14 August 2019
Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are usually considered the most important books of the Old Testament. Yet, as important as these books are, they do not end with the triumphal entrance into the promised land. Instead, they end on the brink. Deuteronomy’s final chapter describes the death of Moses, the period of mourning, and the installation of Joshua as the leader of the people.
This is a case of judicious restraint. When Moses died, the people could have broke for it. The promised land was in sight. They could have set off on their own for the land flowing with milk and honey. Instead, they chose to mourn for Moses for thirty days (cf. Dt 34:8) after his burial. Many Jews, to this day, observe a similar period of mourning for their beloved dead, lasting thirty days, called sheloshim, which means thirty.
What we see at the end of Deuteronomy is judicious restraint. The milk and the honey can wait. Already the Hebrews had been waiting forty years, learning the hard way that are more important things than milk and honey. That is a lesson which we can all stand to consider. To hold ourselves back from the delights of this earth, from time to time, is a good idea, especially as a manifestation of grief.
And what greater grief can there be, especially for someone who has completed the first week of the Spiritual Exercisesof St. Ignatius Loyola, than the grief of sin? Hence the second prelude of the second exercise of the first week: “This is to ask for what I desire. Here it will be to ask for a growing and intense sorrow and tears for my sins” (SpEx 55). Most of us, according to the mind of St. Ignatius, need to exercise ourselves to become more sorrowful for our sins. And what better exercise than to show some restraint like the Hebrews did after the death of Moses? The milk and the honey can wait.