Why does God allow us to feel so alone/exasperated/angry/sad?
If we hear ourselves asking these questions endlessly with no hope of understanding, we may need to turn these questions on their heads and think of them in their inverted state.
What do we expect of God?
Where have we put God in our lives?
Why do we expect so little from God?
Why do we turn away from God when we are alone/exasperated/angry/sad?
We spend time today in our Lenten journey with Chapter 2 of Hosea’s prophecy in which the prophet’s unfaithful wife, Gomer, is described. Metaphorically, this wife is each one of us when we reject the conditions in which we find ourselves. As difficult as our problems may be, they are our lesson plans in life, our stepping stones to self-discovery and to serenity. Once we learn to turn everything over to God, the sorrow and anger slip away. And we suddenly find that we are more at peace with the circumstances that surround us.
In John’s Gospel story of the feeding of thousands (6:1-15) we see that Jesus asks the disciples how they want to feed so many – John writes: He said this to test them. This does not mean that Jesus wants to throw his friends into turmoil; it means that Jesus wants to see how they hope to solve the problem before them. Do they resort to themselves, or do they rely on God in any way?
We must remember to ask for miracles, because God wants to grant them.
We must remember to take our woes to God, because God welcomes them and erases them.
We must remember to leave our sadness in God’s hands, because he heals all mourning with his deep and abiding love.
Hosea laments his unfaithful wife. God misses us when we leave him behind. Why do we try to solve everything on our own? And why do we expect so little from God?
Lent calls us to examine who we are and what we do. Lent asks us to step forward in willing vulnerability to God. Lent uses unusual images to help us see truths so basic that they are easily overlooked. With the story of Hosea and Gomer we are given the opportunity to reflect on the beauty and integrity of God’s love.
This prophecy was written by a man married to a woman who found it impossible to remain faithful. When we read these verses with care we also examine the distance that exists between the two people in this relationship and the distance we maintain in our relationship with God. We have the opportunity to question whether we are determined to keep God at arm’s length . . . or whether we want to invite God into the most interior part of ourselves. We consider who, and what, and how, and why we love, or if we even love at all.
As we examine the quirks of the relationship between Gomer and Hosea we might also examine our relationships with others – are we the inconstant wife, Gomer, in all we say and do – or are we more like the sorrowful prophet, Hosea, lamenting loss yet insisting on hoping for the fulfillment of promises made?
From La Biblia de América: The unhappy marital experience of Hosea, who remains faithful to Gomer despite everything he knows about her, serves as the context for an extraordinary deepening of the people’s relationship with God through the perspective of love’s stormy psychology.
Each of us has experienced love in some form or another: filial, parental, sibling, conjugal, familial, spiritual, and even collegial and civil. Love manifests itself in many contexts from sexual and intimate to public and patriotic. We express love of people, love of things, and love of ideas and concepts. We also express love of God.
Reading the words of Hosea gives us the opportunity to experience a hope which is laced with sadness. Listening to Hosea’s lament that weaves sorrow and joy into an intricate pattern of sharp edges and smooth surfaces, we perceive the bittersweet image of deep misery interwoven with soaring expectation.
Allowing the words of this prophecy to sink into our being, we might move closer to perceiving the amazing generosity with which God pardons the people who consistently betray him. Hosea describes his unrequited love in such a piercing way that we cannot avoid its impact; yet he remains open to the possibility that not only may Gomer return . . . but that she will love him as he loves her.
When I imagine myself in God’s unrequited place, continuing to call as Hosea does, I begin to feel the depth . . . and height . . . and breadth of God’s love. We are well and truly loved. Let us spend some time with Hosea today to experience this kind of constancy and steadfastness. This is not a love which allows itself to be abused; rather, it is a love which loves so much that it risks rebuking the abuse, it risks revealing its vulnerable self, it risks all for sake of the conversion of the beloved.
This is truly an immense and wondrous love. Let us consider today if we will reject or accept this love.
