Dark Dungeons

Good grief!  Our first reading from the Book of Job is quite a downer (7:1-4, 6-7).  Then again, many of us likely share his sleepless nights and deep depression clearly expressed as: “So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me.  If in bed I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.  My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope…”  

Job is brokenhearted, and our responsorial psalm is a salve.  “Praise the LORD, who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds…The LORD sustains the lowly; the wicked he casts to the ground.” 

However, Job and many of us may disagree because the LORD often seems absent with the wicked walking around and smiling broadly, much to our dismay and the pleasure of their accompanying demons.  Job certainly was plagued by demons and even more so by Satan to test his resolve and faith.

And there are demons everywhere!  That’s how the Gospel according to Mark (1:29-39) describes Galilee and Jesus’ importance: “He preached and drove out many demons throughout the whole of Galilee.” 

Preaching clearly takes on great importance for Jesus.  It is emphasized in our second reading from 1 Corinthians (9:16-19, 22-23) where we hear of St. Paul’s self-proclaimed obligation to preach the Gospel “free of charge.”   

If he could have, what would St. Paul have preached to Job?   What would he preach to us?  Last Sunday we were given part of the answer.  St. Paul said, “Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties.”  Next Sunday we get the full answer: “Brothers and sisters…Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  Then, three days later on Ash Wednesday we will get his addendum: “Brothers and sisters: We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.”

Hawthorne in his classic “The House of the Seven Gables” jolts us awake.   He said, “What other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart!  What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!”  In the darkness of our locked and cold hearts demons lurk.   We can turn the keys we all possess to open our dark hearts, let in the light, and drive out those demons.   

Our ever-present God has given us the way to self-heal our broken hearts: imitate the Christ whose light and Gospel are keys to open our dark dungeons, give us hope, and shoo out those night-haunting demons.  

Deacon David Pierce