17 June 2021

Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

As an English teacher, I ask my sophomore students to read Shakespeare’s Othello, which is a chilling meditation on the disastrous effects of human jealousy. In the play, the devious Iago, who is himself consumed with jealousy, spins a web of lies that entraps the noble Othello and poisons him against his faithful wife, Desdemona, until he eventually kills her. In today’s first reading (2 Cor 11:1-11), Saint Paul speaks of—and displays—a different kind of jealousy, “the jealousy of God.” While it might seem an odd image on the surface, deep down it is a beautiful analogy. God loves us and is jealous of us as a devoted husband is of his bride. Unlike the tragic Othello, however, God’s jealousy for us does not lead to madness, anger, and the destruction of the beloved; rather, it leads to our redemption through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the Cross. Rather than punish us in his jealousy, God chose to win us back by taking the punishment on himself.

Today, let us meditate on the jealousy of God for us, and marvel at the depth and radicality of a love that gives itself so completely in order to win us back.