Abbey-Roads2

Wrestling with God.

The Patriarchs of the Old Testament were obviously not always the most moral characters in the Bible - after all, Jacob and his mother conspired to deceive his father for an inheritance.  However, what is interesting in the narrative, is the revelation of God’s fidelity, and His divine Providence.  As sinners ourselves, we can have great hope in the loving Providence and mercy of God, who does not reject us - even in our sins.

The Fathers and mystics have written beautifully concerning the ladder of divine ascent in the dream of Jacob, as well as the episode in today’s first reading, that of Jacob wrestling with God.  This wrestling match represents for me the struggle of the soul in the ongoing process St. Benedict calls, “conversion of manners”.  Our spiritual life is an ongoing conversion - perhaps marked by an initial extraordinary encounter with God, similar to that of Jacob’s vision of the stairway to heaven.  Yet this grace is only the beginning of our journey, wherein we see the direction we must go, while experiencing the consolation of the moment, in the house of God and the gate of heaven - which is the Church.

Our resistance. 

For myself, Jacob’s wrestling thus represents the struggles we encounter in the night of faith, our longing to know the divine mystery of God - seeking to define and contain the Divinity, as it were, through intellectual knowledge and natural apprehension.  This wrestling in the night can also suggest the spiritual combat involved in overcoming temptation and sin - perhaps even our unconscious resistance to God’s grace.

Ultimately, the fight Jacob engaged in can inspire in a soul who struggles with temptation and sin an abiding hope, thus encouraging the soul to persevere in the spiritual combat that is the Christian life.  God allows this wrestling to test the soul, enjoying the intimacy of man pressing against His Sacred Heart in the battle.

A severe mercy.

It is something few of us ever realize, this intimate contact with God amidst our greatest struggles; in the experience of our deepest, darkest, and most painful moments.  Oftentimes we cannot perceive His presence, much less His plan for us - while our human nature seeks desperately to repel the experience.  And our Lord seems reluctant to give us any evidence of His love during these times, except that which Jacob received, the painful dislocation of his hip.  Again, for me, this image suggests that in and through our woundedness, we thus enter into a deeper humility, with less confidence in our own devices and a greater dependence and confidence in the mercy and love of God.

St. Paul tells us to endure our trials as the discipline of God, a Father who loves us.  Thus, we may need to understand and accept that He permits us to struggle, even to fall, so that we may learn through these experiences of our weakness our need for His grace.

Patient endurance. 

God repels us, as it were, in the struggle, only to test our resolve, our intentions, and our perseverance, because we can still be selfishly superficial and childish in our desires and purpose.  He may allow us to suffer and weep and mourn, because we need to do so.  He keeps us waiting, because we need to wait; to do this we need patience, we need humility, we need hope. 

Although, the strangest part of all of this turns out to be our inability to recognize the proximate intimacy of God in our struggles, our sufferings, even our failures.  Which is why the limp of Jacob seems so significant - it is a reminder for us that we perhaps encountered the Divinity in what we considered the worst times of our lives.