From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts–
- Lord, you will show us the path of life.
v.1 Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge;
v.2 I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.”
v.5 O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,
you it is who hold fast my lot. - Lord, you will show us the path of life.
v.7 I bless the LORD who counsels me;
even in the night my heart exhorts me.
v.8 I set the LORD ever before me;
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. - Lord, you will show us the path of life.
v.9 Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in confidence;
v.10 because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption. - Lord, you will show us the path of life.
v.11 You will show me the path to life,
abounding joy in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever. - Lord, you will show us the path of life.
Psalm for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, which immediately follows our first reading from Acts, where Peter has quoted from it.
When we gather for worship on a Sunday (or for daily Mass, for that matter) the single, most-used book of Scripture, week-in, week-out, year-in, year-out, is Psalms. It is not even close. We divide our readings among 4 different Gospels. We duck in and out of many books of the Old Testament, ignoring large portions of many of them most of the time. We do read practically every word of the various letters in the New Testament, but rotate in and out of them, giving a few Sundays to this one and then on to another and another over a span of 2 or three years.
A portion from Psalms, though, is part of every liturgy of the word. More than that, the Psalms are quoted or echoed in almost every other book of Scripture, Old or New Testament. Beyond reading them through, psalms are sung as part of many services of worship, and they are the basis for many other hymns. In the Gospels we find Jesus quotes from Psalms more than any other book.
With good reason. Consider: how were you taught the alphabet? Can you simply repeat those 26 letters straight through with no errors? Yes, you probably can, they are so engrained. But can you repeat them for your child without hearing the singsong “A-B-C-D, E-F-G…” humming along in the background of your mind? That’s how they were engrained, that’s why they are so unforgettable. We learned a little singsong ditty and thereby unlocked a lifetime ability to read and write, ways of learning and communicating with those around us.
Similarly, as the Lord knows, song is the best way to teach us the things of God. Psalms (which simply means “Songs”) are allusive, intuitive, and carry meaning by flashes of insight rather than through strict logic. Psalms are theology for all of us everyday men and women who will never be academic theological geniuses. Psalms are not dry or stale. They breathe sublime thoughts, they are full of passion, anguished upsets, calming moments, hard challenges, bitter truths, beauties that can entrance or stab us with pain. In fact, a single psalm may hit 3 or 4 of these contradictory-seeming notes in a few verses, just as we do in a single conversation. They ring emotionally true to the kind of beings we are—human but wounded. They present us with the full spectrum of relationships with God. They are not walled off from any human concern.
In our first reading, Peter quotes verses 8-11 of Psalm 16 above to show that Jesus was not abandoned in death, did not stay in the tomb for a corrupting fourth day, but returned to show “the path of life” to Peter, the disciples, and all of us. The faith that Jesus had in his Father is now open to everyone, and we can go forward confidently no matter what our future in this life may hold. For the Father’s love offers us life beyond this life, life beyond death, to be sure that justice and mercy are always—always—served.
Read and re-read the psalm; murmur it to yourself as often as you have done in the past with a popular song. Let that theology, that “God-word,” soak into you as you pull up the covers at the end of another difficult day. As the song says (v.7), the Lord (understood as now present within your heart) will counsel you, even through the night.
For further reflection:
The Psalms were the song book of the Israelites. Everyone grew up knowing how to sing them simply by singing along with family members on visits to the temple or the synagogue or at their own family table. Naturally, this flowed over into the earliest Christian communities and their liturgies. As is always the case, few became teachers, fewer became theological experts, but God wants everyone to have ways of understanding and getting closer to the Truth, His Son, the Savior. There are Psalms that apply or come to life in any and all life circumstances. They recognize all human dilemmas and all human emotions (even ones we find unworthy or hard to imagine of ourselves or of our Lord!). Why not make an effort to begin to get acquainted with all of them? Try one a day, noting down or underlining key lines or verses that seem to speak most directly or deeply to you. Bracket passages that seem too harsh or difficult–give yourself plenty of time to wrestle with them and question God about them.
Do not neglect regular reading of the rest of the Bible. Stepping back, all Scripture is of a piece, and what is absorbed about one part of it will help penetrate all the rest of it.