowing, not just in our heads but in our hearts and bodies as well. He calls this way of knowing contemplation, nondualistic thinking, or even “third-eye” seeing. It is quite unlike the intellectual “knowing” most of us have been taught to rely on. This kind of prayer and “seeing” takes away our anxiety about figuring it all out fully for ourselves or needing to be right about our formulations.
No wonder all of the great liturgical prayers of the churches end with the same phrase: “through Christ our Lord, Amen.” We do not pray to Christ; we pray through Christ. Or even more precisely, Christ prays through us. This is a very different experience! We are always and forever the conduits, the instruments, the tuning forks, the receiver stations (Romans 8:26–27). To live in such a way is to live inside of an unexplainable hope, because our lives will now feel much larger than our own. In fact, they are no longer merely our own lives and, yet, paradoxically, we are more ourselves than ever before. That is the constant and consistent experience of the mystics.8
Our contemplation of the sorrow and suffering that accompanies the human journey is the starting point for generosity and love as the agents of hope for better days.
References
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