September 28, 2010
Tuesday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
By Beth DeCristofaro
Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. Job spoke out and said: Perish the day on which I was born, the night when they said, "The child is a boy!" (Job 3:1-3)
When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, … On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him … When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?" Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village. (Luke 9: 51-56)
Piety
Watch thou, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep. Tend thy sick ones, Lord Christ. Rest thy weary ones. Bless thy dying ones. Soothe thy suffering ones. Pity thine afflicted ones. Shield thy joyous ones. And all, for thy love's sake. Amen. (St. Augustine)
Study
The film “Life is Beautiful” comes to mind as I read today. The film, if you have not seen it, is the story of a Jewish family interned by the Germans in a prison camp during World War II. The father spins the experience for his son that they are playing an elaborate game with the Germans as players not oppressors. By skillful manipulation of what his son does and sees, and imaginative stories, he is able to keep his son safe and innocent. His son believes, indeed, that life is beautiful even as the camera shows the misery, fear and cruelty around him. Fanciful, yes. But the film is also hopeful even up to the moment when Papa mischievously marches away to execution while keeping up the charade. In the film, the father helps his son always turn to beauty and love. He knew that beauty and love trumps evil and would help his son triumph even over death.
But the Holocaust, the death of Job’s family and loss of his health and fortune, the hostile reception of Jesus by the Samaritans reminds us that life is not always beautiful. That evil, sadness, hurt, loss, infidelity, violence, fruitlessness, despair, ugliness, and brokenness abound in life. God is present but God does not clean up pain and anguish before it can lay us low or cause us to question our mind and our faith. Job knew this and he accused God of treachery and impotence. Yet even in his anger he did not turn his back on God or seek shallow reasons to explain away the fact that evil exists and evil destroyed what was good in his life. Job turned to God for answers and demanded an answer, sure that his relationship with God was close enough to take the blunt and raw power of his words. He spoke from his trust.
Jesus’ friends were ready to avenge the insult to him when the Samaritans rejected him. Jesus, however, continued on his resolute way to the cross, to his Father. Jesus also knew that there is no good, rational answer to evil but also that evil is not the final answer. God’s goodness and mercy not evil are the source of life and creation. God is the beginning and the end. Jesus knew that mercy and forgiveness trumps the world’s false answer of retribution. Jesus trusted implicitly in his relationship with his father. Evil will not win out. Jesus and Job placed their faith in God and faced their lives toward God.
Action
Richard Rohr explains that God gives us the ability to see beauty, to feel pleasure, to love, and to have faith. These gifts, these joys, perversely, allow us to know hurt when beauty, pleasure, love and faith are gone or twisted. Jesus’ redemptive sacrifice on the cross triumphed over evil even as our lives can still be marred in so many ways. Can we, like Jesus, trust in God even when we feel no trust, when we are most dejected and rejected, despised and hurting? If trust is too difficult, can we resolutely continue our life’s journey giving mercy to others and to ourselves even when we feel most lost? Welcome those who come into your life if not for their sake then for the sake of God who loves them.