Today’s Gospel is Luke’s description of the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28b-36) and each time we come across these verses we are given the opportunity to again think about the concept of friendship: what it means to us, how we live out friendship with others, and what qualities we hope to find in friends. So often in the New Testament stories we watch Jesus interact with those closest to him and we always find Jesus giving more than words or gestures to his friends; he brings more than The Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah). He brings himself; he gives his full and total self. And the marvel of Jesus is that he continues to be present to each of us today . . . even when we do not number him as one of our friends. In his love for us, Jesus reminds us of the important of giving even when we anticipate receiving nothing in return for the measure with which we measure will be measured out to us. (Luke 6:38, Mark 4:24, Matthew 7:2). Jesus spares nothing in his great love for his friends. We must spare nothing as well. Sirach has words that help us to nurture friendship, and to gain the wisdom that helps us to be a good friend to others.
Sirach cautions us to stay away from the powerful.
Know that you are stepping among snares and walking over a net.
Sirach tells us that we ought not to worry about a “sinner’s fame” or a “proud man’s success”.
You know not what disaster awaits him . . . he will not reach death unpunished.
Sirach suggests that we measure our neighbors in order to associate with the wise and learned.
Let your conversations be about the law of the Lord.
Sirach reminds us of the intimacy of a shared meal.
Have the just for your table companions.
Sirach says to us what we know to be true about new friendship.
A new friend is like new wine which you drink with pleasure only when it has aged.
And Sirach tells us that time and patience are important between friends if the relationship is to have value.
Discard not an old friend, for the new one cannot equal him.
When we feel ourselves caught by the allure of control, when we feel trapped by the deception of an associate, when we realize that a colleague has been manipulative . . . we know that it is time to take measure. Not of the other, but of ourselves. Are we willing to witness to truth? Are we willing to break silence about a long-held lie? Where do we find comfort . . . in the solace of associates who stroke my wounded self . . . or in the integrity of a relationship where we are lovingly corrected? And in turn, are we willing to become a wounded healer? Are we willing to be a true friend?
We have been visiting with the Book of Sirach all week. Today and tomorrow we will want to spend time with Chapters 8 and 9 and think about how we spend our fiscal, physical and spiritual cash. We will want to ask ourselves if and how and even why we will want to stay within our means.
Many hurdles in life are too big for us to handle. We live in a society that tells us that we can do anything once we put our minds to it; but this is not true. We must recognize the limits with which we are born, assess our strengths, find our best talents and gifts, and use them well. This is also true of our spirituality. We are each endowed with a God-center in our brains which scientists have seen activated in meditating monks and nuns with brain scans. And each of these God-centers is likely to be as different as our physical being. It follows, then, that some of us feel more keenly the desire to seek God than others. I am guessing that some may not feel this desire at all . . . and these are people whom only God can reach. It is for these wounded souls that I pray each day.
Sirach urges us to steer clear of the quickly angry, the powerful, influential and rich. Kindle not the coals of a sinner, lest you be consumed in his blazing fire . . . Provoke no quarrel with a quick-tempered man, nor ride with him through the desert; for bloodshed is nothing to him, and when there is no to help you, he will destroy you. For my part, these words ring true.
In Chapter 9 we read more advice about becoming ensnared in matters which will take us beyond our own control mechanism. We are asked, in other words, to know and understand our weaknesses and strengths . . . to go not surety beyond our means (verse 8:13) . . .to exercise restraint where we know we have no strength . . . to take God with us everywhere we go . . . to include God in every relationship we enter.
This is the challenge we offer ourselves today as we continue our Lenten journey.
A stubborn heart ends badly; an obstinate heart is full of disquiet. When calamity befalls the proud, there is no healing.
This book opens with a series of paths we might follow to gain the sort of wisdom that transforms the world: awe of the Lord, self-control, sincerity, patience, faithfulness, respect of elders, humility, and almsgiving. Each of these avenues holds its own form of consolation. Each promises serenity. As we investigate our interior, we will need this kind of wisdom to sort out what it is we are called to do as builders of God’s kingdom. As we open ourselves to God’s piercing love, we will need this kind of wisdom to fully take in the goodness God has in store for us.
