This has been a week of preparing talks. On Tuesday I was at the Chatsworth Ministerial Lenten series offering a reflection. I chose to reflect on Job, whose perseverance in suffering has been a source of inspiration and fascination for me. What I most love about Job is that he does not give into the common extreme positions of those who experience difficulties: either blaming everything on God which can lead to faithlessness or blaming everything on himself which can lead to despair. Instead, in the midst of his suffering Job is comfortable in accepting the reality that ‘he does not know’ why he is suffering. What a concept! To know that ‘I don’t know’, to accept the reality that some things are hidden from me at this time, to choose to make peace with mysteries of life is the lesson that we should learn again. Perhaps the problem is that we don’t hear many people saying this anymore, maybe we don’t say it too often ourselves, these simple words: “I don’t know.”
On Thursday I was giving a presentation for our Lenten Bible Lecture Series. My topic was “The Mass and the Bible”. It’s easy to see how the Bible is read during the Liturgy of the Word at Mass, but my presentation went beyond just the readings at Mass and examined how the entire Liturgy of the Church, the Mass, is rooted in the Bible and derived from the Bible. This includes our posture in praying, the design of our church buildings, the use of sacred items, and the prayers and responses throughout the entire Mass are actually taken from Sacred Scripture. There is only one more Bible Lecture left, next Thursday, so I hope that many can attend.
On Saturday I was in Hamilton teaching for the Permanent Diaconate Program, my topic was Spirituality. This took some time to prepare, since I’ve been asked to offer 5 hours of material to the future Permanent Deacons. I love teaching Spirituality, which can be best defined as the “life of the Spirit of God in us”. Spirituality encompasses every aspect of our lives, a kind of glue that holds everything together. It really is an experience of the fullness of life that Jesus promised to his followers. All in all, this week has been heavy on teaching for me, so don’t be surprised to find me in the garage tinkering with the motorcycle and letting my mind rest this Monday.
Fr. Wojtek Kuzma