Jealousy

Saturday, May 9th, 2020

“When they saw the crowds, the Jews, prompted by jealousy, used blasphemies and contradicted everything Paul said.” Jealousy. That darkly poisonous ooze which haunts our heart and makes us oh so miserable. That in fact is the irony of it: when I consent to me jealous, I do so wanting something which I think will fill a gap in me. Yet in consenting to jealousy, the gap is not filled but widened. If you think you are missing something, jealousy is an effective way to pour petrol on the agony of that fire.

There is another answer: love. St Paul speaks about it in the same liturgy passage today: “I have made you a light for the nations, so that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.’” What St Paul speaks of here is the opposite of jealousy: instead of wanting what the other has, I desire to give to the other what they do not have. And this giving - it is immensely satisfying. Our jealousy is quenched out, blinded with the light of being Christlike to the other. Love, true love: there is true happiness.

Let us pray:

“O God, who in the celebration of Easter

graciously give to the world

the healing of heavenly remedies,

show benevolence to your Church,

that our present observance

may benefit us for eternal life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.”