Today's responsorial psalm conveys a message of patience and courage. What seems to us a very, very long time is not so to God since He is eternal. His plans are flexible enough to take into account the evil in the world and the good to be found in those who, realizing their need for God, turn to him in a movement of conversion and renewal.

Renewal is necessary. The reading from Genesis puts before us a stark picture of the disruption to society and the damage to human relationships caused by breaking with God. Fear, anxiety and shame follow on sin. Loving partnership between men and women turns to domination. Even the human relationship with the fruitful earth is weakened. The Genesis story is not only a story from the past, it is a story retold whenever and wherever sin occurs.

Yet in the midst of this disruption there are seeds of hope. The earth still continues to produce but not without labour. The human race remains faithful but not without pain. Intriguingly it is suggested by the Genesis story that by the labour and frustration involved in working with a recalcitrant world, we will be saved from the arrogance consequent upon an unchallenged sense of superiority. Have we been expelled from a Garden of Ease into a world of Toil so as to save us from the danger of pride?