Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

The first reading taken from the book of Job is about struggles. Job’s story is a story of a man of sorrow and heavy burdens. Like many of us, his suffering is an innocent person’s suffering. More significant than the suffering of Job is the reaction of those around him. His friends who have seemingly come to console him end up tormenting him. Even his wife gets upset with him and asks Job to curse God and die. But Job’s story is no ordinary story. His story is that of a man who suffers but tries to make sense of it with faith. The OT tries to tell us in the book of Genesis that pain and suffering are not created by God but that they are the consequence of the sin. Suffering in the OT is a result of the wrong choice human beings made. In fact, suffering is considered a curse from God. No wonder Job felt so miserable because he could not understand the cause of his curse. But then, this is scriptures way of saying that suffering is a reality of life. No living creature is exempt from pain and suffering.

If in the OT suffering is a punishment in the NT suffering is transformed into a paradox. Jesus did not merely take the suffering of the world upon himself, but he transformed the very meaning of suffering. Jesus took the suffering the all human beings must embrace and transformed it into a means of salvation.

Job’s story is not just his story. It is your story and mine. Those of us who are the victims of the economic crisis, those of us who have lost jobs and houses and perhaps even families, we can perhaps identity well with Job. Job’s story is the story of every human being including Jesus. From the Christian context, however, this suffering is not meaningless.

On a very human level Jesus’ sufferings look meaningless. But with the eyes of faith we know the good that his suffering achieved. Suffering is not meaningless. Even on a very human level suffering that proves character. Again, without suffering we would not know what it means to be joyful. Again, unless we have experienced pain we would have no compassion. But as Christians, the greatest good is that our pain is one way of uniting ourselves to the suffering of Christ. Our suffering too can be offered for the good of others. Our suffering too can become salvific.

Today, let us offer our suffering to God for the sake of the salvation of the world.

- Fr. Satish Joseph