Please note that this reflection contains a discussion of suicide. Should you need it, the suicide prevention hotline is 1-800-273-8255 and the website for National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.
Reflection by by Emil Moldovan
We all have to face suicide sometimes. Many of us had to walk away from the ledge in quite literal ways. In the scripture today, we hear of Jesus walking away from the ledge in a different sense. The devil offers him a temporary glimpse of untold pleasures and total happiness, but, of course, both the pleasures and the happiness would be limited. If the Lord would have taken up the Devil on his offer, what would have followed is god falling into annihilation and the rest of the world after Him. To Jesus, therefore, the choice was easy. “Away from me, Satan.”
In the second reading we learn that if God would hide his face from us, we would “be like those who go down to the pit.” The contrast is against God’s “unfailing love.” In this Psalm, as in the Gospel, total love and total annihilation go hand in hand. In both of the readings the protagonist, Jesus, in the gospel, and King David, in the psalm, faces a choice, or, said differently, stands between two extreme feelings and is to choose which of those feelings to let come over them.
This is a different kind of choice than usual choices. Usual choices focus on behaviors, do this or do that. But this is more subtle, it is choosing between two different ways of thinking, or, said differently, between holding out the possibility of love in the face of total fear. We know what that feels like today. With COVID raging outsides, or sometimes even in our homes, our “spirit grows faint within me.”
There is an even deeper point these narratives share that tie with our poetic line, “Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences” … noisy silences. Jesus “was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” David, while not explicit about his location nevertheless compares himself to “a parched land.” When we spend time with ourselves for an extended amount of time, we sometimes run into things we do not like. When we listen to the silence in our homes, when our lives slow down, perhaps unwillingly, and we run out of distractions, the forms that arise from our minds may be dark. It may be depression about not having enough friends. It may be distasteful memories about previous medical encounters we have not fully processed. It can be thoughts of what we wished we were, or wanted to do, but couldn’t. All of these are faces of the Devil attacking us in the wilderness.
But what Jesus knows, and David discovers, is that immediately on the other side of that darkness there is a “morning.” Jesus is our light, so he doesn’t have to seek it. Nevertheless, when the devil leaves him, “angels came and attended him.” Both the
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prophet and our God, abruptly, brusquely, switch from gloom to glory. It is important to note the speed at which these texts transition between darkness and light. There are no gradual transitions – both are pivots. This is intentional. “Answer me quickly, Lord.” There are breakthroughs each of us must push through in order to find what is on the other side.
And so we come to suicide, the theme introduced at the beginning. Suicide is a temptation away from life. It is the furthermost point from feeling truly in our lives and when we turn away from it and decide to truly live we discover an almost dizzying effect with which life comes rushing back in. “Our spirits resound with clashings”… these clashings are painful parts of ourselves which hum, unseen, until enough quiet, such as social distancing, shine the spotlight onto what was hiding. The effect, when that first happens, is painful, shocking, “crushes me to the ground.” God is not masochistic. There is a point here. Grit your teeth, because just on the other side of this initial shock there is a whole lot of self to love.
As part of this reflection, write · What are some parts of yourself the COVID-19 crisis has shown to you that you did not want to know about? · What unusual or uncomfortable emotions come up as you are forced to spend more time with yourself that you usually do? · What are some characteristics of your personality that were surprisingly powerful or useful as you transition to “the new normal?” · What pieces of your faith help you discover the patience needed to discover what is on the other side of this crisis?