Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Job 7:1-4, 6-7) “To Escape or Confront”

Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Job 7:1-4, 6-7) “To Escape or Confront”

            What is the worst human experience we can think of?  Probably we would say that it is personal anguish. Or we might say that it is watching someone we love suffering.

            In our world we try to escape suffering at all costs. Modern medicine has the goal of relieving all pain.  When people go to the hospital they are presented with a chart. The chart has emoji faces on it. One end of the chart has a smiley face.  On the other end of the chart is a face that is red-faced and crying.  In between are faces that express calmness or discomfort. Medical personnel use this tool to decide what level of pain there is. Medications are then given. Hopefully the drugs will relieve the physical pain.

            For emotional pain we have other ways to medicate ourselves. We might use social media.  We can distract ourselves with our cell phone anytime we want. Another way we can escape is to travel.  If it is too gray, too cold, too wet where we are, people with the means can get on a jet to travel to a warm sunny place. 

            The message is that pain isn’t something that we have to put up with.  But we know that there are points in our life when we can’t escape heartache.  At those times we might ask does our pain have any meaning?

            The Book of Job might be called a textbook on suffering.  As the story of Job begins, we hear how Job has it all.  He is a rich Mideast herdsman.  He has numerous domestic animals.  He has a large home.  He has many children.  He enjoys good health.  He credits God for giving him everything that he has.  God likes Job.  The Lord revels in Jobs worship.  But then the devil enters the story.  Satan doubts Job’s faith. He tells God that Job believes because he has everything he could ever want. What if it was all taken away from him?  God agrees to allow the devil to put Job to the test. All Job’s wealth, his family, even his health is taken away. 

            And that is where we meet Job as we read about him in the first lesson today.  He is in great agony: physically, mentally, spiritually.  Everything that the world says is valuable has been taken from him. His closest loved ones are dead.  The God he thought he could trust seems to have betrayed him. The pain he feels seems unbearable. No drug will numb the ache he feels. He has nowhere to run.  He must face the pain head on.  When he does, he finds a new way to relate to God.

            What many people find is that is a difference between a cure and healing.  We may never experience a cure for what ails us but that doesn’t mean that we will never experience healing. I have observed that reality often as I have seen faith filled people go through terrible suffering.

            I remember the first time I sensed that there can be healing that goes on during a struggle for life or death.  I had a great uncle who contracted abdominal cancer.  I was in the seminary.  I was home so I went to see him. My great uncle was a barber.  He was also recovering alcoholic. I remember sitting in his barber shop may times while I was growing up.  In those days the men would come in without an appointment. You would just wait.  While you waited you would talk to other people.  Most were strangers.  The discussions would bounce from politics, to sports, to Theology, to everything in between. My uncle would MC the whole conversation.  He had a lot of profound wisdom to share. He had heard it all.

            As he lay dying, he was in a hospital bed in his shop which was also a room in his home.  I went in thinking that he probably wanted to be distracted from the pain he was feeling. I knew his pain wasn’t just physical, but it was also emotional. I started to talk about the upcoming baseball season. My uncle cut me off.  He said, “I don’t have time to talk about sports. I want to talk about death and dying.”

            He didn’t want to escape.  He wanted to wrestle with his thoughts about his mortality.  He wanted to have a difficult conversation.  I also realized that he wasn’t interested in praying for a miracle. He was looking for healing. He carried much guilt. He had many wounds. He wanted to know if God still loved him.  In the end, I think he received some of the healing he prayed for. He died at peace with the Lord who created him.

            What Job found was that his personal passion led him into a deeper relationship with the Lord.  Superfluous things no longer were important.  If we can discover what the most important things are in life perhaps the pain, we go through is worth it.  I think my uncle understood this truth and so did Job.  Wisdom such as this is the pearl of great price.

Reflection Questions:

1.  How do I deal with painful situations?  Is what I do healthy?

2.  Is there a difference between a cure and healing?  What is it?

Dear Parishioners,

          On February 14th Ash Wednesday begins the Lenten Season.  There are many activities that we will engage in during the Lenten Season. We will emphasize prayer, charity and fasting.  These are the three pillars that constitute Lenten penance.

          Penance seems to be a curiosity rather than something that is actively engaged in our society.  Why is that?  Probably because the idea of sin has been lost.  Also, the concept of self-discipline has also been dismissed. 

          Maybe this is because of the leaders that we follow.  When confronted with wrongdoing a good number of our society’s leaders will immediately deny that they have done anything wrong.  Apologies are hardly ever uttered. Usually someone else is to blame when someone does something immoral.

          Personal penance is a sign that we want to take responsibility for our actions.  We can start by coming up with our own plan for Lent.  Our Lenten practices should not depend on what the parish is doing. We need to set a time in our day to pray.  We need to decide what we will abstain from.  We should determine where we will direct our charity.  It might be worthy while for us to write down what we will do and place our resolutions in our prayer book or tape them on the mirror, so we look at them each morning.

          If we traverse through Lent and say at the end that we have gotten nothing out of it, we examine our own conscience. Lenten penance starts with a plan. Let’s make one today.

          May Our Lady of Peace pray for our troubled world,        

          Fr. Mark