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Commentary on Ezekiel 18:1-10,13,30-32

As stated in the First Reading, there was a saying among the Israelites that the prophet quotes:

The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.

In addition to today’s reading, we can also find the saying in Jeremiah (31:29). The meaning was clear enough—whatever wrongs the ancestors had done, their offspring would pay the penalty. We see that the idea was still prevalent in the time of Jesus. One day as he walked along, Jesus saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him:

Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? (John 9:2)

To which Jesus replied:

Neither…(John 9:3)

However, both Jeremiah and Ezekiel (not to mention Jesus) reject the idea. Jeremiah says:

But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of the one who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. (Jer 31:30)

While Ezekiel, quoting Yahweh, says:

As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins who shall die.

In other words, if any people suffered (as the Israelites were suffering under Nebuchadnezzar at this time), the blame could not be put at the door of their parents or grandparents. Everyone is responsible for the effects of their own wrongdoing, then “only the person who sins shall die”.

There then follows a list of actions which can be expected from the virtuous, actions which were constantly violated by the inhabitants of Jerusalem. These violations led eventually to the utter destruction of their city and its Temple and their being either slaughtered or carried away to Babylon in exile.

Among the good things listed are:

• Not eating on the mountains. This referred to performing idolatrous rituals on the shrines in the mountains.
• Not raising their eyes to the pagan idols, which Israel was now worshipping.
• Not having adulterous relations with a neighbour’s wife.
• Not having sexual relations with a woman during her menstruation. (Contact with blood was always forbidden to the Jews.)
• Not oppressing people.
• Giving back a pledge which had been offered when money was paid back after a loan.
• Not committing robbery.
• Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked
• Not lending at interest or demanding extra payment for a loan.
• Judging fairly in a dispute between two people.
• Living by Yahweh’s statutes and observing his ordinances.

Such a person (irrespective of how badly a predecessor behaved) is a good person and will surely live.

On the other hand (again irrespective of how well a predecessor behaved), if a person violates all these things, he shall surely die:

…he shall surely be put to death; his blood shall be upon himself.

The reading concludes by Yahweh’s saying that he will judge:

…all of you according to your ways…

We are then urged to turn away from and be converted from all wrongdoing, and there will be no reason to find a person guilty in any way.

…get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!…For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.

Perhaps we do not exactly think like the Israelites of those days did, but how many times have we been guilty of laying the blame for things we did on other people—”you made me do it!” There is in our society a strong tendency to find scapegoats, or to concentrate certain areas of wrongdoing on one or a small group of people.

Today’s reading reminds us that we are wholly responsible for the guilt of our wrongdoing, but at the same time let us hear again those words of the Lord in today’s reading:

I have no pleasure in the death of anyone…

And Jesus told us:

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
(John 10:10)

Let us open ourselves to receiving that life.

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Commentary on Matthew 18:21—19:1

The last part of Matthew‘s discourse on the church is about forgiveness. This is not unconnected with the previous section on excommunicating the unrepentant brother or sister. As soon as a brother or sister does repent, there must be forgiveness—not once but indefinitely—”seventy-seven times”.

The reason is given in the parable which Jesus speaks about the two servants in debt. The one who had a huge debt to the king was forgiven, but then refused to forgive a relatively trivial debt to a fellow servant. Understand that ten thousand talents then would be the equivalent of hundreds of millions in a major currency today, and the 300 denarii would have been the equivalent of about three months’ wages.

In the gospel, the ones with the big debt to the king are clearly ourselves; the ones with the small debts to us are our brothers and sisters.

We do not expect God to forgive us once or twice or any limited number of times, but every time. It is nowhere written that we have, say, only ten chances of going to confession and, once our quota is used up, there is nothing left. But if that is true of our relationship with God, it also has to be true in our relationships with others. We can never refuse an offer of reconciliation. And, we might add, forgiveness is much easier to fully complete when reconciliation has taken place.

