Job 22: Beyond Human Limits – Part II
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Job’s “friend” in today’s Noontime lives by absolute, simplistic thinking. Eliphaz tells Job that once he admits his sins, his pain and suffering will cease. We know – because we have looked at this story many times and have paused to ponder the wisdom held within, that Job suffers innocently. His goodness surfaces in a conversation between God and Satan. The devil tells the Almighty that the only reason Job is so devout is because God cares for this servant so well. It is true that for Job, life is good; yet God knows the depth of this man’s love for his creator. And so God tells Satan that he may do anything he likes to Job except terminate his life. God believes that they will see deep fidelity from this servant; he knows that Job will remain faithful. The devil delights in this bargain, believing that humans cannot suffer well, and so Job loses all: his family, his resources, his health. His wife tells him to curse God and die. His three “friends” sit with him and offer the kind of advice we read about today. Job counters repeatedly, never giving in to the temptation to curse God and capitulate. He never loses faith in God. He never loses hope that all will be revealed. He never loses the love engendered in him. He questions God, he defends himself against the poor advice from his “friends” and he waits. He is supremely patient. And he is ultimately rewarded for his fidelity.
Job has the freedom to choose how he will react to the circumstances in which he finds himself. Eliphaz baits him – much like the devil baits Jesus in today’s Gospel (Luke 4:1-13). Jailed, and later executed by the Nazis, Fr. Alfred Delp understands this kind of suffering. He writes . . . During these long weeks of confinement I have learned by personal experience that a person is truly lost, is the victim of circumstances and oppression only when he is incapable of a great inner sense of depth and freedom. Anyone whose natural element is not an atmosphere of freedom, unassailable and unshakable whatever force may be put on it, is already lost; but such a person is not really a human being anymore; he is merely an object, a number, a voting paper. And the inner freedom can only be attained of widening our own horizons. We must progress and grow, we must mount above our own limitations. It can be done; the driving force is the inner urge to conquer whose very existence shows that human nature is fundamentally designed for this expansion.
Tomorrow, the freedom to suffer, and final words from Father Delp.
Cameron, Peter John. “Meditation of the Day.” MAGNIFICAT. 21.2 (2010). Print.
Adapted from a reflection written on February 21, 2010.
Image from: https://andrewcohen.com/truth-suffering/
The Noontimes 