Lent is a time for examining our conscience, and so the Church give us the gift of the story of Jospeh and his expensive coat.
Joseph is the favorite, and so his father buys him a really nice coat. And when his brothers see the coat and realize he is their father’s favorite, the green eyes monster known as jealousy gushes through their veins. “They hated him so much,” we read “that they would not even greet him.” “Who does his think he is?” They said to themselves. “The Master Dreamer!” So they set out to kill him, and they stole his coat.
Pope Francis speaks eloquently about the jealous heart. He calls it "a bitter heart, a heart that instead of blood seems to have vinegar. It is a heart that is never happy.” All violence, conflict and discord, the Holy Father reminds us, begin with the embrace of jealousy. He goes on, “War does not begin on the battlefield: wars begin in the heart, with this misunderstanding, division, envy, with this fighting among each other.”*
Sometimes, we are jealous. Lotsa times, we are jealous. “Who does she think she is?” “Mrs. Astor on a high horse?” “God’s gift to mankind?” And him! “The King of the world?” “God Almighty?” “The know-it-all!”
So we kill him. Or at least we talk behind his back, and refuse to speak to him. Treating him as a thing to be envied. And not a person to love.
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* Pope Francis in General Audience, October 29, 2017.
