March 21/Second Friday of Lent
When [God] summoned famine against the land, and broke every staff of bread,
he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
His feet were hurt with fetters, his neck was put in a collar of iron;
until what he had said came to pass, the word of the LORD kept testing him.
The king sent and released him; the ruler of the peoples set him free.
He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions. ~ Ps 105.16-21
Anyone who has been to Sunday school (or Broadway) will know the rags-to-riches story of Joseph, the favored son with a technicolor dreamcoat. Trafficked as a slave by his jealous brothers, he is successful in servitude to Potiphar until falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife; imprisoned and neglected, he ascends to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command through his God-given gift of dream interpretation. Joseph is an object lesson in how to endure misfortune: by trusting God. Every time he seems to be advancing, whether as Jacob’s beloved son, as a trusted servant in Potiphar’s household, as an accurate interpreter of dreams in prison, he is dealt a setback. But he does not sulk, pout, or blame. He falls only to rise again, persevering in the knowledge that God’s inscrutable design is working itself out. In the denouement of this drama, he not only forgives his remorseful brothers but assures them that everything that has happened has been part of God’s mysterious plan. Joseph embodies the trust in God that Walter Ciszek, S.J., imprisoned for twenty-three years in Soviet Russia, expressed this way: “God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see his will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could separate me from him, because he was in all things.” How hard it is to accept our setbacks and challenges, to adapt to new realities, to reconcile ourselves to difficulties. But if we, like Joseph, like Father Ciszek, can truly accept the joys and sufferings of every day as gifts from God, we, like them, might approach that peace that passes understanding, the peace of the mystery of God.
Lord God, whose mystery will always be beyond human reach, May I sense your hand at work in my life even when it seems most absent. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032125.cfm
To hear the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter’s in the Loop (Chicago) sing “God Is Working His Purpose Out,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aehhIC0cL2k
