A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 4, n. 11)
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – February 5, 2006
“He Heals the Brokenhearted”
BIBLE READINGS
Jb 7:1-4, 5-7 // I Cor 9:16-19, 22-23 // Mk 1:29-39
N.B. This new series of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY presents a biblico-liturgical study of the Old Testament reading of each Sunday Mass to serve as background for a better understanding of the Gospel proclaimed in the liturgy. For a biblico-liturgical study of the Gospel for each Sunday, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
My mother’s friend was married to a military officer. They were such a loving couple that they became a model of what marital bliss meant. But since she was unable to give him a child, the husband left her and lived with another woman. My mother’s friend was so devastated. In anger, she turned against God and cursed him. “If there is a caring God, why did this happen to me?” she wept deeply aggrieved. Beset with many problems, a benefactor dryly bid us goodbye and said that she had transferred to another church. She had ceased to be a Catholic and taunted us that our prayers on her behalf did not seem to work. One good friend suffered one disaster after another: loss of wealth, cancer, suicide in the family, etc. I am united with her in her sufferings and pray that the grace of God may be with her to strengthen her, but at times I have a gnawing fear that she may not be able to persevere. All these cases illustrate the reality of human suffering, which is the topic of this Sunday’s Old Testament reading.
Today’s first reading (Jb 7:1-4, 6-7) delineates the futility of life and the anguish of a person burdened with pain and affliction. Job - a blameless, upright, God-fearing person who avoids evil - is subjected to trials and unmerited misery. Against the intense backdrop of the mystery of human suffering personified in Job, the picture of Jesus Christ – the Good News in person - comes to the fore.
According to Harold Buetow: “The Book of Job, written about four hundred years B.C., was concerned with some of people’s problems that transcend every period in history – like bad things happening to good people and the question of whether people can serve God selflessly, without hope of any reward. The theology that Job knew was from Deuteronomy. It said that the good prosper and the wicked prosper. Job’s tradition knew nothing of heaven or hell, so God had to reward the good and punish the evil in this life. Our Christian perspective adds a new dimension … Job was deprived of family, lacked worldly possessions, was racked by physical pain, and suffered mental anguish. Eliphaz, the first of his three friends who tried to help him explain his miseries, had come up with the standard cliché that Job was suffering because he must have done something wrong. Although Eliphaz must be given credit for offering the ministry of presence, standing by an alienated human being, and being willing to listen and empathize, Job (understandably) did not like his answer … Today’s reading is part of a soliloquy in which Job bemoaned his state, which is in reality the whole wretched human condition. Life is cruel like the drudgery of those in slavery, boring as the work of a hireling, and swifter than a weaver’s shuttle that moves quickly back and forth in ceaseless activity. The days of work and the nights of worry are all too long. Life is so without substance as to be like the wind. He vividly compares human life to three proverbially wretched states of life: forced military service, the life of a day laborer working only for the wages necessary to life, and simple slavery with no letup. Job, though steadfast and loyal, was impatient. His human friends had failed to explain life, and he took for granted that his divine friend would not either.”
The experience of Job transcends time and space and his struggle against despair is exceedingly real. In moments of affliction, it is easy for us to conclude that God is distant and uninvolved. It is tempting to succumb to misery. The experience of pain and suffering impinges on us today as it did on Job and the people of Jesus’ times. However, in his very person, Jesus had assumed and experienced to utmost degree the pain, desolation, and abandonment of every Job in human history. Jesus, the Son of God, came for our healing. Today’s Gospel reading (Mk 1:29-39) recounts that he cured many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons. The healings brought about by Jesus symbolize the radical newness that the Kingdom of God brings. In Jesus’ ministry of healing is the Good News that God is there for us in our suffering, pain and sorrow. In the paschal event of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, the painful experience of every Job is brought to a wholesome conclusion and glorious resolution. Indeed, Jesus, the ultimate figure of the deeply afflicted Job, has sanctified our sufferings and made them redemptive.
A poetic text by the Commission Francophone Cistercienne extols the ineffable mystery of Jesus, the true man of sorrows and font of redemption:
“The Son of God, with arms extended
has taken up everything in his offering
The human toil and work
the lost weight of suffering.”
