Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
At each bedside, I remember always feeling a moment of being overwhelmed. Here is a person suffering, hurting far more than I know, and in a way I do not really understand because I cannot enter into their minds. What could I possibly say or do to help this situation? Today’s gospel (Matthew 10:16-23) mirrors that kind of situation. Jesus faces his disciples and tells them that they will be living in crisis moments, when people would persecute them and even family members might hound them to the death. It would be enough to make anyone overwhelmed and tongue-tied. “How do I defend myself?” they might think. “How can I convince someone of the goodness of the gospel if they hate me?” Jesus’ answer is that his disciples be “wise as serpents and gentle as doves.” Later on in the passage, he describes what that wisdom looks like in part: it means not worrying about what they will say. That is, when they try as hard as they can to look wise, they can only fail, but if they let the Spirit move them and don’t worry about appearances then God has the space to work through them. Today’s Old Testament passage (Hosea 14:2-10) also speaks of wisdom. The ones who are wise are the ones constantly turning to the Lord and seeking God’s paths alone. Even today’s psalm (51 – a familiar Friday psalm) speaks of God teaching wisdom in “my inmost spirit.” What we Christians are called to do in the face of trouble is paradoxically to seem not to be doing anything, except to seek God. So, now I see that in that hospital at my wiser moments, I would take a deep breath and say, “Okay, God – if this is going to be a grace-filled moment, it’s going to have to come from you. I am just at a loss.” If I was too hurried, too worried, to unable to focus on that kind of prayer, I truly would be tongue tied, trying to say too much with flowery but useless language. But if I allowed God to work, I was often astonished at how the simplest sounding words of comfort and prayers meant more than I would ever have thought. Jana M. Bennett
Before I went into academia, I worked in chaplaincy services at a hospital. I sat by the bedsides of those with cancer, high risk pregnancies, premature babies, psychiatric illnesses, and more. And I often sat with families who were worried about loved ones, or who had heard the news: “We’re sorry – your father/mother/child/spouse has passed away.”