Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
I’m feeling sorrowful as I write this reflection. I have compassion for all who are suffering, and based on the first reading I have particular empathy for those who suffer at the hands of someone close to them. Exclusion, rejection, abandonment are especially cruel blows. Perhaps like Hagar, you’ve been mistreated by someone who should have protected you. Certainly, we all know and have experienced emotional and relational pain. Pain can too easily lead to despair. We also must stand guard that our pain does not influence us to mistreat others. Today I offer a word of hope from our psalm to all the Hagars and Sarahs out there: The Lord hears the cry of the poor. I also offer a doorway through which to carry our pain: the Sacraments and serving others. Beyond this door lies healing and redemption.
As you pray the first reading, allow the gravity of Hagar’s situation to become impressed upon you. When God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, his wife Sarah did not trust God and took matters into her own hands. Blinded by her barrenness, Sarah gave her maid, Hagar, to Abraham and told him to father a child with her. Then, poor Hagar’s life becomes a living nightmare as Sarah mistreats, abuses, and sends her and her son away to die. Sarah certainly suffered gravely, as well, because her personal pain led her deeply into sin.
But God is with Hagar! Twice, God sends an angel to reassure her, to give her God’s promise that through her son Ishmael a great nation will also arise, and to make provision for her (see also Genesis 16:7-12). God saw Hagar’s tragedy and God intervened. If you’re suffering in any way today, know that God sees you. You are not alone; you are not forgotten. “The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them” (Psalm 34:7). Hagar was so overcome by the presence of God in the midst of her suffering that “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me . . .’” (Gen. 16:13). God sees you, even you. God hears you, even you. The Lord hears the cry of the poor.
We’re each one poor, aren’t we? We’re impoverished in some way, be it materially, physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, relationally, socially. Like Hagar, bring your poverty to the Lord today, and call upon him as the God Who Sees Me. God knew Hagar’s plight; God knows your plight and mine. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
Trusting in this great God Who Sees, this great God Who Hears, what are we to do with the pain that flows from our poverty? I think the first thing is to recognize and name our own particular poverty in humble vulnerability before the Lord and then to allow it to be a reminder to us to offer compassion to the poverty we see in others. Aware of our own poverty, we become better able and willing to minister to others. In this way, we avoid despair, too. The expression “hurt people hurt people” is so very true, isn’t it? Often out of our poverty we lash out, allowing our pain to form a weapon we wield against others. Sarah abused Hagar out of her own poverty – sadly she couldn’t allow it to become redemptive, a source of compassion and healing. Bearing another’s burden or ministering to the needs of others become powerful expressions of love that transform us even as we bring the transforming presence of God through our service. Perhaps the weapons wielded against us might even become plowshares as others see and experience God’s love through our humility.
Christ Jesus calls to us from the Sacraments, speaking directly to our poverty. In addition to serving others, run to the Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist and Reconciliation. Run to Jesus! I hear him calling to us, come, let me love you; come, let me heal you; come, let me forgive you; come, let me shower you with mercy; come, let me fill you with my grace; come, let me feed you with my very presence and life. Come, Jesus says, come! Bring me your poverty, bring me your pain, bring me your sorrow, bring me your burdens. Come, meet me in the Sacraments and be transformed.
The entirety of Psalm 34 is powerful! I encourage you to pray the entire psalm today. And cry out to the God Who Sees, run to our Redeemer and Healer in the Sacraments, and allow your pain to become a catalyst for charity. Let’s pray for one another today that our pain would in no way cause harm to others and would in fact become redemptive. Through Christ our Lord, Amen!
-Elizabeth Wells