The first portion of this chapter is devoted to the relationship we are to have with our parents. Some of us are painfully aware that not all parenting is good. Some of us are blessed to have lived in families that thrived in the hands of merciful yet just parents. In the later case, we might share the love we have been given with those who lack it. In the former case, we might look for people in our lives who can bring us the kind of sustaining constancy we have lacked growing up. In both cases, God the Father, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus the brother and the consoling Holy Spirit can bring us all that humans in our lives have been incapable of providing.
The second portion of this chapter focuses on the difference in a life lived in pride as contrasted with one lived in humility. It is easy to make the statement that humble hearts are more serene than proud ones. It is difficult to actually live a modest life. Service to God and others and the will to do God’s will rather than our own are keys to success if we are to find any sort of peace at all in our daily living.
Christ’s meekness confounds his enemies. God’s love does not make sense in our secular world. The Holy Spirit abides and consoles even, and especially, through horror and pain. Perhaps this is why we often feel so torn, pushed, and plucked at in our culture. We have forgotten who we are: humble creatures dearly loved by the triune creator, wayward children called home each day by our loving parents.
As we read Sirach today, we can use these images to bring us back to our true hearth where our mother, father and the love they hold between them bind us to them. With care they tend the fire that will protect us from the cold and over which they will prepare our meal. With compassion they will bind up our wounds of the day. With justice they will defend us from all that is evil.
A stubborn heart ends badly; an obstinate heart is full of disquiet. When calamity befalls the proud, there is no healing.
When we are feeling alone, bereft, confused, agitated, hurt or anxious, we will do well to humble ourselves, to put away our stubbornness, and to return to the forgiving love of the creator.
Nicolas Pouisson: The Adoration of the Golden Calf
Baruch, the prophet Jeremiah’s faithful secretary, paints a clear contrast for us between false, little gods and the one, true and living God; he leaves us with no doubt that pagan deities are nothing more than air while God is good and God is great. As useless as one’s broken tools are their gods, set up in their houses; their eyes are full of dust from those who enter. If we take time today we might discover where we have placed our little gods whom we tend to night and day. And we might also consider how and when and why we tend to our relationship with the Living God . . . and all that our God has done for us even during those times when we allow ourselves to be lured away.
They are wooden, gilded and silvered; they will later be known for frauds. To all peoples and to all kings it will be clear that they are not gods, but human handiwork; and that God’s work is not in them. Yet we slide into easy comfort as we worship fashions that ebb and flow, sports figures who bring home temporary trophies, and television or Hollywood personalities who sap our time and energy by drawing us in to their tragedies and triumphs.
Despite the gold that covers them for adornment, unless someone wipes away the corrosion, they do not shine; nor did they feel anything when they were molded.
The petty gods of our addictions, the small, little gods of our vain ambitions, the trivial gods of our toxic relationships hold sway over us as we tend to them more than we tend to the people in our lives.
If they fall to the ground the worshipers must raise them up. They neither move of themselves if one sets them upright, nor come upright if they fall; but one puts gifts beside them as beside the dead.
These tiny and silly gods must be cared for by those in the household or they wither and decay. They do not give life, they do not revive the dead, and they do not encourage the living.
How then can one not know that these are no-gods, which do not save themselves either from war or disaster?
Why do we allow these trifling and senseless gods into our lives? Why do we tend to these meaningless gods who must be served and cosseted? They do not save, they do not rescue, and they do not transform.
The Gospel reading on this First Sunday in the Lenten season retells the story of Satan’s attempt to lure Jesus to himself and way from God. We watch Jesus deftly manage the skilled arguments by resting in the knowing that God is all and that God alone is enough. Why can we not rest in this same knowledge?
Jesus is tired and hungry from his fast in the desert and Satan believes him an easy target, but in the end Jesus relies on God alone. Why cannot we rely on this one true source of life?
