COMFORT WITH CLASS - B: 30th Sun in OrdTime

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-9 (24 Oct 2021)

“They had left in tears, I will comfort them as I lead them back; I will guide them to streams of water, by a smooth path where they will not stumble” (Jer 31:9).

These are God’s words of comfort to his people through the prophet Jeremiah. During this time the Israelites had just suffered a devastating catastrophe that occurred on them as a people. In particular, the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrian kings (ca. 722/721 BCE), who “deported the Israelites to Assyria, and settled them in Halah, and at the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities Medes” (2 Kgs 17:6). Previously, they flourished as one nation with the Southern Kingdom during the reigns of King David and King Solomon (cf. 1 Kgs 4–5). But now, they had just been humiliated by their colossal defeat against Gentile invaders.

The text of 2 Kgs 17:7-12 explains why this tragic event transpired: “This came about because the Israelites sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt…. They venerated other gods, they followed the rites of the nations…. They adopted unlawful practices toward the Lord, their God…. They did evil things that provoked the Lord…. Although the Lord had told them: You must not do this.” As a form of punishment for all their sins, God allowed them to succumb to foreign rulers, who enslaved and banished them from their land. All these events tarnished their communal psyche that caused them to lose their confidence as a people.

At the ebbs of their collective self-worth, God promised to deliver them and bring them back to their former glory: “See, I will bring them back from the land of the North and gather them from the far ends of earth; all of them: the blind and the lame, women with child, women in labour: a great company returning here” (Jer 31:8).

God was actually comforting the Israelites here with his platform of ingathering them all from their exile back to their ancestral lands, where they would enjoy once again its streams of water with God as their father (v. 9).

God’s comforting words here are described in the Septuagint with the Greek word paraklesis, which can mean “1. act of emboldening another in belief or course of action, encouragement, exhortation,” “2. strong request, appeal, request,” and “3. lifting of another’s spirits, comfort, consolation.” This word is derived from the verb parakaleo that does not only give comfort to the afflicted but “invite in, conciliate, be friendly to or speak to in a friendly manner” to another (cf. BDAG). The cordial manner of communication behind this verb is the explanation why in Modern Greece today, the Greek word for “please” is parakalo. God’s paraklesis in the Book of Jeremiah, hence, is his message of comfort to those who suffer in a friendly, diplomatic, and fatherly way.

At the threshold of the presidential campaigns for the 2022 presidential elections in the Philippines, candidates are publicizing their platforms of comforts to the Filipino nation that suffers miserably amid the pandemic crisis. But it is important to take note that their manner of communicating matters, too.

Like God, a true leader should comfort his/her people with genuine care, compassion, and concern through sincere yet direct words that show true goodness, diplomacy, and even class.

- Rex Fortes, CM