April 1/Wednesday of Holy Week
Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak, I looked for sympathy, but there was none;
for consolers, not one could I find.
But I am lowly and in pain; let your salvation, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving. ~ Ps 69.21, 29, 31
Despite our insistence that “everything will work out,” sometimes it’s hard to hang on. We receive a devastating diagnosis. A loved one dies unexpectedly. A longed-for job fails to come through. A troubled relationship falls apart irrevocably. At such times, we may feel desperately alone in our misfortune. Despite our resolve to “suck it up,” the tears may arise anyway, as they do for the psalmist in today’s verses. Weak, alone, “lowly and in pain,” he neither denies the pain nor blames others. He simply voices his sorrow in the equivalent of a good cry. And as he articulates his suffering, his weakness, his loneliness, he makes what some scholars of the Psalms call the “saving turn,” the emotional shift that often occurs in psalms of lament. Amid his pain, our ancient singer casts about and grasps the hope that God will ultimately wipe away his tears, bind up his wounds. The nineteenth-century British Jesuit priest and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, was well-acquainted with the bleakness that can afflict human life. His “terrible sonnets” give voice to its depths: “No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,/More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring./ Comforter, where, where is your comforting?” But comfort is at hand: as lamentation echoes down through the psalm, the LORD hears, and answers, and the psalmist’s wailing is transmuted into a song of praise. If we, too, can place our pangs and forepangs in the wide and merciful embrace of God, we, too, may be consoled. Crying out from the bleakness of our lives and the anguish of our souls, we will come to know that he is with us, comforting us, even in our darkest hours.
Compassionate God, Assuage my grief, ease my pain, and comfort me in times of sadness. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040126.cfm
To hear the EOL Chamber Choir sing John Blow’s “Save Me, O God,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFgFJmnqua4&list=RDTFgFJmnqua4&start_radio=1
