Posted on 08/10/2016 7:01:58 AM PDT by Salvation
Today’s reading from daily Mass (Tuesday of the 19th Week of the Year) features an unusual image and a seemingly “dark delight.”
It was then I saw a hand stretched out to me, in which was a written scroll which he unrolled before me. It was covered with writing front and back, and written on it was: Lamentation and wailing and woe! He said to me: Son of man, eat what is before you; eat this scroll, then go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat. … I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth (Ezekiel 2:10-3:3).
The reference to eating a scroll is likely allegorical. The direction to eat the scroll of God’s Word probably came while Ezekiel was in a prophetic state, a state of ecstasy during which prophets often received their message. But whether allegorical or literal, the point is that Ezekiel and all of us must allow the Word of God to enter us deeply and become part of our very substance. The Word of God needs to “stick to our ribs” (as I find ordinary food does so easily in my advancing age)!
But there remains a kind of “dark delight” for us to consider. The scroll Ezekiel ingests was said to consist of lamentation, wailing, and woe, yet Ezekiel says it was sweet to the taste.
Was Ezekiel delighting in the looming destruction of Jerusalem? Why would lamentation, wailing, and woe be sweet to the taste? Was Ezekiel delighting in the darkness? Was there an unholy vengeance at play here? What could be sweet about woe?
Perhaps an analogy will help us to understand what tasted “sweet” to Ezekiel. Consider a man with cancer. Because surgery is painful and costly, the first treatments attempted involve chemotherapy or radiation. Over time, it becomes increasingly clear that surgery will be required. The decision is to operate is made and a date is set. It is major surgery and thus will require a lengthy recovery period and significant physical therapy. As the date approaches, though the man laments the need for surgery and the likely pain to follow, a strange peace comes over him, even an eagerness to be done with it. Though lamentation, wailing, and woe are at hand, beyond that there will be healing. Thus with a kind of sweet joy, he experiences a strange relief as the surgery day arrives. He says to himself, in effect, “Bring it on! Let’s get this over and done with. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. It’s time for this cancer to go, despite the cost.”
Perhaps this was Ezekiel’s experience of the sweetness of even a hard prophecy that would not only harm what and whom he loved, but would also afflict him with exile and the pain of loss. This had become necessary because the people were unrepentant and the injustices growing ever worse. Over and over again Ezekiel was told that the people were stubborn, that they did not listen, that their foreheads were brass and their necks were iron. Now it was time to lance the boil, to do the only thing left to bring about the needed healing and change. Yes, it was a lamentation and a woe, but it was necessary and the time had come. There was a “sweetness” in knowing that God would deal with the spiritual cancer accordingly and that injustice and sin were going to be dealt with.
Thus, it was not a “dark delight,” for the delight was not in the darkness or the pain itself, but in the end of injustice and sin. The sweetness was in the restoration of at least some sanity, health, and the beauty of truth.
Some of us who comment on the current condition of our culture and warn of coming judgment are accused of this sort of “dark delight.” Some have written me off, saying that they think that I want this to happen, that I want to see us all destroyed.
While I can’t speak for everyone who comments on the current state, I can say that I would prefer a quick and remarkable repentance that will save the nation and culture I love. I also know that lamentation and woe will make my own life much harder, even downright awful. My only “delight” in a chastisement is the healing that might follow for the generations to come. But I pray that I want what God wants. If patient waiting is His will then so be it. If dramatic chastisement (as in Ezekiel’s day) is His will then so be it. Do what you need to do, Lord.
I understand that some will see this as vindictive and even unpatriotic. Jesus and St. Stephen, who spoke of the coming destruction of the Temple, were also thought by some to “want” the destruction and even to be plotting to bring it about. Jesus wept over ancient Jerusalem and her coming destruction. He preferred her repentance but knew that it would not come (Jn 11:35). Thus, for Jesus (and surely for Stephen, too) there was no dark delight, but rather a gut-wrenching lament; they both ultimately paid dearly. I ask only for a heart made ever purer, a heart that weeps for sin (my own and that of all), a heart that seeks only the happiness and wholeness that comes from God’s vision for us.
Something to think about.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
In his Ode to Fancy, Keats says that all seasons pass; ‘spoilt by use’, but your imagination never fails you. He says that all seasons being their own charms but these charms fade away as the season fades away. Then, comes winter when you ‘sit by the ingle’ and all is in a hush.http://essayuniverse.org/ describes that at that time, Keats urges us to ‘send abroad’ our fancy. Our imagination will lead us back to the charms of the summer and the colors of spring.
The delight I find in it is that God is lifted up, I’m brought low, which is the safest place in the world before Him.
Heavenly and earthly perspectives on the same thing can differ.
God never lets doom happen aimlessly. Because of the heavenly perspective, Christians are now capable of “rejoicing in sufferings” (though this isn’t a directive to do stupid things and cause your own sufferings).
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Matthew 5:1-12
If I, in the natural, with my natural mind, predict dark days ahead, its depressing. Its easy to feel or fear God’s absence as you see it all coming unraveled.
If Holy Spirit shows me dark days ahead, then I know that God is in this whatever happens. If “sweet” isn’t exactly the right word, still, it is different. It even gives a kind of confidence in the midst of it that you might not feel otherwise.
Thank you for encouraging us to read that poem. It was lovely and one to which I will refer often.
I actually love the hush of winter! My favorite time is sunset, when the backyard is lit with shades of lavender and gray. But we can find beautiful colors in all the seasons!
Do the Christian beatitudes intersect with the circumstances of this Old Testament prophecy? Not sure.
Becoming versed in the experience of the grace of God helps against the dark days of doubt.
If trouble is coming down around you, it might not be your fault at all.
I don’t know either, but one certainly speaks to the other in my heart.
Well a commonality might be that worldly circumstances do not have to be ideal in order for hope to be valid.
The rules of the kingdom are not the same as the rules of the world. Sometimes you may suffer more if you are living for the sake of the Lord’s plan of doing things, and sometimes you may suffer less. But your suffering won’t be in vain.
(It’s also because the rules of the kingdom are not the same as the rules of the world, that we have a basis to frown on the idea of a church taking over a worldly government, short of the personal presence of Christ. The kingdom participation is voluntary; a valid decision must be made to accept its authority. Nobody needs to make a valid decision, beyond the already past Garden folly, to accept the world’s authority.)
Daniel was quite upset after his revelations. No joy at all in what he was seeing.
Schadenfreude is a German concept
If anything, the bible forbids gloating when evildoers reap the consequences and fall. Gloating makes it about you rather than about God.
And from what we know of Daniel, he does not seem to be the kind of person who would gloat. He wished his captors well, while seeking the benefit of the Lord for himself and also for them. It takes a studied conscience towards God to be this way.
Maybe that’s why the prophecies went to him, because he would not abuse them. And why certain of them were to be kept secret, because otherwise they might be abused by others.
Yes. Someone has even said (might not be in the Bible) that gloating takes away the blessing of whatever you’re gloating about. Your good fortune may not endure, even.
A soul focused on the love of God will wish ultimate good in the name of God to everyone, friends and enemies both. This is not the same as our modern secular liberalism, which imagines that good can be done without a faith in the Father of Lights, in fact only with a faith in humanity, which unfortunately is fallen so such a faith can never work. Nor does it rob the persons upon which good is thus wished of their own moral duty to accept it.
Fasting, covering yourself in sackloth and ashes. Not a party time. He was given a prophecy that the understanding was “hidden until the time of the end.” It was a horrible vision.
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