A Day in the Life

Reflection for 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time by Sr. Marie Lucey, FAN Staff.

Originally posted in our Feb. 2nd newsletter.

In this Sunday’s readings, Mark describes a typical day in the public life of Jesus: he works the evening shift-healing diseases, driving out demons, teaching-then rises early the next morning to pray in a deserted place before beginning the day shift. “For this purpose have I come,” Jesus says, energized by his mission.

 

On the other hand is Job, who has no energy for his life at this point, sees his life as drudgery, lies awake at night convinced he shall not see happiness again. Most of us have experienced a few or many sleepless nights, “filled with restlessness until the dawn,” worrying about a child in trouble, loss of a job, a sick family member, a weighty decision or (fill in the blank). So we can empathize with Job, but we know the happy ending of his story when, despite his near despair, he never denounces God and is richly rewarded. May we, like Job, hang in there in faith when our nights and days are troubled.

 

Many people in the world live despairing lives in areas of violent conflict, in poverty, in fear. We pray for them and act on their behalf when we can, energized as Jesus was by his mission and his prayer. Sunday, on the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, unofficial patron of victims of trafficking, we remember children, women and men who are sold into sex or labor slavery (or both) across the world, including the United States.

As a child in Sudan, Bakhita, daughter of the assistant chief in the village, was seized by slave traders, sold several times, beaten and branded with knife cuts as marks of possession, eventually bought by an Italian diplomat and taken to Italy. She was then given as a gift to an Italian merchant to serve as a nanny for his daughter. There she first learned about God from the Canossian Daughters of Charity, was baptized Josephine, claimed her freedom and joined the Canossian community. Josephine lived a long, humble life before her death in 1947, revered by the town for her kind and gentle counsel. In 2000, Josephine Bakhita was canonized by Pope John Paul II who noted that “in St. Josephine Bakhita we find a shining example of genuine emancipation. The history of her life inspires not passive acceptance but the firm resolve to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression and violence and to return them to their dignity in the full exercise of their rights.”

Sr. Marie Lucey
FAN Director of Advocacy and Member Relations

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