WORD 2day: Monday, 23rd week in Ordinary time
September 11, 2023: Colossians 1:24 - 2:3; Luke 6: 6-11
Have you heard of the Greek Mythology of Sisyphus - that is what we can be easily reminded of when we read the passage from St. Paul in the first reading today. The Greek mythology is about the character called Sisyphus who receives a curse to push a boulder up the hill, only for the boulder to roll back to the foot of the hills. And he would begin it all over again. He would carryout that meaningless and endless routine all his existence! The existentialist, Albert Camus (in 1945) would compare that to human suffering and write an entire work.
St. Paul's words in today's reading, to the Colossians sounds much 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. He had a definitive purpose and he was so fulfilled about all the suffering that he underwent.
What does give meaning to our sufferings? All our laws and regulations, discipline and rules, what really makes them all purposeful? Let us clarify that question to ourselves... it is not what, but who! Yes, it is God who renders them all meaningful and purposeful.
Without God and God's call and design, suffering is meaningless, pointless and a sheer misery. With God suffering becomes 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. With God suffering is salvific! Without God, like for Sisyphus, our sufferings are mere miseries.
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