Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, priest

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092711.cfm

Many peoples and strong nations shall come
to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem
and to implore the favor of the LORD.

We have preached the doctrine of God’s availability so often and with such conviction people sometimes suppose that God is just as reliable as gravity. His love and mercy are mechanical; ask for it and Bingo! You’ve got it!

But the scriptures also tell us to “seek the Lord.” Perhaps the Lord is more like water or wind. Sometimes the well is dry; sometimes the wind doesn’t blow. With inadequate words we try to understand God and we say God is like a person, with free will and self-determination. You can’t just go through life blithely ignoring God’s invitations and challenges and count His being there for you on your deathbed. There are two in this conversation, and both are free to enter or withdraw from it. 

And so we “seek the Lord.” In today’s gospel we hear of Jesus’ setting his face for Jerusalem. He will seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and there he will implore the favor of the Lord. 

Jesus explained why he was going to Jerusalem -- “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” -- but his disciples had a hard time getting it. 
Why would anyone seek the Lord in suffering, rejection and death? Is it because we often find him there? 


I was hit by a truck during Lent of 1993. I wrote the following of my experience: 

I holy weeked in a hospital bed
And saw the services
From below the surface of my suffering
Through the television;
I wondered at those men
Who walked on the dry land of comfort,
Who sang songs
And read readings
And kissed crosses,
But could not call to me
Beneath the surface of my suffering.
They seemed like men on an island
-- or a continent –-
in the middle of a continent --
far from the vast waters of pain
that gird our world, that washed over me.

Our Earth, they say, should be called “Water”
And our lives should be called “Pain”;
But we spend most of our lives
On the dry land of comfort
Hardly aware of those who
Lie beneath the surface of their suffering
And gaze on us with glassy eyes.

We often prefer not to find God where we are, in our pain, frustration or disappointment, until Jesus teaches us to seek the Lord even in Jerusalem.