Gospel Reflections
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
16 February 2025, Church Year C
Reprinted by permission of "The Arlington Catholic Herald"
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Imagine if Jesus had said, “Blessed are those who
are stuck in I-95
traffic, for they will find peace.”
Why would anyone call being stuck in traffic “happy” or
“blessed?” And yet,
in our Gospel for this Sunday, Our
Lord repeatedly calls things like weeping “happy.” Why?
Many reasons, but among them: Jesus is addressing the
problem of suffering
head on. Take a
survey of all major
world religions. All
have this in
common: they all realize the world is in some sort of peril.
It’s broken. The
easiest Christian doctrine to prove is
Original Sin. We
suffer and it’s a part
of life. In life
we’re often hungry,
cold, tired, poor, in pain, sad or angry.
Often, it’s a combination of those things.
Many
of
those same world religions draw some wisdom from that suffering. They are right to do
so. Suffering in
this life can teach us many
things. A few years
ago, I celebrated a
funeral for a wonderful lady who grew up in post-WWII Germany. Her childhood was
spent on the brink of
starvation and she and her family depended entirely on the
providence of God
and the kindness of neighbors.
Her
hunger taught her the value of a good meal, how generosity is
not only life-giving
but often lifesaving, and that we are all responsible for each
other in
Christ. It’s like
the way a poor man
really knows the value of a dollar in a way a rich man never
could. Taught by
suffering, those lessons stuck with
her through the rest of her life far better than any classroom
lecture. Suffering
often contains the seeds of wisdom.
But
Jesus
goes a step farther than just seeds of wisdom – he attaches a
promise to
it. Suffering not
only teaches us wisdom
in this life, it can yield fruit for the life to come. This is one of the key
differences between Christianity
and other religions in the world.
Not
only does Christianity acknowledge the existence and
inevitability of suffering
and seeks to draw wisdom from it – it goes further. In Christ, it teaches
us two more things.
First,
that
suffering wakes us up to the real nature of things and who we
really
are. Many people
have sat in traffic and
thought: “I’m not meant for this.”
That’s correct. When
we suffer,
it’s a wake-up call and a reminder that things ought to be
otherwise, and that
this world is not enough. St.
Paul says
in our second reading today: “If for this life only we have
hoped in Christ, we
are the more pitiable people of all.”
Translation: If this life offers all there is, if Christ
just died and rose
for just the “here and now,” then forget it.
Jesus ransoms us for heaven, and we should not accept
anything short of that. Suffering,
in a little way, reminds us that we
have a higher destiny, and this world will pass away.
But
here’s
still more: On the cross, Chris does something magnificent but
often
overlooked: When Jesus suffers and dies on the cross, God took
all our
suffering, right down to the worst thing that could happen,
delved right into
the depths, and then transformed it from the inside out to a
good thing. What
was the symbol of horror, now can become
a symbol of hope. Death
becomes a
wellspring of life. And
by his cross and
Resurrection, Jesus reaches into each one of our lives and has
the power to
transform our sufferings in the same way, if only we let him. Our sufferings can be
used for our salvation
or even offered for the salvation of others.
What
does
this look like? That
brings us back
to the beltway as just one example, but it can apply to others. It’s a saint-maker in
the making. If we
struggle with daily traffic, it’s worth
asking: do we pray before driving to work?
Or whenever we drive for that matter?
If not, why not? Prayer
can
transform the experience. We
cannot
control the other drivers.
We cannot
control the traffic. The
Buddha reminds
us that suffering is inevitable.
But
Jesus one-ups him and gives hope: We can baptize the experience,
offer it to
Christ.
We
can
always unite our suffering with his cross and Resurrection
through prayer and
make sure none of it goes to waste. In
doing so, the shadow of suffering will lift, and we’ll likely
find the moment
transformed, happy even. Little
by
little our life will be more conformed to Christ in the small
things, and we’ll
find even the small things blessed.