Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - June 20, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
“O Lord, you search me and you know me ... You mark when I walk or lie down, all my ways lie open to you ... where can I go from your spirit? If I climb the heavens, you are there.... For it was you who created my being, knit me together in my mother's womb. I thank you for the wonder of my being, for the wonders of all your creation ... how mysterious your thoughts. If I count them, they are more than the sand; to finish I must be eternal, like you.”
Psalm 139, a very beautiful, moving statement of God's omnipresence, goes on like the above for eighteen verses. Such lines and sentiments make it an immediately appealing Psalm. It reassures us about the closeness of God, how God is present in all of life, everywhere, whenever we call, even before we call.
Then, there's a jarring switch. The Psalmist makes us doubt the wisdom of recommending this Psalm as a prayer. The Psalmist says: “O God, that you would slay the wicked! . . . I hate them with a perfect hate and they are foes to me.” Thoughts of God's all-encompassing presence are erased or at least disturbed by such sentiments. Though this is a shock for the reader consoled by the previous part of the Psalm, it is still fairly restrained compared to other Psalms which go in for more gory cursing of enemies.
This is a problem for anyone who tries to read even a bit in the Scriptures. One way to handle this is to see this as an earlier level in the moral development of human beings. Even more personally we can turn the light inward and recall our own frightening inconsistencies and primitive tendencies. Despite them is the presence of God everywhere. “O Lord, you search me and you know me.”
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
