Jb 7:1-4, 6-7
Ps 147
1 Cor 9:16-19,22-23
Mk 1:29-39
Paying someone a compliment by saying he or she has the patience of Job is a complete misunderstanding; not of the person who exhibits the virtue of patience, but of Job. Job was in turn, angry, mournful, frustrated, and increasingly annoyed when his friends insisted on explaining his suffering and the reasons for it to him. None of the moods Job exhibited toward his friends or his angry demands for an answer from God to explain his suffering, fit with the definition of patience as: the ability to wait for a long time without becoming annoyed or remaining calm and not becoming upset when faced with problems or difficult people.
Job lost the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. His children were killed in an accident, his assets were destroyed, and he was afflicted with physical discomfort and illness. His wife failed to understand him and asked "Are you still holding to your innocence? Curse God and die." His response, "You speak as foolish women do . . . " suggests that there might be a need for couples therapy. Job did not deserve what happened to him and, by the end of the book, was still not certain why or how or what happened. So it is for us today.
The world did not deserve covid. It did not deserve the Spanish flu a century ago or the bubonic plague, also known as The Black Death, in the mid-14th century. That pandemic is estimated to have killed 30 to 60% of the population of Europe. Similar to covid today, bubonic plague arrived in Europe from somewhere else, in this case on ships traveling from Eurasia where it was also a scourge. It was economically devastating, and lasted well-beyond anyone's tolerance or patience, in this case between five to seven years.
"Curse God and die." As covid has dragged on and on and on, as designer facemasks have become a fashion accessory, too many have cursed God, too many have decided they are through believing, are through with the Church, and anything else. Alas, if they choose to turn to science there will be no greater consolation. Things are a mess as basic scientists, physicians, and researchers have made statements, retracted them, revised them, retracted them yet again and, behind closed doors, are at each others' throats. The self-appointed oracles who know little of scientific method, even less of medicine, and nothing of immunology (a science that was still in its infancy in the early 1970s) screech, scream, and cavil. Much of their thinking, particularly in assigning blame to various personages for the occurrence or spread of the disease, fulfills the criteria for delusional.
No vaccine is going to be the magic bullet bringing an end to all the suffering. It will not be an amulet conferring protection from all illness any more than the "plastic Jesus ridin' on the dashboard of my car" protects the careless or drunk driver when it rains or freezes.
As it was for Job in this particular narrative some of the suffering is just beginning. Unemployment, economic devastation, an increase in the incidences of alcoholism, drug use, spousal physical and emotional abuse, dashed plans and desires are not going to vanish after a few needle jabs. People pray for a miracle akin to the healing of Peter's mother-in-law but it doesn't come.
Miracles are funny things. We want them, pray for them, and most of the time don't recognize them because they do not follow the script we submitted to God. The word miracle does not appear anywhere in scripture. The closest thing to it in the Bible is the equivalent of 'wonder' (thaumasia.) But, we have become demanding of miracles as part of human nature. We hear the following in the words of 'The Grand Inquisitor' in Dostoevsky's magnificent novel, The Brother Karamazov: “. . . man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft.”
Father Stanley Marrow, the late Jesuit scripture scholar, wrote the following about miracles: “The difficulty with . . . miracles, even with the greatest of them, is that our appetite for them is insatiable. The recipient of the favor. . . keeps coming back for more. We are forever . . . testing to see if God is still there, (We are forever testing) to see whether our prayers are ‘getting through.”
It sometimes seems that the miracles that were not granted, the cures that did not happen, the pleas that we feel were not heard, are the reasons people leave the church, or worse, declare God a fraud, unloving, or dead.
The healing of Peter's mother-in-law, may seem insignificant. However, the problem is one of modern perception. We live in a society in which a low-grade fever calls forth the response, "take two aspirin and call me in the morning." But, in the Ancient Near East fever frequently signaled that death was near. Oftentimes it was. Even in early 20th century here in the U.S., fever after childbirth was a terrifying symptom before the discovery of antibiotics. Fever was understood in the Ancient Near East as a partial form of death or a 'little death.'
The Church cannot exist without Jesus' miracles any more than it can exist without His teaching. They are warp and woof of the same cloth. Sign and word. Teaching and deed.
Just as Jesus' parables were meant to illuminate the faith, the healing miracles strengthened that faith. We will hear the narratives of the healing miracles in the coming weeks. We may witness miracles in our lives or the lives of those we love.
Or maybe not.
The language and meaning of miracle may be unintelligible to the proud, the non-religious, the atheist, or the science worshipping pseudo-sophisticates. But the language, the meaning, and the fact of miracles remains loud and clear to those who are willing to look and listen in faith.
+ Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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