Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
(Hebrews 12:4-7.11-15; Mark 6:1-6)
An old Jewish scholar calls himself “a
believing nonbeliever.” He writes that
he was raised in a devout Jewish household.
He learned to love the Shema, the supreme prayer of the Jews, at
Hebrew school. The Shema reads: “Hear,
O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” But the Holocaust shattered his
faith in God. His relatives along with
six million other Jews were slaughtered in Europe during World War II. The man seems like the first century Jewish
Christians to whom today’s first reading is addressed. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews pleads
with Jewish Christians not to abandon faith in Christ because of their suffering.
The author asks his readers to understand
their trials as discipline. He urges
them to see how suffering is making them stronger. And he assures them that it will be
remembered one day with gratitude. Suffering in faith is the way of holiness
because Christ walked it.
The Holocaust displays the depth of evil
humans can reach. We may meekly suggest
that the crime was not as great as the deicide of the crucifixion. But perhaps it is better to make no
comparisons in face of such horrors. The
Holocaust, as clearly as any act in history, shows the need for human
redemption. We believe that Christ’s
death has provided that.
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