This is not at all the same as turning a blind eye to wrongdoing. Yesterday’s text made that very clear. We are talking about healing divisions between people; we must never put obstacles in the way of that.

We have now come to the end of this discourse indicated by the first sentence of chapter 19:

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.

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Commentary on Ezekiel 12:1-12

The mime of the emigrant

Ezekiel is instructed by God to go through an elaborate mime as a message to his people to warn them of the coming deportation of the people of Jerusalem into exile in Babylon.

The people are described by God as rebels, as people who have eyes but do not see, have ears but do not hear, because they do not want to. Jesus will use similar terms in speaking of the people who refused to listen to him. He will quote from Isaiah, who received these instructions from Yahweh when he was being called as a prophet:

Go and say this to the people:
Listen carefully but you will not understand!
Look intently, but you shall know nothing!
You are to make the heart of this people sluggish,
to dull their ears and close their eyes;
else their eyes will see, their ears hear,
their heart understand,
and they will turn and be healed.

(Isaiah 6:9-10; cf. Matt 13:14-15)

Ezekiel is told to pack up all his things like a person leaving home and going off into distant exile. Maybe when the people see him doing this its meaning will begin to dawn on them and they will realise that it is pointing to their rebellious behaviour.

The packing is to done by day in the sight of all but then he is to slip out in the evening but in such a way that he is seen as leaving covertly. He is to leave in darkness, through a hole in the mud wall of his house. His face is to be covered so that he cannot see the countryside which he is entering. All this is to make Ezekiel, the Lord’s prophet, a symbol or sign for what is going to happen to Israel.

Ezekiel did everything just as the Lord had commanded in full sight of the people. (We need to remember that he was a prophet and people would wonder about the significance of his rather strange actions.)

The following morning God again spoke to Ezekiel. When the people ask the prophet what is the meaning of what he is doing, they are to be told that the oracle (the mime is understood as having a message from God) is directed against the people of Jerusalem and the whole of Israel everywhere.

The meaning of Ezekiel’s mime is then clearly spelt out. The people will go into exile and banishment and King Zedekiah (“their ruler”) will carry his own belongings and go through a hole in the city wall; his face will be covered so that he will not be able to see the country.

In fact, Nebuchadnezzar will come and destroy Jerusalem and the people will be brought off into exile to Babylon. During the siege of the city, King Zedekiah and his army will try to escape through a breach in the city walls. But he was captured by the Babylonians and brought to Riblah. There his two sons were killed in his presence and then his eyes were put out before he was brought off to Babylon (see 2 Kings 25). The king’s blindness is a symbol of the blindness of the whole people.

In the Gospel Jesus frequently is seen healing the blind (those who cannot see) and the deaf (those who cannot hear) and the mute (those who cannot speak). These are afflictions all of us can suffer from and prevent us from knowing and carrying out what God wants in our lives.

Let us ask today for healing and docility to God’s will for us. “Lord, that I may see!”

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Commentary on Matthew 18:15-20

Today’s part of the ‘discourse on the church’ shifts from the harm that we can do to others, to the harm that others can do to the community, and how the community and its members should respond. Clearly we are speaking here of some serious wrong which hurts the mission of the Church community.

The wrongdoer is to be tackled on three levels, and this reflects what has just gone before about bringing back the sheep which is lost. Reconciliation, not punishment, is the objective.

If the wrong directly affects one person, then that person or another should go along to the wrongdoer privately and try to help the individual change their ways. If this works, then that is the end of the matter. However, if the wrongdoer will not listen, then one or two others who are also aware of the wrongdoing should be brought along as corroboration. This is based on a passage from Deuteronomy:

A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained. (Deut 19:15)

If the wrongdoer remains obstinate in the face of this evidence, then the whole community is to be brought in. And if in the face of the whole community, there is still no sign of repentance, then the person is to be expelled and treated like a “gentile and a tax collector”, in other words, as a total outsider. The tax collectors were among the most despised people in the community. They were local people employed by Roman tax contractors to collect taxes for them. Because they worked for Rome and often demanded unreasonable payments (they had to make a profit!), they gained a bad reputation and were generally hated and considered traitors to their own people and their religion.

