Job: Praying from our Sores by Jorge Mario Bergoglio

JOB IS THE PROTOTYPE of the person who has reached the limits of suffering. The words of the local sages no longer satisfy him; he wants to talk face to face with God. If Job had been able to see Jesus on the cross, then he would have found a worthy interlocutor. Only Jesus can answer Job, for Jesus is the answer of a merciful Father wounded with mercy. The wounds of Jesus might make us think that the Father suffers from the "illness" of mercy. When the Father's unstinting gift of self, which is the Son, remains eternally wounded, then the way is opened for us to enter into a dimension of fatherly mercy that we can express only as "illness" in the sense that it is something the Father cannot resist, something before which he is defenseless.

That is why our own flesh wounded by sin (the flesh of prodigal sons and daughters) is the entryway into the flesh wounded by love (the flesh of Jesus), which opens for us the way to the Father of all flesh, who makes rain to fall on the righteous and on sinners, who covers with kisses and warmly embraces his returning wayward child.

At a dramatic point in his story, Job realizes that he needs to dialogue with God and not with other human beings: "Look, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it. What you [wise men] know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God. As for you, you whitewash with lies; all of you are worthless physicians" (Job 13: 1-4).

Job prays at the risk of dying and therefore has the right to tell his counselors: "Refrain from talking, and I will speak" (Job 13: 13-14). As a son who is suffering, he has the right to pray. He begs God not to remain silent: "Call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me" (Job 13: 22). Since we humans speak without understanding things too wonderful for us to know, we have no right to an answer from God, but we can still demand that God hear us when we speak from our wounds: "Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me" (Job 42: 3-4).

It is this prayer out of suffering that makes the Father speak. And once his Word has come forth from his mouth, it cannot return to him until it becomes Word made flesh. "By his wounds we have been healed" (Isa 53: 5). We do well to recall the liturgical hymn for the vespers of Wednesday of Holy Week.

I come, Lord, to behold the fiery traces of your sacred luminous wounds; fivefold blossoming of imperishable roses, heavenly constellation of five bright stars.

I come to touch your beautiful recesses, to study in their silent halls, and to drink with painful tenderness the bitter honey you put in them.

When my unarmed courage wavers, when I sink deep in murky anguish, when I also see myself as wounded, then let your sweet wounds encircle me and hide me in their gracious cloisters and cure me with their godly gentleness.

The word of God has creative force, and once God speaks a word to us, it can only become Word made flesh. But to receive the gift of the Word made flesh, we must hear it from our fleshly neediness, from our wounds, from our own debility. Otherwise, the flesh would wax proud. That is why the Lord comes for the sake of the sickly and not the healthy; that is why he heals our frail flesh and becomes food to nourish it. Only by the flesh of Christ do we reach the Word.

In our exile and our woundedness, the Word provides consolation and hope (Psalm 119: 49). The Word provides escape on the wings of a dove; it carries us off to a place where we are safe from the abusive cries of our foes (Psalm 55: 1-8). By our wounds, through the Word made wound, we have access to the only One who is capable of embracing us in his mercy: "You have kept count of my exiles (my wanderings). Put my tears in your bottle! " (Psalm 56: 8).

Give ear to my prayer, O God; do not hide yourself from my supplication.

Attend to me, and answer me; I am troubled in my complaint.

I am distraught by the noise of the enemy, because of the clamor of the wicked.

For they bring trouble upon me, and in anger they cherish enmity against me.

My heart is in anguish within me, the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me.

And I say, "O that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; truly, I would flee far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah I would hurry to find a shelter for myself from the raging wind and tempest. " (Psalm 55: 1-8)

For Prayer and Reflection

Hymn of Holy Thursday After they had shared in the supper of the Lamb, what seemed only symbol began to be real.

To show his faithful people his woundedness with love, God unites his many mercies into a single sign.