Our first reading this Sunday comes from the Book of Job. Job is overcome by his suffering and sees no hope in life. Job’s friends see that he has led a very good and upright life. Shouldn’t this have given him a claim on God so that all the suffering and loss would not have come to him? (In the end, Job is healed and restored, and he exclaims “I know my redeemer lives.”) The claim we have on God is really the claim of God’s healing and providence. In the Gospel we look at the kindness of Jesus and his desire to heal, and we put that up against the suffering and losses that we experience in our own lives. Suffering is a mystery. We rely on God’s help to save us from our misery. Jesus who lays down his life for us is the one who has shown us how to put our trust in God. With God’s grace, we continue to trust in the loving, healing power that the Lord offers us. It is through his times of quiet and prayer that Jesus receives the strength to reach out to those who are wounded and suffering. He’s found in the lonely place because he maintains a habit of quiet and prayer as the support for his compassion and his open-hearted love. The wounded and suffering called out to Jesus, and they call out to us as well. The call of the wounded is an invitation to embrace the redemptive power of love that comes to us through Christ and his Spirit. When we reach out to those who suffer, we can open our hearts and release the healing power that is within each one of us. (St. Teresa of Avila reminds us that we are the hands and feet and heart of Jesus.) In our prayers, and through our actions, we can do what Jesus does and make present today this truth: “I know that my redeemer lives.”
-Fr. Len Kraus, SJ
No comments:
Post a Comment