Snnday February 8th

Abbot Raymond returned from the Foundation of Our Lady of the Angels,
Nsugbe Nigeria.
In February 2009 the first Titular Superior was elected by the community.
Prior Dom Rafael Ndubuezi received the Blessing from the Father Immediate, Dom Raymond

Abbot Raymond. Sunday February 8th

Mass 5^th Sunday Ordinary Time

A Reading from the Book of JOB (7:1-4)

“Job began to speak”

The book of Job is pure poetry. It is composed in the style of the great Shakespearian soliloquies such as: “To be, or not to be! That is the question”. The soliloquies of Job are dramatic meditations on the sufferings and tragedies of life. As such, we are bound to find a bit of exaggeration and poetic licence in them. Nevertheless the Jerusalem Bile’s translators have taken quite a liberty in putting into Job’s mouth a phrase which no other translation does. The Jerusalem Bible translators have Job say that life on earth is nothing more than pressed service. We know, of course, that there is so much more to life than its sufferings and sorrows. Life abounds with joys and pleasures beyond description. Nevertheless, the phrase “nothing more than pressed service” would pass as a reasonable exaggeration, a reasonable figure of speech, on the lips of one who is so overwhelmed with life’s tragedies and miseries as Job was. But the fact is that Job said no such thing. Then why put it in at all if it is not in the original text? Nor can we find any other translations that does insert this phrase.

But, to get back to Job! Job, in all his lamentations, is voicing for us all, the inner sentiments of everyman who finds himself simply overwhelmed by life’s burdens and sorrows. And surely, no one goes very far through life before finding himself in such a situation.

By giving us the Book of Job, God is assuring us that he is well aware of the greatness of the burdens and sorrows of life. Life, as he calls us to it, is an undertaking of tremendous magnitude. We might reasonably complain indeed that it is really something quite beyond our strength as mere human beings. It’s burdens too great for us; it’s pains unbearable for us; its problems insoluble by us. Who can reasonably be expected to cope with it all? In all its oppressive cruelty, life makes the same demands on all: the weak, the strong, the young, the old, the innocent, the guilty. No one is spared its cruelty. No one is spared its burdens.

In this book of Job, God assures us that he is with us in it all and that, through it all, he holds us in his hands until we come to realise, as Job did, that: “We know our Redeemer lives and that we shall at last look upon him with our very own eyes”.

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