February 4, 2024
Job encounters the tormenting mystery of the suffering of the innocent. What can help us when we also encounter it?
Key Points
- The devil increases our torment with his own explanations.
- St. John Paul II’s meditation on the Christian Sense of Human Suffering.
- What does the Lord encourage St. Faustina to do in suffering?
- How can we do this?
- What difference does it make?
This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable. It has not been verified by the author.
“Job spoke saying, Is not man’s life on Earth, a drudgery? Are not his days those of hirelings? He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling, who waits for his wages. So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights had been allotted to me. If in bed, I say, when shall I arise? then a night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. Remember that my life is like the wind, I shall not see happiness again.” So you can say thus says the Lord, my days come to end without hope, I shall not see happiness again. So that’s the word of the Lord, right? That’s what the word of the Lord is saying. And it’s not meaning that that’s true that Job will never see happiness. But what’s true is that’s the way he feels, it’s truly what he’s feeling. And this is, sharing with us the realism of what Job is sensing. So it’s talking about this, the terrible suffering of the innocent, and not innocent in a sense of Job has never sinned, but he hasn’t sinned to merit, what he’s experiencing, the loss of almost all his property and wealth, but then the death, sudden death of all his children. And on top of that, then a terrible illness that comes upon him. And so this is a very dangerous situation. It’s a situation which often causes people to lose faith and lose hope. And Job’s friends come to try to help him. But unfortunately, they just add to his torment. They’re trying to say nice, pious things, but basically what comes out as well, God is just; so this must be your fault. You don’t realize it, but this must be your fault. So that again, that’s just making it worse, and one thing we don’t want to be when someone is suffering is Job’s friends. We don’t want to make suffering worse. Because sometimes we can say things which sound good to us, but it just increases a person’s suffering. If a person is suffering immensely, we have to be very careful with what we say. Job senses when his friends are saying this, that well, that doesn’t make any sense, because I’m not a perfect person, but I don’t think I deserved all this. And so he’s tormented on top of his other sufferings, he’s tormented by why is this happening. Why is God permitting this? And so it’s a sign that in the suffering, there is a mystery. And that often adds to the suffering because it’s not always suffering itself; it’s the torment of trying to understand why and not understanding. And so, on top of that, the devil comes too, the devil is the one who caused those sufferings in the first place. And he comes to intensify Job’s suffering. And we often experienced this, the devil comes to explain to us, to give us a helpful explanation of why this is happening. He’ll say things; the ideas he transmits to us are things like, well, you’re just a failure. Your life is ruined forever. Things will never get any better. So God has rejected me. God has given up on me. God has condemned me. He’s asking way too much of me. He doesn’t care about me. He’s too harsh. Or He’s far away. He can’t really help me. I can’t really trust Him. Or He doesn’t even really exist. He was just a myth. So those are the type of things that the devil comes to say to us, to intensify our suffering. Because what’s the devil trying to do? He’s trying to separate us from God. Because as long as we can hold on to God, we can make it through. But if he can separate us from God, then we’re completely vulnerable, and then we will be swept away. So it’s very dangerous, this is a very dangerous situation. And because it leads to rage, doubt, despair, sometimes, sometimes even suicide. St. John Paul, (we have his image there), who had a lot of suffering in his life. When he was still very young, he lost his mother. And then, a few years later, his only sibling, his older brother died. And then when he was, I think was about 19, he lost his father, so his last living family member, and then right at that time, then Poland was invaded by the Nazis, so he lived under the Nazi occupation. And then it was the communist, the communist domination. So that was just at the beginning of his life. So a person whose life was marked by a lot of suffering, and we saw also even physically at the end of his life, how much physical suffering he had to undergo, and he was not only suffering physically, but he still had all the weight of the papacy. You know, it’s one thing to be able to be very sick, but at least be able to kind of take it easy, but he still had his responsibility of papacy. And he wrote a document, a meditation on suffering, the Latin title is, Salvifici doloris, on