Friday of the 26th
Week in Ordinary Time
October 3, 2014 11am Seniors
Today’s first reading is very
touching.
It is toward the end of the
famous story of Job in the Old Testament.
Just to review the story a bit,
Job was a very upright man, a person who believed and lived his faith very
well.
But, little by little, Job lost
everything he had.
His children were all killed.
He lost his flocks of sheep and his
servants and therefore his livelihood.
He himself developed painful health
problems.
Job, very humanly, complained to
God.
“Why?
Why is all this happening to me, a good man?”
He cries out to God and for a
long while he gets no answer.
Then, finally, in today’s
passage, God speaks.
God’s answer consists of
questions.
“Have you ever commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place?
Have you entered into the sources of the sea?
Have you seen the gates of darkness?
Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Which is the way to the dwelling place of light?”
And that is all God says in
answer to Job’s complaint about his suffering.
And what does Job say in
response?
He simply responds: “I am of little account.
Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again.”
The point:
Job simply realizes the
greatness, the power and the transcendence of God.
In response to that, he now knows
how much of a creature he is and how small he is in relation to God and the
whole of creation.
He accepts that and accepts his
hardship and suffering in that context – without understanding why.
What a poignant story this is!
How easily each one of us, at
some point in our lives, can relate to Job!
What a lesson for us today!
