4 February 2024 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

‘Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
and are not their days like the days of a labourer?
Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like labourers who look for their wages,
so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

From Job 7:1-4, 6-7, NRSV

In today’s first reading we meet the prophet Job at an especially low and difficult time in his life. Job had been a good and prosperous man who was beset by a series of great misfortunes. At the point where we meet him in today’s reading, he has lost his wealth, his family and his health and his life is an utter misery. With great honesty, Job describes the sense of futility and misery at his sickness and suffering. Despite his anguish at his plight, Job does not resort to blaming God or complaining of the the injustice of his situation.

• • Why do you suppose that Job stopped short of blaming God for his situation?
  • What sense can we make of sickness and suffering?

Pray for those who endure long periods of sickness and suffering and for those who care for them.

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