The word Matthew uses for ‘community’ here is ‘church’, ekklesia or, in Hebrew, qahal, which refers to the gathering of a Christian community. As mentioned earlier, this is only one of two places where this term is used in the Gospels (the other is Matt 16:18).

Jesus now goes further in saying that all such decisions by the community have God’s full endorsement:

…whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. [i.e. by God]

Jesus also tells them:

…if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

This mandate seems to be given to the community as a whole and not just to specific individuals.

It would be worth our while going carefully through this text and see how it applies to our church situation today. To what extent do we feel responsible for the wrongdoings of our fellow-Christians? To what extent do we realise that our behaviour, both as individuals and groups, reflects on the overall witness that the Church is called to give as the Body of Christ? Do people clearly see the message of the Gospel from the way we live both individually and corporately?

While, on the one hand, we are told to be compassionate and non-judgmental, are we over-tolerant of people in the community who believe that anything they do is just their own business? Every Christian community has a solemn responsibility to give witness to the vision of life that Jesus gave to us. There have then to be standards of behaviour which bind all. Moments of weakness can be and should be treated with compassion, but deliberate and continued flouting of our central commitment to truth, love, justice and so on cannot be overlooked or allowed to undermine the central mission of the Christian community to be a sacrament of the Kingdom. It is not a question of image but of our integrity.

What has all this to do with the way we use the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and what is the relationship of the sacrament to this passage? The passage is closely linked with what Jesus says about the problem of giving scandal, of being a stumbling block in people coming to Christ. At the same time, as tomorrow’s passage will indicate, the long-term aim—above all—is not punishment, but reconciliation and healing of divisions.

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Commentary on Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22

Today’s reading is in two parts:

1. Slaughter of idolaters (chap 9);
2. God’s glory leaves the Temple (chap 10).

It is another apocalyptic-style account using very symbolic language in which God’s punishment comes on all those who have sinned.

As Ezekiel listens, there comes the thundering voice of God. He is calling on the “executioners of the city”, that is, those who are to inflict punishment on wrongdoers.

Immediately six men are seen coming from the gate on the north side of Jerusalem, each one armed with a deadly weapon, a war-club or a battle-axe. In their midst is another man, dressed in white and with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt. Clearly the latter is the one who keeps a record of people’s doings. These are the six guardian angels of the city, with the seventh dressed in linen. They correspond to the seven angels of the judgement in the Book of Revelation (8:2,6).

They stop in front of the bronze altar in the Temple. Now the glory of the Lord, traditionally understood as seated on the cherubim (in the Holy of Holies), moves towards the Temple threshold. God is leaving the Temple.

He gives instructions to the man in white. He is to put a mark on the foreheads of all those who deplore the idolatrous practices that are going on. These are the faithful remnant of God’s people. The mark was a taw, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which looks like an “x” (and so translated as “cross”). The rest were to be mercilessly struck down. (The text does not indicate that anyone was, in fact, found worthy to be marked with a taw, but it would indicate the remnant that was spared to return from exile.)

Ezekiel is the preeminent prophet of personal and individual retribution. The innocent inhabitants of Jerusalem are to be spared, while those guilty of idolatry are punished. With other prophets, the whole community, the innocent along with the guilty, may be punished.

The punishment begins right at the entrance to the Temple where God’s people are, and begins with the eldest and excludes none – old men, youths and maidens, women and children. The Temple is to become defiled with the corpses of people who are unclean. It does not matter because Yahweh is no longer there.

In the second part of the reading, Yahweh leaves his sanctuary. Riding as usual on the cherubim, he leaves the Temple by the east gate. The east gate was the main ceremonial entrance into the Temple and was also known as “gate of the house of the Lord”. It overlooked the Kidron Valley towards the Mount of Olives.

