Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - December 3, 2021
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
Some time ago a reflection addressed the question of what use there is in all this praising God, for instance, in the Psalms or at Mass. Basically it expresses our thanksgiving for all that is, including ourselves. As we try to be like the Lord Jesus there is a helpful side effect to this praising and thanking God. Such prayer can take our attention away from ourselves and even about such legitimate things as our growth in likeness to Jesus.
Thinking that our likeness to Jesus must be a matter of daily scrutinizing and new strategies can be another form of self-centeredness. Such me-centered 'striving' risks undervaluing God and grace. Keeping our gaze on God and our tongue in God's praise can give us some peace, strength and deeper trust in God. Spiritual navel gazing which thinks that likeness to Jesus is the result of careful planning in effect ignores God's grace. Advent can fix our attention on Jesus and so open us to deeper transformation into his likeness.
Another effect of training our gaze on God in praise and thanksgiving is that it can displace the time we otherwise so easily spend in judging and criticizing others. One often suggested way to diminish our tendency to judge and criticize is to turn to God with, for instance, a time-honored prayer or mantra: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner." [That is one way of stating the well-known Jesus Prayer which has a very long history in Christian spirituality (Way of a Pilgrim, Anon.) and in literature (Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger.)]
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!”