Even after Jesus dispatches Satan we read: When the devil had finished every temptation, departed from him for a time. We must keep watch against these little daily assaults. We must check in constantly with God who redeems and saves.
And so we pray . . .
Good and generous God, keep our hands away from our broken and useless tools and hold us in your own steady hands. Help us to see beneath the gilding and artifice to the emptiness inside our little gods. Guide us in seeing that our futile gods cause us too much work and too much anguish. Call us to see that you serve us more than we can ever serve you. Continue to keep us from the dark world of wars and disaster. And keep us always in your light. Amen.
Adapted from a post written on February 17, 2013.
The Book of Baruch was written during the Maccabean era and for this reason is not always included in all versions of the Bible and some versions, while they do contain the letter of Jeremiah’s secretary, do not include the last chapter. Click on the scripture link above to explore this marvelous closing to Baruch’s letter. For more on Baruch, visit: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2006604
The letter “thau” in the Hebrew alphabet is the last and is written as an “x” . . . like a cross. Today we take time to consider its symbolism.
Bishop Newman in his homily today touched on the topic of “spiritual blindness,” since we have been exploring the story of Tobitthis week in Mass readings which the main character is cured of his blindness from cataracts by his son Tobiahand the archangel Raphael. The Bishop said that we all suffer from spiritual blindness whenever we slip into familiar, comfortable, or destructive habits. These habits may be easily identified as unhealthy like alcoholism, drug or pornography addiction, excessive gambling or shopping. Or they may be less visible: obsessive control of our children or others, addiction to the feeling of arousal when having an affair, the thrill of vindication when exacting revenge. Brain scans have shown that the same part of the brain is activated when engaging in some of these addictive behaviors as we see light up during an alcoholic’s binge. As humans, we frequently seek a “high” through different kinds of destructive behaviors, and this search, of course, causes spiritual blindness. As we elevate our participation levels, we need a bigger shot to boost us into a new cycle. Bishop Newman reminded us that we “glide into” these patterns without thinking, perhaps because we are afraid, or perhaps because we are just not paying attention to what we are doing. The result is the same, it is impossible for us to see God.
In the portion of Ezekiel’s prophecy we see today, we are again reminded that a toll will be taken, a measurement will be made. And as people who have received The Word as brought to us by Christ, when we wear the cross on our foreheads as we do, for example, on Ash Wednesday, we are to act as Christ and we are to put feet and hands to the Gospel. We are to enact God’s justice as we walk through life. We are to love one another, including our enemies, and we are to advocate for those on the sidelines as Jesus did.
In our afternoon prayer time, we may want to ask that the mark of “thau” be placed on the foreheads of our loved ones . . . and even our enemies. We are called to intimate union with God. We do this best by finding ways to unite ourselves with everyone with whom we come into contact, even those who cause us pain. Tobiah and Raphael interceded for Tobit and cured him of his blindness. These good and faithful servants of God trusted the word they heard, and they did God’s bidding. This is what the New Testament story asks of us. We are to refrain from succumbing to pagan behavior. We are to ask intercession for those who are blind to their own destructive ways. We are asked to intercede for those who harm themselves and others.
On this Valentine’s Day when we celebrate the presence of love in our lives, let us reflect on our willingness to open our eyes, to open our hearts, and to love as Jesus does.
“Ezekiel’s prophecy has long been regarded as difficult to understand . . . Ordinary readers have found the book’s language, images, and theology puzzling, while scholars have often been embarrassed both by the contents of the book and by their own inability to produce adequate commentary on it . . . The major theme, Ezekiel’s announcement of judgment, is clearly stated in his first portrays in miniature the coming siege against Jerusalem (4:1-3). From this point, he repeatedly assures his readers that the city can in no way escape the wrath of the Babylonians”. (Mays 583)
The sad but beautiful Psalm 137 evokes the emotions these people feel as they suffer through first the siege and then the exile . . . By the streams ofBabylonwe sat and wept when we remembered Zion. On the aspens of that land we hung up our harps.
