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| Paul Gauguin’s Vision of the Sermon, Scottish National Gallery |
In last Saturday’s Mass reading we are shown how Jacob deceived his father into giving him the blessing Isaac had wanted to give his eldest son Esau. Because of this stolen blessing Jacob became wealthy and successful, but also made an enemy of his brother.
In today’s first reading, Jacob spends a night wrestling with his conscience, until eventually this inner struggle brings him face to face with God and produces a repentant heart and a plea for God’s true blessing. He becomes a changed man. No longer is he Jacob. Now he becomes Israel.
I remember a talk given by Fr Svet at Medjugorje to english-speaking pilgrims when he spoke of how we are capable of stealing God’s blessing. He particularly mentioned the use of drugs and how some drugs can replicate a “spiritual” state in people, but this was not the way God had intended any of us to reach a state of spiritual happiness. The apparent blessings are counterfeit, stolen, and simply an illusion. But the forbidden fruit to happiness is always there to tempt us.
Jacob came to his father to receive blessings, not as his true self, but disguised as his brother. He received apparent blessings – success and wealth, with wives, slaves and children, but the Lord showed Jacob, who wrestled with himself through the whole night, that the true blessing was being at rights with God and his brother.
This was the first call made by Our Lady at Medjugorje (Gate of Heaven) when she said: “Peace, peace, peace, only peace! Reconcile with God and with each other!”
Just this month she reminds us again of the need to purify our hearts by admitting and confessing our sins. For some of us, this may incur some sleepless nights as we wrestle with our conscience. Our conflict may leave us physically weaker as Jacob was when his wrestling experience left him with a dislocated hip. But our spiritual state and soul will be strengthened and renewed when we submit to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to repent and receive the entitled blessings of the Father in his mercy and love.
