Friday of
the 25th Week in Ordinary Time
September 26, 2014 8:30am
I have to tell you that today’s
first reading is not one of my favorites.
In a sense, it is true that in
our lives, there times when we celebrate and times when we grieve and times to
plant and times to uproot what was planted – and on and on it goes.
But what I don’t like are the
phrases like a time to kill and a time to hate and a time for war.
It strikes me that there is kind
of a passive resignation here to these things which are not good.
As followers of Jesus, we are to
actively try to avoid them.
It is something like Peter in
today’s gospel.
He resists and wants Jesus to be
able to avoid the rejection and hatred and suffering that he is predicting for
himself.
Jesus reprimands Peter for this
and says that it will just have to be, but Jesus doesn’t say that all that in
itself is good.
In fact, Jesus in his life is all
about relieving peoples’ suffering and whatever hurts us.
The only conclusion I come to is
this.
Sometimes there will be human
suffering that we cannot avoid – like some sickness or the death of a loved
one.
When these things happen, we are
called to follow the way of Jesus – try to embrace the suffering and entrust
ourselves to God to sustain us just as Jesus did on the cross.
Sometimes, we, I am afraid each
of us will have to do that.
But at other times, we are also
to do what Jesus did in relieving the suffering of others – the homeless and
the hungry and the sick and the lonely.
And I doing whatever we can for
others in these situations, we are again following the way of Jesus.
That’s my take on these two
readings today.
