Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Travail
By the third chapter, Job has had enough. He can’t stand it anymore. His grief explodes inside him and words pour forth. He is undone, he feels trapped by his circumstances, and hopeless. The “giveth and taketh away” idea doesn’t help anymore.
Why did I not perish at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?
God, I think you made a mistake with me. I am not fearfully and wonderfully made. You have mostly just taken away.
Job’s memory falters. He forgets the rich times with his family. Of course he wonders if he did something wrong, but he doesn’t think so. Except, of course, to be born.
Why was I not buried away like an untimely birth, like babes that have never seen the light? For then I should have lain down and been at peace; sleeping I should have been at rest with kings and counselors of the earth.
Job does not remember the past, nor can he see forward into the future. He is paralyzed by loss and pain and sadness and misery and horror. Tragedy. And he wishes for nothing more than death, because he is one of …
Those who path is hidden from them, and whom God has hemmed in!
Today’s responsorial psalm is #88, the most desolate psalm in all one hundred and fifty psalms. It ends as it begins, in hopeless terror. Simon and Garfunkel knew this psalm, and they wrote their most famous song out of its depths.
Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.
The last words of the psalm collapse on me and drive me too into the dark:
From my youth I have suffered and been close to death. I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath sweeps over me, your terrors destroy me, and all day long they surround me like a flood; they have engulfed me completely.
You have taken from me friend and neighbor – the darkness is my closest friend.
Did Jesus enter this darkness?
When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.
The villagers did not want him to come into town. He set his face like flint. O God, O God, why have you forsaken me? Does God abandon Jesus?
My friend George’s Quest class is studying Hebrews. His teacher said, “In Jesus, the Father used up all his wrath.” Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. In that moment George relaxed. When I heard that statement, I relaxed. It rings so true.
There are memories from my life that feel like brands on my soul. I forget much, but some I recall in detail. The emotions I felt then, return with the memory. Was God angry with me? But no, … the Father has used up all his wrath, burned it out. Better even than the ashes of a phoenix, what resurrects is love. Satan walked to and fro upon the earth, but now he cannot walk as he did once. Because Jesus walked upon the earth, the same earth, our earth, loving and preparing for the fire, then loving some more. And we are free.
The disciples, angry with the villagers, asked Jesus, “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.
Job’s story has just begun. His friends will gather around him, and for seven days hold their tongues. The sound of that silence might bring peace to Job’s soul. But then their mouths open, and nothing of that peace is left for long.
In the meantime I will rest easy, knowing God’s love in every pore of my skin and every crevice of my soul.
(Job 3, Psalm 88, Mark 10, Luke 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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