Reflection: Morning Prayer
(Felix Foko- Cameroon)

The text from Isaiah that we are invited to reflect upon this morning leads us to understand that he is talking about Jesus, the one sent by God to save us. Being alone without sin, he was counted as a sinner. He, the only just one, carried our damnation. Brothers and sisters as I perused this text, two word drew my attention: the suffering of the just one.

The just one in respect to sinners and suffering in respect to happiness. I would like to establish a strong link between these two words and speak about ignorance. Ignorance in my opinion is the greatest human sin, for it remains a mortal danger, the greatest enemy of humankind.

The master of the Order, Fr. Carlos, in his sermon on Sunday drew our attention to the happiness that the prodigal son wanted to experience (Lk. 15) when he asked his father for his inheritance. [In Africa it is scandalous to ask the father for an inheritance as long as he lives. You run the risk of being damned] The prodigal’s bliss turned into suffering. It is from the depth of the pigsty that his eyes will open up to his ignorance, and that he’ll finally understand that there is no joy outside of the father: far from the father there is but misery and suffering.

Suffering also of the elder son who upon his return to the house falls upon a party whose reason he ignored. Soon he becomes aware that the Father, in spite of what the youngest son has done to him, continues to love him, to give him his time and his goods: is that not true love? (1 Cor. 13)

So far the elder son is ignorant about his father’s personality. He has always lived with him but really does not know him. For the Father allows the sun to rise on the sinners and on the just. The Father is the one who allows the rain to fall in the fields of the just as well as the sinners.(Mt. 5:45) The Father is the one who forgives. In fact the elder son, who in my opinion is the real prodigal son, was frustrated. [brothers and sisters I am not presenting a sermon on the prodigal son, but I would like to draw your attention to the infernal circle of suffering for when it attacks somewhere it affects everyone.

The elder son felt excluded from the sharing, excluded from the Father’s love, in fact he even felt rejected. This is where we recognize true suffering. Are we saved from this?

• How many children suffer from the lack of love of their parents? [for example the young woman who drank and went home late?]

• How many men suffer from the loss of their wives?

• How many men and women in the suffering of their stress can no more trust God?

• How many senior citizens suffer rejection from society and even from their descendants?

• How many persons suffer physically, mentally and morally in their body?

• How often do we suffer injustices?

• How often do we suffer from guilt?

• How often do we suffer in our thoughts and even from our silence?

• How often do we suffer from our opinions, our fears, and our doubts?

I would think that we do not suffer to often from all of the above. For all our sufferings touch the heart of God, who also suffers from the ignorance we have of Him. Yes God suffers because of our ignorance of Him.

And yet for each suffering God gives us an answer. The two brothers receive answers to their anguish, their suffering. For the first one God acted very concretely out of love and healed him. In the second case, God heals his ignorance through a word: “Everything I have is yours.” (Lk. 15:31), did you not know this? It is because of your ignorance that you have suffered.

You who today suffer from different ills and from rejection, exclusion, and betrayal... this morning the Father full of love says also to you: “Everything I have is yours, everything I do is for your good, did you not know this?”

Brothers and sisters let doubt our doubts, but let us never doubt God. Remember Jesus who said: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”