Word to the Wise
Friday, September 30, 2016 - Friday in the 26th Week in Ordinary Time
[Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5 and Luke 10:13-16]Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place for taking hold of the ends of the earth, till the wicked are shaken from its surface? [Job]
SEPTEMBER 30 ST. JEROME, doctor of the church
After Job and his "friends" have had their say, God responds. The essence of the response is in the wonderful lines I have quoted. The image is of someone taking a blanket in the morning by its ends and shaking it to get rid of any insects or dirt but it is applied to the whole world! In short, God tells Job that everything that is or that happens is somewhere in God's creation and providence and that the human person is but one part of it. Neither Job nor his friends nor anyone else can claim to know everything there is to know about God. At the end, suffering and evil are ultimately a mystery to all creation. We humans have the capacity to reflect on it, but we are not the only creatures to suffer, as Pope Francis points out in his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si.
After God speaks, Job finds himself reduced to silence: Behold, I am of little account; what can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth. Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again; though twice, I will do so no more. At the same time, God restores Job's fortunes to even better than before. The mind is tempted to ask if there are any scars from the experience? Such is the majesty and challenge of this book of the Bible that I cannot help but urge all the Beloved Congregation to read it and reflect on it. Today is the feast of St. Jerome who wrote, "Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." How would we see Jesus' own suffering in the light of the Book of Job? AMEN
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