Feb 7 - 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

+ We hear today about our old friend Job. So many can identify with poor Job; perhaps even us. A modern translation of the first reading today might go something like this: “Life stinks! [Actually this is the “kinder, gentler way of saying this” – it is usually said “in other words” also beginning with “s”. [Life sucks!] ” But the bottom line is: it seems that all we do is eat, sleep and work, work, work – no matter what our profession, it’s a little pleasure here and there; and a lot of grief and work everywhere. Even retired people work at being retired: knowing when to get up and take pills, go to the grocery store, do volunteer or even more paid work. And then if that is not enough, all we do some nights is toss and turn, because of all the work and worry. Time does go fast; swifter and swifter and more full of everything that is not much fun! As I said at the beginning “life stinks!” Sounds very much like Job, sounds very much like us sometimes!

 

But this all stands in marked contrast with those who stop thinking so much about themselves and their “miserable lives,” and start thinking of others  and how they can help them: true we may need aid and comfort in their own lives, because, yes, life is a combination of ups and down, joys and sorrows, the “stinky” and the “fresh-smelling!” But we should not be so hard on Job – because he lived in the time of anticipation: the time of looking forward to the Messiah who would bring relief, and comfort and healing to those who became his friends and trusted in him; that is all there was to it. Like a “diamond in the rough,”

Jesus, was a brilliant Light that produced much warmth and assurance, and joy and beauty – in the midst of the ocean of troubles in which most of us live! Yes, we eat, and sleep and work – but Jesus tells us that if we filter everything we think and say and do through our deep and personal relationship with him: everything will seem lighter and easier to carry out: we may even “breeze through” situations that might have seemed impossible without his help.

 

This is good news; no, this is great news! This is the gospel that St. Paul (of the second reading today) was compelled to preach. He used all of his resources and every “trick in the book” to get people’s attention, to introduce them to Jesus, and to welcome them into the Christian community when they responded to the grace of faith that was given them.

 

May we who are members of that community, today, put our trust in God fully, count on his help, and then use it, like Paul, to bring about the reality of the Kingdom here below, in anticipation of the one to which we are called to participate in forever in the next life.

 

We have an amazing God, he heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds! He loves us and he heals us!