Abbey-Roads2

Cries and whispers.

I read somewhere that it offends God if we pray, “O Lord, why was I even born?  It would have been better if I were never conceived.”  If you think that through, you can understand why it would offend Him.  But today’s Mass reading from Job is not offensive, because the prophet allows for his birth, his existence - which is a gift from God - though he wishes to forget that day.  He simply wonders, laments aloud his circumstances.  It is a cry from the depths of his very soul, moaning and weeping dry, brittle tears, in the terror of the night of faith…  Confronting false friends who accuse and contend with him, in their misguided efforts to console.

Why did you let me live?

I have often asked that… recalling those times when I was almost killed, or very sick: but only God can answer such a question.  It is similar to Job’s prayer:  “Why did I not perish at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?  Or why was I not buried away like an untimely birth, like babies who have never seen the light?”  And later he questions:  “Why is light given to the toilers, and life to the bitter in spirit?  They wait for death and it comes not; they search for it rather than for hidden treasures, rejoice in it exultingly…” (job 3)

“Rejoice in it exultantly…”

I think of that ending line in terms of what the mystics say about interior joy, though it is often not felt.  It is a mysterious grace in the midst of this long loneliness… difficult to grasp - perhaps impossible, until we meditate upon the quote from Job, St. Therese of the Child Jesus loved so much:  “Though He should kill me, I trust Him still.”  Trust.  Hope.  A certain interior joy is present in those words, poured out in love. 

And yet she cautioned her sisters to take the medicines away from the patients bed, lest, in their agony and longing for death, they use them to overdose and kill themselves.

This evening is the transitus of our little St. Therese of Lisieux, a saint who surely understands us in our failures, weaknesses, and sufferings.