Peniel

JMJ
✙

The Readings for the Memorial of St Benedict, Abbot
14th Tuesday, Tempus per Annum

• Genesis 32:23-33
• Responsorial from Psalm 17 (Response: In justice, I shall behold your face, O Lord.)
• John 10:14 (Alleluia)
• Matthew 9:32-38

“Because I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.”

Genesis 32:30

THE AUTHOR is continually surprised at the different ways ancient stories are read by Christians as compared to Jews. The rabbinic tradition is to say the Wrestling Partner in today’s reading is Esau’s guardian angel. Rashi says, “Our Rabbis of blessed memory explained that he was Esau’s guardian angel” citing Genesis Rabbah 77:3. Although there is an extended conversation in that tradition, it seems to be predicated on the assumption that the Holy One cannot be seen as such – just as the Christian tradition is always that he can be seen. Christians have (as near as I can tell) always said that Jacob was wrestling with God. Some commentators go so far as to say this moment (and other such Theophanies in the scriptures – such as God walking in the cool of the evening) are pre-incarnation appearances of God the Son. The author would reply, as the actions of a timeless God in time, who says these appearances need to be considered as “pre-incarnation”?

And God said, “Your name is no longer Jacob, but Israel. You have striven with Elohim and with Men and prevailed.” Jacob himself says he’s seen the face of Elohim. That’s good enough.

What does it mean to wrestle with God? Let’s look at the life of today’s Saint, Benedict of Nursia.

Feeling a call to the priesthood, he went to Rome. But there he found that so many men seeking entrance into the Church were living very worldly lives indeed. So he went off to do spiritual things as a hermit alone in the woods. His holiness was noised about and some monks came to him and asked if he would lead them. He was so careful in his monastic observance – and they so lax – that they soon regretted their choice and plotted to kill him with poison, but he was saved by divine intervention. Eventually, he founded his own community and it led to a reform in the whole church. There were other temptations and he overcame them by God’s grace.

If we view our lives as proceeding from point A to point B, it can appear that God is absent until we need him, or until we call. But as the actions of a timeless God in time, God is always present. Benedict was wrestling with God the entire time, not because God was testing him – any more than God was testing Jacob. Benedict did not “win through” to a holy Community or ecclesial reform. Rather through his struggles, God formed a man who could found a holy community and reform the Church. Those struggles were needed exactly to make Benedict into the man God wanted.

So, also, with Jacob. We’ve known it was Jacob whom God wanted from the beginning of his story. But, rather than run away, Jacob has been through a thousand thousand struggles to become the man God needed. God said, You’ve been struggling with me all your life and here you are: blessed.

So many times it can seem as if life just keeps coming at you. Hard, soft, manageable, tough. But there is never a rest. The prayer of the Optina Elders reminds us that every person, every event, every action, every difficulty, every chore, all of it is God acting to make you into the person God wants. We may never know here, but when the final trial comes, it will be the person God wanted standing there. By his grace, by his strength. And you will see God face to face, either to welcome him – as Jacob did – or to reject him.

To be called “Israel” is a blessing.