the Christian sense of human suffering. And it’s a profound meditation. But he points out – a lot of what his meditation is on is precisely this book of Job, and how there’s a mystery in suffering. One thing that suffering highlights is that there’s a mystery in our life. That is, there’s something beyond what we can understand. And our explanations are always inadequate, we can’t adequately explain, especially in a way, I mean, it’s one thing to talk about suffering, when we’re not suffering. But when we are suffering, explanations are very weak. And so he says that Jesus Christ, rather than give a long explanation about suffering, rather gives us a call. So that’s mysterious. He doesn’t explain it so much, as he calls us, and what is the call of Jesus? To follow him. But what does that mean to follow Him? That means that he has gone before us, that means that He is not a God who is far away and absent from our suffering, but He is the one who has become the man of sorrows, who leads the way on this difficult path that we are all walking on. And so that helps us understand what we should do when we are struggling or overwhelmed by suffering. And it’s very important to know because again, that’s a very dangerous situation. But it’s also a situation as I said, very dangerous, very hard. But it’s also suffering, a situation of extreme potential. That’s something we often don’t think about. Extreme potential. Dangerous, can be very dangerous, but can also be a time of great change or transformation. And, of course, the greatest example, is our Lord Himself. And that was a very dangerous situation, not just for Him, but even for His followers. Many, many had their faith shaken; and many had their hope shaken, many sort of fell away. But it was also the moment of the great potential, the great transformation, like Jesus unleashing a power of God’s redemption. And it will become, even for those who had fallen away at some point, it will become also they will also receive that power. So it’s a dangerous situation, but it’s also a situation of great potential; potential for change. And so, we need to know what to do in that situation. And I want to give one, one simple, one simple, but it’s not easy, but it’s simple, one simple guidance. And it’s to keep our eyes on Jesus. And it has to be simple, because when we’re suffering a lot, we can’t take a complicated explanation, right? Well, step one is this and step two is this and then step three, and then step four, and step. No, we need something very simple. And so that’s simple, is keep our eyes on Jesus. Jesus said to St. Faustina, “when it seems to you that your suffering exceeds your strength,” when it seems that your suffering exceeds your strength, that you can’t go on, you’re at the end of your rope. What does He say to do? What does He say to do in that situation? So it’s very important to note when it seems that your suffering exceeds your strength, again, it’s a very dangerous situation. So what should we do? And tune in next week for the answer. So this is again from St. Faustina. He says, “contemplate my wounds;” “contemplate my wounds.” That could seem like Well, the last thing I need when I’m suffering, is to see more suffering. It can seem like it doesn’t make sense. Contemplate my wounds. And He says, “and you will rise above human scorn and judgment.” Because that’s another thing that makes it more painful when we’re suffering. And unfortunately, Job’s friends fell into that, that we not only feel that we’re not just suffering, but we feel humiliated, and often judged; well, it must be your fault that this is happening to you. You’re just, you just kind of, you’re just kind of a failure, or you’re just, you’re whatever. So there’s not only the pain of suffering, but the pain of humiliation and feeling people’s judgement and scorn. He says, “contemplate my wounds, and you will rise above human scorn and judgment.” So it says, human scorn and judgment, because there’s human judgment. And there’s God’s judgment. He says, “meditation on my passion, will help you rise above all things.” Meditation on my passion will help you rise above all things. So there’s a mysterious power in His passion, that’s especially helpful for us when we are experiencing some of His passion. So that’s basically saying the same thing; to look to Jesus, to keep our eyes on Jesus, contemplate My wounds, meditate on My passion. And he says, this was in the last year, January 1938, the last year of St. Faustina’s life, during Mass. She says, I saw during Mass, during the Mass like what we have right now, she said, “I saw the Lord Jesus in the midst of His sufferings, as though dying on the cross.” So a lot of people, some people say, Well, we shouldn’t have a crucifix, because that’s over. That’s way gone. You know, 2000 years ago. Now Jesus has risen in glory. But so this is mysterious. So this is Jesus Himself, showing her, to St. Faustina, many visions of Jesus. And sometimes you saw Him, like we see in the image, as the risen Lord, sometimes she saw Him as a little