On Preparing for Lent as a Season of Joy
5th Sunday of the Year
It’s not all that often that we read from the Book of Job on Sundays. In fact, it happens just twice every three years. So, it’s easy enough to forget about our old friend Job, and it’s good that we check-in on him to see what he’s up to. Today we heard: “Job spoke, saying, ‘Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of hirelings?’” There he is, the Job we all know and love, gloomy as ever—the Eeyore of the Old Testament, above whom a rain cloud hovers wherever he goes.
Chances are we know a Job, or at least a melancholic person, who we don’t very much like to be around. Maybe that’s why not only does the Lectionary not read often from Job, but we don’t either in our personal prayer and reflection. I will admit that though Job is, in principle, one of my favorite books of the Bible for being a remarkable testament of faith, I don’t find often find myself there, especially not if I’m having a good day. To quote my late-Uncle Curt, on why he never checked under the hood of his car, “No need to go lookin’ for problems.”
But on the horizon, believe it or not, is that season of the year that seems particularly to belong to Job—yes, Lent begins next week, on the 14th. And we all think of Lent, in short, as a season of being sad, bewailing our life on earth as a drudgery and walking through the days we are consigned to be here like hirelings. So, whether we like it or not, we will feel the compulsion in the coming days to feel sad: sad about our sins, sad about the weakness of our flesh, sad about having to eat crab cakes on Fridays. But just as Job’s story, though the majority of it is unquestionably sad, ends in life and hope, so too is Lent not meant just to make us feel bad about ourselves and add to our so-called Catholic guilt. Lent is, in fact, a season of joy: joy in the knowledge that Christ has already defeated death by rising from the grave and joy in the gift of being able to enter into that great mystery once more. But to experience the full joy of Easter, we need to enter into Lent with the right disposition, and here Job coupled with St. Paul give us sound direction—not in forcing us to feel sad (for we will do that well enough on our own) but by inviting into the pain and misery of others.
Since Job is one of those books to which we are more likely to turn when we are experiencing suffering ourselves, we should presume that others do the same. So, when we hear Job cry out about being “allotted months of misery”, we might not be there right now ourselves, but we know for certain that plenty of other people are. Reading Job, therefore, does not need to be an exercise in self-loathing, but can be a point of entry to be sympathetic with the experience of others. This is the “obligation” of which Paul writes to the Corinthians that has been imposed on him by the Gospel, that he preach the Gospel to all: “I have become all things to all, to save at least some.” Paul understands that his mission as an evangelist forbids him from standing on the outside of people’s lives and shouting at them about Christ from a distance. On the contrary, Paul needs to move within and to bear the burden of those who are weak and who suffer. The obligation to do this comes from Christ himself, who humbled himself to share in our humanity, to raise us up to share in his divinity.
In Christ’s own life, we see this in action. Mark’s Gospel in particular, fast-paced as it is, at the very beginning depicts Christ moving about Galilee in a flurry of activity, moving from one person’s situation to the next. Last week, he cast out the demon from a possessed man; this week, he heals Simon’s mother-in-law and the very many crowded at the door; next week, he will heal a leper, and so on. These are not only manifestations of his divine power so that those who witnessed them would come to believe in him. They are also personal encounters, precious instances of God entering into a person’s experience of pain and suffering and bringing the healing touch of his love.
It is often difficult for us—as I know it is difficult for myself—to see how Christ comes to encounter us in the same way. As a newly ordained priest, I said to my confessor that I was having a hard time forgiving myself. His advice to me was wise: tell yourself what you would tell the person who came to you confessing the same thing. It is easier for us to extend mercy to others than it is to receive mercy ourselves. In that light, what I want to propose to you as you prepare for Lent, following Job and Paul, and above all the example and teaching of the Lord Jesus, is to use Lent as an opportunity to enter very intentionally into the experience of another and seek to share in their burden. This can take a variety of forms and could lead you all the way to Calcutta or to the person who occupies the other half of your bed. In whatever form it comes, take it as an invitation to extend the good news of the Gospel to another, so that, in Paul’s words, that you too “may have a share in it.”
The logic on which the Gospel and the Christian life turn is that receiving comes from giving. We receive the fruits of the resurrection by giving ourselves to those who are suffering, because it was by giving himself over to suffer that Christ secured the resurrection for all who follow him and do likewise. We should not fear this enterprise as self-serving; for though we do stand to benefit from it, we are nevertheless engaged in the good and all-important work of proclaiming the Gospel; and doing that well depends not on our self-interest but on charity, the sincere interest in the well-being of the other. What we will find—what we are promised to find—is the unspeakable joy of participating in the mystery of the Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection, a mystery that includes us as much as it includes the whole world.
With that in mind, Lent cannot be anything but a season of joy, for it is a season covered head to toe with the Blood of the Lamb slain but not dead, buried but eternally alive, wounded but triumphantly victorious. Then, when Lent is concluded, at the beginning of the evening Mass on Holy Thursday, the Church will sing with the certainty of faith: “Let our glory be in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; in him we have salvation, life and resurrection, through him we are rescued and set free.” Amen.
Homily preached February 3/4, 2024 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and St. Thomas Aquinas, Hampden