We've all said something similar to God, at least in our heads. "If you're going to treat me like this, just kill me."
We also know people right now who are in this situation...maybe even people who are feeling like giving up...taking their own life...or at least throwing in the towel emotionally or spiritually.
"If you're going to treat me like this, just kill me."
In this same reading from Mass today we see how it gets to this. It is literally RAINING FOOD EVERY NIGHT on the Israelites. They are in the desert, and yet every morning there is manna on the ground that they scoop up and eat and it tastes delicious.
And the Israelites come to Moses and say...I'm not making this up..."Where's the meat?"
"Where's the meat???? It is snowing food...in the desert...and you are complaining about not having meat???"
And yet isn't that how it so often happens? We get to the point where we say "If you are going to treat me like this, just kill me" because we FAIL to see the miracles, often times an infinite number of miracles around us...and in our frailty we just think of life as God kicking us in the gut.
If you're in that situation...hang on...push through...call someone and lean on them...pour your heart out...be vulnerable...because one thing we know is that for some reason, these episodes of COMPLETE blindness to all the infinite miracles that surround us, these moments PASS! It might last a day, or a month, or a year, but we've known it in our lives and we know it has been the case for others as well - the "miracle blindness"
This too shall pass, and soon the scales will again fall off our eyes, and tomorrow or the next day we will again be able to see all the miracles we're surrounded by.
Don't give up!
"...it tastes delicious"
ReplyDeleteWhat I've read is that according the Talmud the manna tasted like honey to children, bread to youths, and oil to the elderly.
I think you could make a (granted, fanciful) comparison to the Mass and the trouble with modern liturgy. That is to say, for children who still posses a sense of wonder or adults newly converted to the faith, the liturgy and Sacrament is delicious and sustaining. However, as we get older, familiarity makes some perceive Mass as bland and uninspiring. So they try to spice things up with jokey homilies, overzealousness for "active participation", lousy secular-inspired pop music, and so on. It all backfires of course and only makes the Mass seem trivial.
Excellent perspective Fr. John. Thanks for sharing! We can all relate to this feeling.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who needs to read this now. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Father.
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