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Slaves and Hirelings

Slave

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


Today, the second reading and the gospel appear to give answer to the first reading. In the first reading, Job laments about the drudgery of life. It is interesting that he does not mention any of the dramatic misfortunes that may befall one in life–indeed, that befall Job elsewhere in this book of the Bible. And yet, we can relate to his point of view. We kill ourselves every day, often in monotony, and what do we have to show for it? Like slaves or hirelings, we pitiably crave any wage or respite that we can get.

Jump to the Gospel. We see Jesus in a flurry of activity, responding to the immense demand that has come upon Him for His healing and mercy. Into the lives of the likes of Job, hope and meaning has come. Into the likes of your life, and of mine. For through the prism of omnipotent love, love which we can adopt and spread farther in our own lives, suddenly the drudgery is drudgery no longer; suddenly it all makes sense–glorious sense.

This is why, in the second reading, unlike the hireling described by Job, St. Paul is content to preach the Gospel for free, without any recompense. He is almost jealously protective of the gratuitous nature of his gift of self for the Gospel–because there is only one treasure that he desires, the treasure that is the key to meaning in his life: The omnipotent love, and the opportunity to love, that comes with Jesus Christ.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to make your daily prayer, undoubtedly fraught with innumerable involuntary distractions to the point that it sometimes seems you paid almost no attention at all–ask Him to make your daily contemplative prayer bear the inestimable fruit of love in your life. Ask Him to teach you love, to help you truly to perceive that pearl of great price for which it worth it to sell everything.

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Bigger Than You Think

Iceberg

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


The day that Mary and Joseph left with the baby Jesus to fulfill the law requiring every first born male to be presented to the Lord at the Temple–that day probably did not feel very glorious or momentous to the couple.

We see in the Gospel how Mary and Joseph had already undertaken a fair bit of travel leading up to this time, with Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth in Judea, and the difficult trip to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in an unfamiliar stable. And then there is the difficult flight into Egypt, to escape Herod’s persecution…

Here too, for their trip to present Jesus at the Temple, Mary and Joseph needed to plan, think ahead, and provision for this journey. They needed to make sure to prepare the pack animals and everything else they needed was ready for a uncomfortable trip exposed to the elements. There was a lot of unremarkable work to be done.

And they were not traveling in order to achieve some moment of glory. They were simply making the trip to fulfill the law.

Still, as so often is the case, the Old Testament reading from today reveals that there is indeed something glorious and profound at work here. The depth of meaning is nicely summed up in the line, “And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek.”

On Palm Sunday, we see Jesus’ triumphant entry into His city, the city that belongs rightly to Him as God, the Holy City, Jerusalem. Rightly enough, He comes honored, as a king.

But the Presentation is His first entry into Jerusalem. It is the first time the King of Glory visits the Holy City. Jerusalem, which has been pining for its promised Messiah for generations, finally receives Him. “And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek.”

If at Epiphany we see Jesus’ manifestation to the gentiles poignantly represented, here we have Jesus’ gift of Himself to the original Chosen People, as His parents obediently present Him at the very center of that people to God the Father.

Their Messiah has come. The day so longed for has arrived. And Simeon and Anna the Prophetess give Him a worthy reception.

God inserts solemn, unexpected meaning into the mundane lives of those who are obedient to Him. What deeper meaning might He be gifting to the most ordinary elements of your life, when you are obedient to Him and give Him your life day by day?

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Think of your day, today. Think of the most ordinary aspects of it. Ask Jesus how He works through those events in your life to bring about His grandiose plan of salvation. Give Him your life in trust and love all over again, and ask Him to fill it with profound effectiveness in the fulfillment of His great plan.

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Taskmasters

Task Master

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


“Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.” Doing what? What is it that the master of the house wants to find his steward doing? Mowing the lawn? Fixing the chimney? Sand-blasting the siding? Nope, not in this particular parable. The master of the house wants to find his steward distributing food to his other servants. And conversely, the behavior cited as worthy of punishment is mistreatment of the other servants.

Sometimes we over-index on the tasks in our lives, our to-do list, which our conscience tells us is our non-negotiable responsibility set, and under-index on love. St. John of the Cross, however, tells us in his singular style, “Upon the dusk of our lives, they will examine us on our love.” It is by our love that we will be judged.

Of course, tasks are part of love. But too often, for us they take on some sort of larger-than-life meaning all their own, and our conscience obsesses with their completion rather than the welfare of the persons for whom we are completing them.

What a great pairing of readings today. In the first reading, Paul is in the very act of embodying the good steward. His letter to the Corinthians oozes with his love for the Christians of Corinth, his passion for their welfare in Christ. And He is feeding them with his encouragement and example of trust in God. When the Master of the house returned home for Paul, He found him throwing everything he had into doing that which Jesus had directly asked Simon Peter to do, and in him, all of us: “Feed my sheep.” (cf. Jn. 21:17).

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: St. John of the Cross uses the curious phrase, “they will examine us on our love.” St. Ignatius, for his part, is a big fan of daily self-examination. Thinking of that examination at the end of our lives, examine your day today, your week, your overall attitude, to discover if you are doing tasks anxiously, mindlessly, for their own sake, for a sense of completion. Or if you are actually obsessed with the happiness, first eternal, but also temporal, of those for whom you are doing the tasks. Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. Then, ask Our Lord to fill your heart more with love, until this becomes your obsession, rather than the checklist.

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