FEAST OF ST. CLARE
Job, Chapter 19, Verse 29
Be afraid of the sword for
yourselves, for your anger is a crime deserving the sword; that you may know
that there is a judgment.
Jobs friends are judging
him through their own faults. Job is warning them what Christ reiterated. “Those
who use the sword shall perish by the sword. Anger is a crime.
Anger disorders are a product of
long-term anger mismanagement. They are a pathological misdirection of normal
aggressive feelings. Anger is, at its essence, a part of the basic biological
reaction to danger, the fight or flight response. The physiological shift makes
us stop thinking and mobilize for immediate action, as though our life depends
on it. It is a primitive response, and very powerful. Anger prepares us to
stand our ground and fight. It helped our ancestors survive, but in today’s
complex technological world, it is often more hindrance than help. The angrier
you feel, the less clearly you can think, and therefore the less able you are
to negotiate, take a new perspective, or effectively handle a provocation. Uncontrolled
anger has become our No. 1 mental health issue. Though we have the
understanding and the skills to treat the anger epidemic in this country, as a
culture, we have been unwilling to accept the violence problem as one that
belongs to each and every one of us. We have sought scapegoats in minority
cultures, racial groups, and now the mentally ill. When we are ready to accept
that the demon is within us all, we can begin to treat the cycle of anger and
suffering.[1]
Enslavement
to our wounds[2]
Job
Issues His Reply to His Amigos[3]
·
Now
that he knows all his friends are kind of jerks, he talks back. After all, he
says, he's their equal and, well, they're not being very nice.
·
He
knows that God is almighty, sure. But he still thinks he deserves an
explanation for why God is shredding his life to pieces.
·
He's
mortal. His time is short. He wants some answers.
Eliphaz
Retorts
·
Eliphaz
is back on the scene. He says that that Job is undermining God by questioning
his ways, which are both unknowable and infinitely powerful.
·
We
feel like we've heard that one before….
·
He
continues to say that the sinful are doomed for destruction. And you know who
falls into that sinful category?
·
That's
right: Job.
·
And
here comes one of the most famous phrases in the Bible: "Your own lips
testify against you" (15:6).
Job Demands
a Hearing
·
In
case we didn't get the picture already, Job reiterates how uncool his friends
are. Then he—yep, again—confirms that he has done nothing worthy of this
punishment.
·
Why
shouldn't he, a penitent man, get a fair hearing?
Bildad Up
to Bat…Again
·
Bildad's
back.
·
Guess
what he's saying this time? That's right: God punishes the wicked.
·
This
time, though, he adds (in a possible reference to Canaanite lore) that the
Firstborn of Death will visit the evil.
·
Um…gulp?
I Will Be
Redeemed
·
Apparently
no one is listening, so Job reaffirms his desire to plead his case before
God.
·
He's
so worked up about it, he wants to etch his complaint in something more
permanent than his mortal voice. Maybe on a rock or—surprise, surprise—in a
book.
St. Clare[4]
The Lady
Clare, "shining in name, more shining in life," was born in the town of
Assisi about the year 1193. She was eighteen years old when St. Francis,
preaching the Lenten sermons at the church of St. George in Assisi, influenced
her to change the whole course of her life. Talking with him strengthened her
desire to leave all worldly things behind and live for Christ. The following
evening she slipped away from her home and hurried through the woods to the
chapel of the Portiuncula, where Francis was then living with his small
community. He and his brethren had been at prayers before the altar and met her
at the door with lighted tapers in their hands. Before the Blessed Virgin's
altar Clare laid off her fine cloak, Francis sheared her hair, and gave her his
own penitential habit, a tunic of coarse cloth tied with a cord. When it was
known at home what Clare had done, relatives and friends came to rescue her.
She resisted valiantly when they tried to drag her away, clinging to the
convent altar so firmly as to pull the cloths half off. Baring her shorn head,
she declared that Christ had called her to His service, she would have no other
spouse, and the more they continued their persecutions the more steadfast she
would become. Francis had her removed to the nunnery of Sant' Angelo di Panzo,
where her sister Agnes, a child of fourteen, joined her. This meant more
difficulty for them both, but Agnes' constancy too was victorious, and in spite
of her youth Francis gave her the habit. Later he placed them in a small and
humble house, adjacent to his beloved church of St. Damian, on the outskirts of
Assisi, and in 1215, when Clare was about twenty-two, he appointed her superior
and gave her his rule to live by. She was soon joined by her mother and several
other women, to the number of sixteen. They had all felt the strong appeal of
poverty and sackcloth, and without regret gave up their titles and estates to
become Clare's humble disciples. Within a few years similar convents were
founded in the Italian cities of Perugia, Padua, Rome, Venice, Mantua, Bologna,
Milan, Siena, and Pisa, and also in various parts of France and Germany. Agnes,
daughter of the King of Bohemia, established a nunnery of this order in Prague,
and took the habit herself. The "Poor Clares," as they came to be
known, practiced austerities which until then were unusual among women. They
went barefoot, slept on the ground, observed a perpetual abstinence from meat,
and spoke only when obliged to do so by necessity or charity. Clare herself
considered this silence desirable as a means of avoiding the innumerable sins
of the tongue, and for keeping the mind steadily fixed on God. Francis or the
bishop of Assisi sometimes had to command her to lie on a mattress and to take
a little nourishment every day. Discretion, came with years, and much later
Clare wrote this sound advice to Agnes of Bohemia: "Since our bodies are
not of brass and our strength is not the strength of stone, but instead we are
weak and subject to corporal infirmities, I implore you vehemently in the Lord
to refrain from the exceeding rigor of abstinence which I know you practice, so
that living and hoping in the Lord you may offer Him a reasonable service and a
sacrifice seasoned with the salt of prudence."
Saint Clare, Virgin, Foundress of the Poor
Clares. Fitness Friday-Take a little nourishment
Weight loss is 90% food, 10% exercise. Check out
[1]http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/04/anger_causes_violence_treat_it_rather_than_mental_illness_to_stop_mass_murder.html
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