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 5, thus conclude: “When we are faced with suffering – our own and, even more, that of others – we must remain silent and raise our eyes to Christ. He, the Innocent One, the Just, who knows suffering, having assumed freely but painfully the suffering of all humanity, forgave his tormentors. He can address the Father, who allowed his Son to die so that by his stripes we might be healed (Is 53:5). It is he whom we bless, and not the suffering whose ‘lost weight’ he has assumed in his suffering.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION
By Dr. Eleanor Ronquillo, APC-fdm
(Member: ASSOCIATION OF PAULINE COOPERATORS – Friends of the Divine Master, Antipolo Unit, Philippines)
These days, many people are getting sick from grave illnesses like strokes, heart attacks, cancer, AIDS, rare pneumonias. People seek many types of cures, search for doctors far and near, the latest medicines, the most advanced medical technology, herbal medicine, etc. They seek the CURE, not the HEALING. Amidst the sick person’s suffering is a big plea to God to take away this illness and this suffering. In the Gospel, as Jesus HEALS many, one is led to believe in such a “miraculous” CURE. And it is not surprising for some to turn away from God for not providing such a cure. “Why me God … why do you let me be sick like this? … I’m not a bad person … There are so many out there criminals/murderers, why don’t they get this illness? … I can’t take this anymore … You must have forgotten me Lord … I do not wish to live like this.”
It is beyond physical CURE of an illness that is the essence of the Lord’s HEALING. The Gospel says, “People brought to Jesus all the sick … Jesus healed many who had various diseases.” I recall the story of a man who was disabled and paralyzed. He continually sought cures to be able to walk again. He struggled with his condition and felt his life was full of difficulties and hopelessness because of his disability. He prayed that God might take away his illness. One time (I think it was his visit to Lourdes in the Grotto in France) after a deep prayer, he felt an aura of peace within. He began to cry, to accept what he had, to see life as God willed it to be, to find hope and meaning in his “suffering”, to embrace the Lord and find peace. Finally, when he left, he had been healed.
We must seek the Lord in our suffering, that he may heal us. For a lot of people in crisis, that is the time when opportunity knocks. The opportunity to seek and be closer to the Lord knocks on our doors in the face of crisis. And healing will come, as Jesus heals us, if we seek him and let him heal us. This healing is a process that only the suffering person can undergo. No doctor can effect a healing for the patient, a treatment perhaps, yes; but the healing, no. The person himself has to undergo the internal process of accepting his condition and surrendering to the Lord one’s suffering … and find peace and solace in his loving arms.
“And he also drove away demons.” The words tell us that the devil was at work in people. The devil works in people’s hearts and minds. The “illness” is not exactly a phenomenon of possession. It can be masked as a wonderful extramarital affair though immoral, a wealth ill gotten, a successful oppression, an ongoing sexual abuse of a child. The list is long. The many facets of evil are within and among us. But do we recognize them? Do we recognize that we spite our neighbor, endlessly criticize people, persist in being unforgiving and harboring anger, scheme and carry out revenge, plan the next move to take what is not ours? The driving out of demons is our turning away from evil and seeking Jesus to rule our hearts. That is also our process of healing.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. How does the tale of Job’s suffering, pain and affliction impact you? What is your own experience of pain and affliction? What are the problems and ills that beset human society today?
B. How do you relate to God in moments of distress and anguish? Did you ever turn against God for what you feel are unmerited pain and suffering? Did you ever accuse God of being cruel and unfair?
C. In your troubles, do you gaze upon the cross and look at Jesus who has surpassed Job in his experience of unmitigated suffering? Do you surrender yourself totally to God’s ineffable saving plan and embrace in a spirit of faith the mystery of human suffering and redemption? Do you turn to Jesus, the wounded Healer, for healing?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Adapted from Henri Nouwen’s Prayer “Give Me a New Heart for a New Life”)
Leader: Thank you, Jesus, for the mystery of your broken heart, a heart broken by us and for us, that has now become the source of forgiveness and new life. The blood and water flowing from your side show me the new life that is given to me through your death. It is a life of intimate communion with you and your Father. But it is also a life that calls me to give all that I am in the service of your love for the world. It is a life of joy, but also of sacrifice. It is a glorious life, but also one of suffering. It is a life of peace, but also of struggle. Yes, Lord, it is a life in water and blood that come from your heart and so bring reconciliation and peace. I adore you, Jesus, as I look upon you whom they have pierced. Let the blood and water that flow from your heart give me a new heart to live a new life.
Assembly: Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
He binds up their wounds.
He cares for us and is not unmindful of our afflictions.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power.
He lives forever and ever. Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons.” (Mk 1:32)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray for people whose afflictions are so intense that they despair and are given to self-destruction. Be an instrument of God’s healing love by alleviating the problems and difficulties of the people around you.
B. ACTION PLAN: To celebrate the power of a loving God who heals the brokenhearted and in order to give homage to Jesus, the wounded healer, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 2, n. 11): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US