Homily-
Monday of the 26th Week of Year B./Optional Memorial of Saints
Wenceslaus, Martyr and Lawrence Ruiz and Companions
v Job 1:6-22
v Ps 17:1bcd,2-3,6-7
v Luke 9:46-50
The
Patient, Endurance, Insistence and Steadfastness of Job
In the
past two to three weeks we have been reading (that is our first reading) from
the Wisdom Books such as the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes teaching us about life
and death, the sovereignty of a merciful and forgiving God, the essentials of
the life of a believer. These essentials include, patience, endurance, faith,
hope, love, insistence in faith and steadfastness, as well as “the Fear of the
Lord,” already reflected upon. Ecclesiastes, in particular reminded us that
“all is vanity, vanity of vanities, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Today’s
readings build on this. In the first reading, the Book of Job, we are presented
with a righteousness and blameless( Job 1:1-5) married man, known as Job who
had a wife, children and property that went through and inexplicable suffering
of sickness, violence, and of losing his family and all that he had worked
faithfully for( Job 1:6-22).
The
scene of this long first reading is the meeting the council of the heavenly
beings, presided over by the Lord (see I kings 22:19-22; Job 15:8, Ps 82:1;
89:7; Jer 23:18). Here Satan, and adversary, an accuser, or “a devil advocate,”
plays a negative and critical role of an independent prosecutor. We find the
same even in the Book of the Prophet Zechariah 3:1. This prosecutor taught that
Job’s virtues of holiness and piety must have been bought by divine provision
and protection and love.
In all
that Job went through, loss of his family and businesses, though human, he realized
that “naked did he came and naked shall he returned.” He knew that the “Lord
gave and the Lord also took” all he had given him. He kept blessing, praising,
worshiping and fearing the Lord, generously and with selflessness. He never
said anything disrespectful about. He
knew everything was not about him, but about God (Gen 1:26-28; Ps 8; Ps 103; Ps
144).
Job’s
selflessness, patient, endurance and steadfast love is echoed in today’s Lukan
Gospel parable (Luke 9:46-50), where Jesus taught his human and rivalling disciples
that true greatness does not reside in selfishness and self-centeredness, nor
in anthropocentric maltreatment of the planet and other God’s creatures ( see
Pope Francis, Laudato Si’). Rather, true greatness lies in how we behave
or act innocently, honestly, like a “child” who, would not do anything for
personal gain.
For example, in the face of racism today in
the world, a child is color blind. They are humble. Sometimes they can touch a scorpion, lion, a
wild dog, jumped, summersault, and go unharmed. They tell it the way it is. They
are not corrupt. They rely, depend and insist on their parents and elders for
food and other needs.
This
Lukan parable, and Job’s narrative challenge us to rethink what we consider
important and essential in order to be in good relationship with God and with
one another, especially in moments of sufferings, poverty, and even in this
moment of corona-virus! The readings challenge us to be like Job, to be like little
children, trusting and insisting on God’s love, no matter the difficulties we
face in life. They teach to be humble,
and patient with ourselves and with our neighbors, when things, do not seems
to, immediately go well, from our own perspective. In doing this, let us know
that God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are inexplicable different
from our own human thinking and judgment.
1.
Can we see ourselves in Job, relying on God with patient, endurance, especially
in moment of suffering?
2.
What childlike virtue do you have or aspire to have as a member of a
rivalling society or community?
3.
Could you think of those sufferings you have experienced in life and how
you handled them in faith?