Now Yahweh has left Jerusalem and the Temple. The prophet says that:

The cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight as they went out with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

For us Christians, God is never confined to one place. He is everywhere and we are urged to seek and find him in all things. We do not seek him in a temple. On the contrary, we are called to be his temple, the place where he is present. We can, however, expel him from our hearts and bring ruin on ourselves just as the people of Jerusalem did. The choice is ours.

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Commentary on Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14

Today we come to the fourth of the five discourses which are the distinctive characteristic of Matthew’s Gospel. This one focuses on the Church (and is called the “Discourse on the Church”), the Christian community, and in particular the relationships among its members.

The reading begins with Jesus asking the question:

Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

By implication, this question is asking about the greatest in the Christian community—a sign of the Kingdom.

Jesus answers the question very simply by putting a child in front of his disciples. To become the greatest is to become a small child.

Why? Children have many precious qualities. They are born free of prejudice and they are totally open to learning. It is these qualities, which we tend to lose as we grow up, that we need to enter the Reign of God. We need to be totally open and free of prejudice when it comes to listening to God, and to allow ourselves to be fully teachable, malleable and flexible. Then we will be ready to receive everything that God wants us to have, and to become everything God wants us to become. Furthermore, to welcome a person who has these qualities in Jesus’ name is to welcome Christ himself.

From that the Gospel moves on to another related consideration. It skips a passage which deals with those who cause others to fall into sin and the kind of punishment such people deserve. Instead, it moves from children to the “little ones”. The “little ones” are not just children, but the weaker ones in the community, and they may be adults. But they are the ones who can very easily be led astray by the bad example which others give. And there are severe penalties for doing this (which are mentioned in the omitted passage).

This is emphasised by the parable of the lost sheep. God is compared to a shepherd who has lost just one sheep out of a hundred. When he finds it again he is happier than over the other ninety-nine which have not strayed. Such, the Gospel concludes:

So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

How terrible, then, if one of us is responsible for someone being separated from God forever! Sadly, sometimes it feels like that happens quite a lot in our society and in our Church.

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Commentary on Matthew 17:22-27

For the second time Jesus warns his disciples about what is to come: his suffering, death and resurrection. Once again the word ‘delivered’ or ‘handed over’ (Greek, emiparadidomi) is used. It is a refrain running right through the Gospel—applied to John the Baptist, to Jesus, to the disciples, and to the giving of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist.

We are told that the disciples are overwhelmed with grief over what Jesus says. Whether that is purely out of sorrow for Jesus or whether it represents their disillusionment, is hard to say. This was not the kind of end they were expecting to the coming of the Messiah.

The second part of today’s reading is a peculiar scene, only to be found in Matthew. The collectors of the temple tax want to know whether Jesus pays it or not. Peter assures them that he does.

But on entering the house (there is that anonymous ‘house’ again, which seems to symbolise the Church or the Christian community), Jesus asks Peter (though, interestingly, he calls him by his old name ‘Simon’):

What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?

In other words, from whom do they collect taxes, from their subjects, or from foreigners? Peter replies:

From others…

And, in fact, the Romans did collect taxes from their colonised peoples and not from their own citizens.

In that case, Jesus says, the sons—that is, he and his disciples—should be exempt from paying the temple tax. After all, the Temple is God’s house, and Jesus is his Son, and his disciples are his brothers, sons of the same Father.

But to avoid giving scandal and misunderstanding, Peter is told to catch a fish in whose mouth he will find a shekel, enough to pay taxes for both of them. A half shekel was levied each year on all Jewish males of 20 years or older. It was for the upkeep of the Temple. A half shekel at this time was roughly equivalent to two days’ wages.

This passage seems to reflect a dilemma of the early Church, in fact, a double dilemma. Should Christians who are Jews continue to pay the temple tax? And, should Christians in general have to pay tax to a pagan government, especially one whose emperor claims to be a deity?

