Fr Billy Swan
Dear friends. I don’t know about you, but I was glad to see the back of January. It can be a long month with poor weather, colds, flus and dark nights. It’s no coincidence that we talk about January blues. In fact, a day in early January is identified scientifically as being the day when most people are at their lowest.
One man who knew all about this struggle was Job. In the first reading at Mass this week he talks about ‘pressed service’ and ‘hired drudgery’. He contemplates the shortness of his life and wonders what’s it all about. Like us, Job had no easy answer to the ‘why?’ of suffering. I have met people who have suffered great pain and loss in their lives and had it not been for their faith, they would have been crushed. But I have also known people who have been broken and destroyed by suffering that seemed to make no sense.
In the Gospel today, we see a whole army of ‘Jobs’ coming to a man named Jesus of Nazareth. Mark tells us that they came from the whole town, from everywhere – people with all kinds of ailments and sufferings. What we see in the Gospel scene is Jesus surrounded by suffering humanity who have come to him. But why have they come? Many of course have come in the hope of a cure for their suffering. We are told that many of them are healed but not all. But is that the only reason they came to him? Did they see Jesus only as a miracle worker who could take away pain like a doctor who provides pills?
The answer is no. As we heard last week, they saw in him someone who spoke with authority, someone who could provide meaning and restore dignity to those who suffered most. Jesus himself did not avoid suffering. He faced it and endured it more than most. While we all need to question the mystery of evil and suffering present in the world, when Christians look towards the man they also believe to be God, they notice something peculiar on his body: the presence of five wounds that he bore out of love for suffering humanity. Because of these wounds we can no longer say that God doesn’t know or understand. For as we hear on Good Friday: ‘He was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace and through his wounds we are healed’ (Is. 53:4-5).
I believe that all innocent people who suffer are especially loved by God, for he calls them to walk behind Jesus along a particularly narrow path, the road to Calvary that leads beyond Calvary to resurrection. I believe that they do not walk this path by chance, they do not walk it in vain and they do not walk it alone. None of us will ever walk the path of human suffering without finding Christ’s footsteps there before us. So while I have no answer for why people suffer, I still believe in a loving God for He is a God who entered into the heart of the darkness for me and for all of us. The nails of the cross would never have held him there if love had not done so first.
I dedicate this homily to all people who suffer and struggle to find answers for the reason why. I thank you for your courage, hope and faith that is an inspiration to me and all in the Church. Even though we may not always understand, may we always find meaning in our faith in Christ crucified and risen. Together we pray the words of today’s Psalm: ‘Praise the Lord who heals the broken hearted’ and take hope from the arrival of February and the hint of spring in the air.
I conclude with words from the Easter vigil where we celebrate the triumph of light over every darkness: ‘By his holy and glorious wounds may Christ the Lord guard and protect us. May the Easter flame be found still burning by the Morning Star that never sets, Christ your Son who, rising from the dead has shed his peaceful light on all humanity. Amen.’
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