child. But she also saw Him on several occasions in His passion, and join us that the mystery of His passion, of His suffering is, it transcends time. And so that, so that, Jesus’ suffering is united to us today. And so she saw the Lord in the midst of His sufferings, as though dying on the cross. And He said to her, “my daughter, meditate frequently on the sufferings, which I have undergone for your sake.” And so again, He’s calling her back to the same thing, to meditate on His sufferings. And that’s why the one, the great, miraculous image that Jesus left of Himself, you know, usually say like, if somebody like you’re getting a special photo taken, right, like a photo that you’re going to use for your business or a wedding photo, while you prepare for that, right, you try to look really good for it. The one miraculous great, miraculous image that Jesus left of us, left us of His life on earth, is the shroud, the Holy Shroud, and it shows Him in His suffering, in His humiliation. It’s like a way to help us visually, a visual help to meditate on His suffering. And there’s the beautiful, like for instance we have in our chapel the beautiful; well, it’s painful also, but the face, the face from the Holy Shroud, which is the face of the man of sorrows. And so Jesus again, in suffering, we need simple guidance, because we’re suffering and satan is confusing us. And so He’s saying, very simply, look at Me. And that’s what the crucifix is always reminding us to do, to look at Jesus, to look at His suffering, to look at His wounds. And that’s what again, I find very helpful that the image of the shroud, so it doesn’t take away all our sufferings, but it gives us grace and strength to help us make it through. God didn’t take away the cross. But He sustained His son through the cross, even if Jesus felt abandoned. And sometimes God doesn’t take away our trials. But He does want us, He does want to give us the strength to make it through. And that’s what keeping our eyes on Jesus helps us to receive that strength. Because what is it giving us, it’s giving us the truth, the antidote to the lies of the devil. It reveals the truth of God, that God in our suffering, though He might feel far away. But actually, it’s often when we are closest to Him. Because we’re sharing in His suffering, we’re maybe even sharing in His sense of abandonment. That suffering, so it’s not a sign that God is far away. But it’s often a moment in which He is especially close, because we are especially united to Him. And also He gives us the hope that He wants to free us forever, from suffering. Suffering can be very intense, but it is passing. It doesn’t pass as fast as we’d want it to pass, but it is passing. And also not only gives us truth, but He gives us especially love that we are suffering not because God doesn’t love us. But because we are loved especially by Him. He loves us to the point of sharing with us the power of His redemptive sacrifice. And it also gives us the hope of the resurrection. The suffering of God’s children is terrible, but it has an end. Job himself has a revelation, a revelation of the Lord, which transforms his life, the passion, passes, the resurrection endures forever. He promises to wipe away all our tears, and to make all things new. And that’s important when we’re suffering because satan is saying, it’s over, it’s finished, there’s no more hope, you failed. And Jesus promises that He will make all things new, to transform us, in joy and glory, in love and happiness, in beatitude and ecstasy, if we share in His cross, we will share forever, in infinitely greater glory. And so with our Blessed Mother, this is an opportunity to make the effort to trust in the Lord beyond our understanding, to keep the eyes and our heart and soul fixed on Jesus, meditating on His passion, trying to trust in Him. And so this Mass that we’re celebrating is an opportunity to bring all our suffering, all our suffering, all the suffering of people that we know, all the suffering of His children, bring all of that to Him, to unite it to His sacrifice. That’s the sense of the Mass, especially of the offertory, that we’re about to chance, to bring all our suffering and other suffering to Him, to offer it to Him, to unite it to His, so that suffering will not be in vain. But it will be a powerful force for the transformation of the world. See how different it is? If we’re suffering and we think this suffering is because I’m a failure, and my life is ruined, and I’m just such a miserable sinner, and that God has rejected me. And that’s the end of it. Or to think that same suffering is because God has chosen me and asked me to help Him carry His cross, to make His cross a little lighter. And to help Him save souls forever, so that I can share forever His glory. See, it’s the same, the same suffering, but lived completely differently. And one way it becomes impossible, and the other, there’s a grace to help us make it through. Jesus, we trust in You. Amen.
KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Job 7:1-4, 6-7