WORD 2day: Monday, 23rd week in Ordinary time
September 6, 2021: Colossians 1:24 - 2:3; Luke 6: 6-11
When we read the passage from St. Paul in the first reading today, we can easily be reminded of the Greek Mythology of Sisyphus. The famous mythology is about the character called Sisyphus, who receives a curse to push a big boulder up the hill... all his days, he pushes and pushes it, only for the boulder to roll back to the foot of the hills in no time. And he would begin it all over again. He would carryout that meaningless and endless routine all his existence! The existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus (in 1945) would compare that to human suffering, and say it is a meaningless affair that we cannot avoid. St. Paul's words to the Colossians might sound like it, when he says, I have to suffer for you and for the Laodiceans without having even seen your faces. But Paul never ever felt it was meaningless or endless, pointless or superfluous... according to him, it was salvific!
Christian suffering, however trying and burdensome it could be, can never lack meaning! If it lacks meaning, it is not because it does not have meaning, but we do not have the right perspective. Now the question is what is that which makes a suffering, or our outlook on suffering, truly Christian? Or in simple terms, what does give meaning to our sufferings? All our laws and regulations, discipline and rules, what really makes them all purposeful?
What is that which gives meaning - the question itself has to be reformulated, because it is not "what", but WHO! Yes, it is the Almighty, the Lord who renders them all meaningful and purposeful. Without God, suffering is meaningless, pointless and mere misery. With God suffering is salvific, purposeful and destined towards an ultimate good. It is God who renders our sufferings, our mortifications, our rules, our legalities meaningful. None of these would mean anything, even if we kept them with utmost diligence, if we do not feel close to God.
This is in short the message and teaching that Christ has given us; the right Christian perspective to suffering: without God, like for Sisyphus, our sufferings are mere miseries; while with God, our sufferings are profoundly salvific!