Dear brothers and sisters,
We in our society are frequently given the lie that life is meant to be happy most – if not all – of the time. It is a stark refusal to accept the reality of our fallen human condition, wounded as we are by sin and subject to its consequences. If the words of Job unsettle us this morning it is only because we implicitly reject the proverbial wisdom of Bilbo Baggins who said adventures, like life, “are not all pony rides in May sunshine.”[1]
Much of life is indeed a drudgery, filled as it is with much laborious and tiresome slogging to get from one day to the next (cf. Job 7:1). This, at least, has been the experience for the overwhelming mass of humanity, even in the present day.
Though we use it infrequently (if at all), the word drudgery is an apt description for life in this valley of tears. The word probably has its origin in the Middle English word dreogan, meaning “to work, suffer, endure.” If you have not yet known this experience of life, count yourself among those especially blessed and know the experience will come at some point. Jesus, after all, calls us to imitate him, cautioning us that “if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
We know a sickness that confines one to bed is among the more drudgerous aspects of life. Yet it is precisely into these moments of suffering requiring endurance that Jesus wishes to enter into. We see this aspect of his compassionate mercy when he entered the home of Saint Peter and healed his mother-in-law who “lay sick with a fever” (Mark 1:30). Did she ask with Job, “When shall I arise” (cf. Job 7:4)? She must surely have been “filled with restlessness until the dawn,” until the “Light of the World” entered her home (Job 7:4; John 8:12).
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Detail, Healing of Peter's Mother-in-law. Evangeliary of Abbess Hitba von Meschede,
There is much about this encounter we do
not know, but we can perhaps catch a glimpse of the character of Jesus through
the meditations of an anonymous early Franciscan who wanted us to understand better
the humanity of the Divine Physician so as to draw ever closer to his sacred
heart pierced out of love for us. This is what he said:
Our humble Lord touched her with His sacred hand and cured her, so that she immediately arose and ministered unto Him and His disciples. But what she ministered, is not written. You may imagine that, in the house of a poor man like Simon, certain frugal foods, such as could be quickly got ready, were set before the guests. Consider that the Lord Jesus helped in the preparations, and this because it was in the house of his chief disciple, and you may imagine Him doing humble little services, like setting the table, and helping in washing the dishes, tidying up the room, and so forth. For the Master of humility, He who had not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, was in the habit of doing such lowly actions. Thus you may contemplate Him sitting familiarly at table, under this humble roof, and cheerfully partaking of the frugal fare set before Him, being pleased at the seal of poverty set up all in that house.[2]
Jesus longs to enter into the drudgery of our existence. He longs to enter into the houses of our souls to heal us and lift us up. He longs to minister to us and to partake in every aspect of our lives. He wishes to serve us even as we serve him.
By his Cross and Resurrection the drudgery of life is taken away; though much suffering still remains for us, uniting it with the Cross of the Lord brings not only comfort but joy because suffering becomes valuable. J.R.R. Tolkien was right to say “the Christian still has to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed.”[3] We see this in a particularly illuminating way in the lives of the saints, especially of the martyrs.
We remembered one of these martyrs yesterday, Saint Blaise. We know him best as the patron against ailments of the throat, whose intercession we invoke in times of sickness. He seems to have been the son of a wealthy physician. He became the Bishop of Armenia and when the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian broke out, Saint Blaise fled to a cave where he lived with the animals. They gathered around him because he healed their wounds. When hunters discovered Blaise, they took him to the governor Agricolas, but the man of God refused to renounce his Christian faith. Because of his fidelity to Jesus, Blaise was beheaded around the year a.d. 316, after first having had his flesh torn apart by metal wool combs.
Before his death, Blaise is said to have miraculously healed a boy who was choking on a fishbone, thereby saving his life. This event gave rise to his patronage of the sick, and especially of the throat. But about the candles used during his blessing, an admittedly curious aspect of Catholic life?
As the hunters took Blaise to the governor they came upon a poor woman whose pig had been carried off by a wolf. Recognizing the Saint’s holiness, she begged him to get the pig back. Blaise commanded the wolf to return the pig unharmed, and it did. In return for his kindness, the woman gave Blaise some food and some candles. In good Catholic fashion, the episode of the healing of the boy was combined with that of the wolf to give us the blessing of Saint Blaise with the candles.
But why would this holy man of God allow himself to be torn apart by wool combs? Why would he willingly undergo such great pain when all he had to do to avoid the torture was renounce his faith? He did so because he knew the person of Jesus Christ. He allowed Jesus to enter into the house of his life, to feed him and to dine with him, to tidy up the mess of sin for him. Saint Blaise came to know that Jesus loved him to the end and so Blaise loved Jesus to the end (cf. John 13:1). Because he united himself so closely with the Passion of the Lord the drudgery of life was taken away from him; he could say in all sincerity, “Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted” (Psalm 147:3).
Do not give up, my friends, when you feel the laborious and tiresome slogging of daily life beset you. Instead, open the home of your life to the Lord Jesus. Welcome him in and do not be ashamed of the mess you have made. Let him heal you of your sin, help you tidy up, and put things in place. Rest with him, learn from him, and experience his love for you still visible in his wounds. If you look for him, you will find him; if you allow him to love you, you will know “he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds;” if you unite yourself to him, the drudgery of life will be changed to joy (Psalm 147:3). Amen.
[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), 31.
[2] Meditations on the Life of Christ. Attr. Saint Bonaventure. M. Emmanuel, O.S.B., trans. (St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder Book Co., 1934), 132.
[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories,” in Tales from the Perilous Realm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), 389.
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