The first dilemma solved itself in time, especially with the destruction of the Temple (which had already taken place when Matthew’s Gospel was written). The second dilemma took longer. The problem seems to have been solved by the principle laid down elsewhere by Jesus:

Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. (Matt 22:21)

We too have to discern what is legitimately required of us by our governments and make our contribution to the needs of our society while, at the same time, not compromising on issues where universal principles of truth and justice are at stake. Civil disobedience is sometimes not only a right, but also a responsibility.

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Commentary on Ezekiel 1:2-5,24-28

Today we begin reading from the prophet Ezekiel. The language is often very apocalyptic in style and full of symbolism. His special contribution to the prophetic tradition was through his interest in the Temple and liturgy. He also had a great influence on the period after the Exile, when the refugee Jews returned to Jerusalem. He has been called the “father of Judaism”.

Ezekiel became a prophet in Babylon, as a member of the first group of exiles deported by King Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC. He was the first to receive the prophetic call outside of Israel. His first task was to prepare his fellow countrymen in Babylon for the final destruction of Jerusalem—which they believed God would not allow to happen. But Ezekiel reproached Israel for its sinful and idolatrous behaviour, and foretold more destruction and a second and more complete deportation into exile for the people of Jerusalem. All of which, of course, happened in 587 BC. But after this event, just as Jeremiah had believed, Ezekiel thought that the exiles were the hope of Israel’s restoration, once God’s allotted time for the exile had been accomplished and they could return to Jerusalem.

Today’s reading begins by introducing Ezekiel in the third person. The time of this first vision is dated as the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile in Babylon (593-92 BC). The name Ezekiel means “God is strong”, or “God strengthens”, or “God makes hard” in different contexts of the book. The prophet, like Jeremiah, belonged to a priestly family. (Note that the ‘el’ in a Hebrew name refers to God. For example, the names of the archangels are Micha-el, Gabri-el and Rapha-el.)

Ezekiel, still being spoken of in the third person, says:

…the hand of the Lord was on him there.

This phrase is repeated six times in the book, and indicates a powerful experience of God revealing himself in a vision.

The experience described here in part is called the “Chariot of Yahweh”. Its central message is that God transcends any specific place. He is not, as the tradition held, tied to the Temple in Jerusalem, but can be with his people in their exile (as he was with them in their journey through the desert during the Exodus). This is a breakthrough which will be picked up by the people of the New Testament and emphasised by Paul.

The vision begins with the words, “As I looked”. The symbols at the opening of the vision all speak of the presence and power of God: the stormy wind, the great cloud surrounded by light, the fire with flashes of lightning looking:

…like gleaming amber, something that looked like fire enclosed all around…

In the centre appear what seem to be four animals in human form. ‘Four’ represents completeness as also seen elsewhere in the Old Testament by the image of four directions and four quarters of the earth. The idea appears several times in this chapter and over 40 times in the whole book.

The four creatures (which are later referred to as “cherubim”) attend on God’s throne. Here they represent God’s creation. In our reading their detailed description has been omitted, but the four separately symbolise:

•”humanity” – God’s appointed ruler of creation (see the creation story in Genesis);

•the “lion” – the strongest of wild animals;

•the “ox” – the most powerful of domestic animals;

•the “eagle” – the greatest of the birds.

They will appear again in the Book of Revelation, and are commonly depicted in medieval art where they represent the four evangelists (Matthew the man; Mark the lion; Luke the ox; and John the eagle).

Above the vault over the heads of the cherubim was a sapphire shaped like a throne on which sat “something that seemed like a human form”. This is the prophet’s way of describing God, but he is careful not to say that he saw God directly—no one could see God and live.

Again from his loins upward and downward, the figure like a man was surrounded by fire:

…and there was a splendor all around. Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around.

