Word to the Wise
Wednesday, February 23, 2022 - Wednesday in the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
[Jas 4:13-17 and Mark 9:38-40]Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit" - you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. Instead you should say, "If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that." [James]
FEBRUARY 23 ST. POLYCARP - bishop and martyr
One of my spiritual directees gave me a version of what the Letter of James says in today's passage: "Nobody is promised a tomorrow!" That contrasts sharply with a song from one of my favorite Broadway musicals, Annie, which has the lines, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! There's always tomorrow! It's only a day awayyyy!" The words from James were brought home to me by the very sudden death of one of my younger brothers in May 2020. Yet, I live in an environment that screams TOMORROW - a university community! One of the common crises of a student is anything that threatens their "tomorrow" - short or long term.
James' outlook at first may seem hopeless and pessimistic. But the lines that say, "If the Lord wills it, we will live to do this or that!" put a perspective on the outlook that is "hopeful." Our faith and hope are not so much in "tomorrow" as they are in the Lord who gives us the "tomorrow." There are millions of people on our planet who can only "survive" day to day. The words "hope" and "promise" that faith can offer may be all that they can rely on. The optimistic, career-climbing person can be brought down by a single medical diagnosis.
I have mentioned in the past a "day of recollection" that I once gave for a group of women at a parish. I organized my thoughts around the three traditional virtues of faith, hope and love. I discovered in my conversations with the ladies that faith and love were not a problem. HOPE was! Why should they get up each morning and live another day? All I can say is that we do this because we believe in God and our hope is not just for this life only. Our "tomorrow" may be 24 hours long or it may be eternal. We live with both, confident that God provides both. That is the meaning of hope. AMEN