Word to the Wise
Thursday, October 1, 2020 - Thursday in the 26th Week in Ordinary Time
[Job 19:21-27 and Luke 10:1-12]"Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me! Why do you hound me as though you were divine, and insatiably prey upon me? Oh, would that my words were written down! Would that they were inscribed in a record: that with an iron chisel and with lead they were cut in the rock forever! But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust; whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another's, shall behold him, and from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing.
OCTOBER 1 ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS (Lisieux)
This passage from the Book of Job is easily one of the most well-known, not only in this book but in the whole Bible! I cannot but hear the wonderful aria from Handel's MESSIAH, "I know that my redeemer liveth!" Job's cry has to echo in the very heart and soul of anyone in abject pain and suffering. He turns against the hounding criticisms of his "friends," who have shown him no pity, and professes his faith that he will ultimately be vindicated. Christian tradition has found in this passage a way of expressing faith in Christ in the midst of persecution or personal suffering, especially when there seems no apparent cause for it.
What has continually struck me about Job no matter how many times I have read this book is his monumental integrity and confidence in the truth. He did not allow his "friends" to persuade him that he must have committed some sin or wrong, for which he was being punished by God. Earlier in the book, he cries out, "Even if he slay me, yet will I believe in him..." (Job 13:15). Job knows he is innocent of any wrong deserving his suffering. His steadfast faith and confidence in God cannot be shaken by anything that Satan could inflict.
Over and over again in my years of campus ministry and itinerant preaching I have been humbled by the kind of steadfast faith and confidence that I experience in students and parishioners. In my present situation at a large university, it is the faith and integrity of some of the students I meet that impresses me. The mystery of suffering tests the faith of any person, but it is that same faith that enables a path forward through trials. My own challenge is to encourage students to be steadfast in the face of all those voices that try to convince them that their faith is in vain. The louder voice must be the voice of God's love. AMEN