To the prophet it all spoke of the glory and presence of the Lord, and he fell to the ground in adoration. The glory of Yahweh is often described in the Bible as a bright cloud (e.g. the pillar of cloud with the Exodus people, and Jesus covered by a cloud during the Transfiguration). Also, after his resurrection, Jesus ascends into a cloud—that is, into the presence of his Father (see Acts 1:9).

What is significant here is that for so many centuries God’s glory and presence had been linked to the Temple in Jerusalem. But now the Temple is far away and God is with his people in their Babylonian exile. This is a major theme in the first half of Ezekiel’s message. This is a foretaste of the presence of God through Jesus and, through the Spirit, in the Church, where God’s people become his temple.

Spirituality in later times will also constantly find the glory of God in all of creation. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” God is always with us revealing his truth, goodness and beauty to us. It is for us to open our eyes and learn to see. We may not have apocalyptic visions like Ezekiel, but we are surrounded by dazzling beauty if only we would look.

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Commentary on Proverbs 3:27-34

Today we return to the Old Testament and begin reading from some of the so-called “Wisdom” books. This week we will be reading selections from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. The books consist of a series of ‘wise sayings’ emanating from the educated and leading class of the Jewish people in the period following the return from exile in Babylon. These books are quite different in style from the prophets, and tend to deal with the behaviour of individuals and close relationships and right thinking. They have relatively little to say about abuses against injustice—a major concern of the prophets we have been reading in recent weeks.

The Book of Proverbs is a collection of moral and religious instruction given to young Jews by learned teachers. Proverbs is the most typical example of a ‘wisdom’ book in the Old Testament (compare with Job and Ecclesiastes). Its emphasis is on moral probity based on religion. Proverbs teaches that reward and punishment follow in this life. It appeals to the lessons of experience, rather than to revelation, and it contains a brief, but significant exploration of the nature of wisdom and of wis­dom’s relation to God.

Today’s reading touches on relations with the ‘neighbour’. In the Old Testament, ‘neighbour’ originally referred to a person who was close to one in some way as a friend or associate. In general, it included those who shared one’s culture and religion. However, in Proverbs it has the wider meaning as expressed by the term ‘fellow-man’.

We are in the first stage of broadening the concept of those to whom we owe love and respect. Jesus will give the word a universal meaning with his parable of the Good Samaritan, and the injunction to love all—including enemies.

Today, Proverbs says we ought to extend help to any brother or sister whenever they are in genuine need. Later, we read in the First Letter of John:

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?…let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. (1 John 3:17-18)

And we read in the Letter of James:

If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? (James 2:15-16)

At the same time, we are told never to make evil plans against another unsuspecting person. We should not pick a quarrel with someone who has done nothing against us.

In general, we are never to imitate people of violence. The apparent prosperity of violent people and other enemies of God’s people was always seen as a threat to their fidelity to Yahweh. Later, it would even become a serious theological problem. So much so that Jeremiah asks the Lord:

Why does the way of the guilty prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive? (Jer 12:1)

And Job asks:

Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power? (Job 21:7)

These are questions we can be tempted to ask in our own day.

However, immoral behaviour is something which can never be condoned by God. God abhors pagan practices and all forms of moral abuse. On the other hand, with the Lord:

…the upright are in his confidence.

All of this we can find spelt out much more clearly in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. Jesus at the Last Supper will tell his disciples that they are his friends:

I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. (John 15:15)

Says Proverbs:

The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked,
but he blesses the abode of the righteous.
Toward the scorners he is scornful,
but to the humble he shows favor.

The arrogant will get their comeuppance, but God’s grace flows into the heart of the humble.

It is important that we do not read these words as indicating a vindictive God who clobbers the wrongdoers and rewards the good. God has no need to intervene directly. A life that is objectively and subjectively evil may bring wealth, material success and power, but it is most unlikely to bring the more precious gifts of inner peace and harmony between God and one’s brothers and sisters.

On the other hand, the truly good person, even though his life on the surface may seem to be one of hardship, experiences a peace and strength that no adversity can take away.