05 Oct. Friday of Week Twenty Six

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Job 38:1ff. Only if Job is himself divine, with the knowledge of hidden things, can he challenge God.

Luke 10:13ff. Tyre and Sidon would have reformed long ago, if they had seen the miracles done by Jesus.

In our dark hours

We can trust in the wisdom of God without really understanding why certain things are allowed to happen. Today we hear God’s rhetorical questions to Job out of the storm and whirlwind. Because Job had questioned the truth of Divine Providence, he must be like a fellow-god: so God asks, “Have you walked about in the depths of the abyss? Do you know the way to the dwelling place of light? Do you command the morning light and show dawn its place?”

We too tend to question God’s wisdom. Yet if life’s demands seem too high and overtaxing on our human strength, we are reminded how much we belong to God’s family. Like the people crossing the desert, we too have experienced the goodness, even the miracles of God. In the gospel, Jesus reminds us again of these miracles and holds out to us, even in such melancholy times in our Church, his promise of a new life, miraculously transformed.

 Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
It is changed like clay under the seal,
and it is dyed like a garment.
Light is withheld from the wicked,
and their uplifted arm is broken.”
Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
Declare, if you know all this.
“Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
Surely you know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!
Then Job answered the Lord:
“See, I am of small account;
what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.I have spoken once,
and I will not answer;
twice, but will proceed no further.”

Gospel: Luke 10:13-16

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But at the judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades.

“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

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