The political and religious upheaval of this time can be seen in our own social landscape today . . . nothing is ever really new. As we reflect on the events of Jerusalem’s fall and exile, and as we think about the world in which we presently live, we see connections. We also feel empathy for a people so certain of their destiny as God’s people that they begin to take God’s gifts of freedom and love for granted. Many fall into corruption; they focus on gaining for themselves only. Throughout Ezekiel’s prophecy he rails against those who were to be watchmen and shepherds and who have led the people into disaster. Today we read the opening description of the tragedy and we might come away from all of this with a sense of doom if we were not reminded in 2 Kings 25:12: ThenNebuzaradan, captain of the guard, led into exile the last of the people remaining in the city, and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the last of the artisans. But some of the country’s poor, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, left behind as vine-dressers and farmers.
In the end, those who live on the margin when great and powerful forces sweep through a civilization are often abandoned and eventually forgotten. Yet it is these invisible poor ones who will be the faithful remnant from which a new shoot will spring to rejuvenate life in a land once thought a wasteland and to a people once thought extinguished.
By the streams of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. On the aspens of that land we hung up our harps . . . May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not, if I place not Jerusalem ahead of my joy.
As we celebrate the beginning of Lent today, let us take these verses in, let us consider our own siege and exile, and let us determine to remain a faithful remnant of God’s love.
Mays, James L., ed. HARPERCOLLINS BIBLE COMMENTARY. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988. 583. Print.
At that time Jesus said in reply: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Matthew 11:25
The Tree of Knowledge
The paradox of creation is that the weak are strong and the strong are weak. This Theology of the Cross, then is present in all suffering and opposes the norms usually associated with power and wisdom. From La Biblia de América: This foolishness of the cross becomes present in all debility, anguish and the profundity of God’s love. This is the surprising path of salvation opened to all humans by Christ.
We look for signs yet the only sign relevant to us, Jesus tells us, is the sign of Jonah– – – the prophet who finally did as God asked to save the city of Nineveh, after spending three days in the belly of a whale. God does not exact the punishment he had meant to carry out, because all of the inhabitants repent – – – inspired by the reluctant prophet. Jonah then complains about his surprising success. We are so often determined to be disappointed!
Notes will tell us that God’s ways are inscrutable because we insist on having things “our way” rather than in God’s way in God’s time. The wisdom and mercy we experience with God is incomprehensible to us because we have not yet learned to trust that this paradox about which Jesus speaks is real. Our viewpoint is too narrow, our perspective too self-centered to fathom the kind of acceptance and love the creator has for his creatures.
From the NAB comments on Jonah: The prophecy, which is both instructive and entertaining, strikes directly at this viewpoint [of forgiving wicked enemies]. It is a parable of mercy, showing that God’s threatened punishments are but the expression of a merciful will which moves all men to repent and seek forgiveness. The universality of the story contrasts sharply with the particularistic spirit of many in the post-exilic community. The book has also prepared the way for the gospel with its message of redemption for all, both Jew and Gentile. (Page 961)
These are God’s ways. This is God’s wisdom. We live the paradox that when we are weakest we are strongest . . . because we are nearest to God. In this Christmastide, let us celebrate God’s coming to us as an infant, defenseless and small. And let us remember that in a few short months we will journey through the Lenten time when we flourish in God’s forgiveness and mercy. Let us take time today to reflect on the lesson we might learn as we watch this tiny child grow into a man who offers both his humanity and divinity so that we might be free from fear, so that we might be saved. And let us bask in the wonder of this gift so freely given. Let us grant forgiveness, as we are forgiven. Let us bless with mercy, as we are blessed. Let us cradle and heal those who are broken . . . just as we are cradled and healed by God in his immense love.
When we suffer at the hands of others – – – either intentionally or unintentionally – – – let us gather up our wounded-ness, and our broken-ness. Let us make of ourselves wounded healers in God’s great plan, in God’s great love, in the paradox of God’s great wisdom.
LA BIBLIA DE LA AMÉRICA. 8th. Madrid: La Casa de la Biblia, 1994. Print.
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