In the Presence of God, Who Am I? by Colleen O’Sullivan

 In the Presence of God, Who Am I? by Colleen O’Sullivan

Memorial of Saint Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church

Job and His Friends, Ilya Repin, 1869, Russian Museum, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Job answered his friends and said:  I know well that it is so, but how can a man be justified before God? Should one wish to contend with him, he could not answer him once in a thousand times.  God is wise in heart and mighty in strength; who has withstood him and remained unscathed?  (Job 9:1-4)

 

As Jesus and his disciples were proceeding on their journey, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go…”  Jesus answered him, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”   (Luke 9:57, 62) 

Piety

O Lord, we ask for forgiveness for the times we have forgotten who You are and who we are.  Help us, we pray, to acknowledge You as our God, and to embrace our role as creatures.  Please give us the grace to see clearly and to put following your Son above all else.

Study

There’s much about getting older I could do without.  As I take care of my three-year-old great-nephew, I notice it’s harder to get down on the floor (worse to get up again) and crawl around with him, moving over the course of his day from his trains to his dinosaurs, then his kitchen, and on to his food truck.  I have finally convinced him that it’s okay if I sit in a chair while he “drives me around” in that food truck!  

As time flies by, I also sometimes feel like the forest I’ve lived in for 67 years is now thinning out.  The trees, family members and friends, are going home to the Lord at a faster rate and leaving bare spots here and there.  When I was a young person, I protested that some deaths just didn’t seem fair.  I demanded to know why.  Now I just grieve when I lose someone I care about.  I find myself more able to let go of the desire for answers.  God knows the answers, and God is good.  Maybe that is all I will ever know, and that’s, more often than not, enough for me today.

Not everything about aging is negative.  As I get older, I’m more explicit about God’s identity vs. my own.  I’m not in control of much in life, and that’s okay.  When I was young, I thought the Book of Job was just awful, especially God’s non-empathetic response out of the whirlwind, but now I see it as merely a story that illustrates a truth.  None of us will ever be God.  We will never be able to lay claim to the ability to create a world from nothing.  We may never understand some of the things that go on in our lives, the good and the not-so-good.  As the years go by, I find myself less likely to get bent out of shape about that.  When I look back over my life, God has been good to me.  Yes, I wish some things had been different, but it’s okay.  God loves me and has always been there for me. 

Aging is a time for letting go.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus is essentially asking each of us if we can let go of the things of this life and, instead, put our all into following Him.  When we’re young, that’s more difficult.  We’re busy building up our identities.  We’re acquiring an education, a job or career, a place to call home, maybe a spouse and children as well as friends.  Jesus is asking us if all that can now play a secondary role in our lives if He can be first in our hearts.  As I grow older, it’s easier to see what’s important, which isn’t me or what I claim as mine.  None of us would be here or have anything if it weren’t for the Lord.

Action

As you’re praying or pondering or reflecting today, ask yourself how you would react if you were in Job’s shoes.  Do you find yourself at a place in your faith journey where you could calmly explain to your friends the futility of fighting with God, no matter what suffering you may be undergoing?   

Or look deep into your heart and ask yourself if there’s anything you wouldn’t want to part with even when Jesus asks you to leave it and come with Him? 

If what you discover disturbs you, maybe you could discuss it with a trusted friend or seek a spiritual director.  On the website for Cursillo in our diocese, this might be a helpful page:  https://arlingtoncursillo.org/?s=spiritual+direction

 

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Job_and_his_friends.jpg