Monday of the Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Today we begin our reading of the book of Job, a project that will continue as our first reading through Saturday (with the one-day interruption on Tuesday). Of course, we will necessarily have to restrict ourselves to only a few highlights of the story because Job is far more extensive than can be covered in a single week of liturgical readings. You might want to spend the time this week on your own, pursuing Job in its entirety. 

The book of Job, as you know, addresses one of the greatest mysteries that has perplexed human consciousness throughout history: Why must the innocent suffer? It’s an obvious question, one easily posed; but impossible to answer, at least exhaustively. This is the question that the book of Job tackles head-on.

Today’s reading introduces the plot for the rest of the story. A certain literary conceit, the heavenly court, is invoked. God is imagined on his throne, surrounded by the heavenly spirits.  It’s best not to take this imagery too literally. For that is not a central concern of the book of Job. One of the angels, a rather unsavory one at that, named Satan, poses a challenge to God’s boast about the faithfulness and moral rectitude of one of God’s servants, Job. God accepts Satan’s dare that Job’s loyalty can be broken simply by imposing on Job a crushing level of loss and suffering. And the game, played at Job’s expense, is on.

Don’t be distracted by this introduction to the story. The focus at this point is not on God’s relenting to Satan’s taunts. Notice that God imposes the condition that Job himself must not be harmed. It has always seemed to me that God could have been differently portrayed as defending Job’s welfare right from the beginning and exiling the malicious Satan from the heavenly court—that’s another tradition about God’s treatment of Satan. But then we wouldn’t have the story that focuses on Job’s plight and how Job copes with the all too common tragedy that plagues so many human beings.

The action begins abruptly, even in this first reading from our series. By the end of today’s reading, Job suffers the loss of his children and most of his possessions and still resigns himself to the mysterious ways of the Lord. Job will ponder this mystery in far greater depth as we progress through the week’s readings. The entire book builds—on Saturday—to the climax of Job’s final resolution and a question left open for the reader: Does that proposed resolution finally sooth the cry of human suffering?
—Walter Modrys SJ

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.