Each year, at the parish where I (Orin) direct music, the school children attend Mass on what is nicknamed “Spy Wednesday,” Wednesday of Holy Week, because of how Judas and his role in the passion is featured in the Gospel passage of the day. It is in fact the last Mass before the Thursday liturgies of Triduum: Chrism Mass and/or the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
I think, though, that more than the other readings of the day, and more than other psalms, the psalm of the day, part of Psalm 69, is one of my favorites. Here it is, in it’s entirety, as the responsorial psalm from Wednesday’s mass:
R. (14c) Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my mother’s sons,
because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak,
I looked for sympathy, but there was none;
for consolers, not one could I find.
Rather they put gall in my food,
and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving:
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I think what appeals to me about this psalm are two separate yet connected ideas: Our faith as a journey, and prayers of lament.
I think, sometimes, our faith experience as we live it today has lost a sense of lament: a profound expression of sadness and grief. Surely there is some of that sometimes, particularly when dealing with a death of a friend or relative. But, anecdotally, in other instances when one might turn to lament, what I see instead are things like anger, revenge, or simply “fixing” the cause of the lament in convenient but perhaps not the most meaningful of ways. What does that mean? It means instead of turning our sorrow to God, we attempt to alleviate it on our own: by expressing other emotions, by taking actions that are typically sinful and hurtful to others and ourselves, or by engaging in more of a culture which oftentimes seeks instant gratification. (In some ways, we’ve lost definitions and distinctions in and around words and feelings like “love,” “need,” “want,” “desire,” and so on, but that’s probably material for another post someday.)
Lament, even anger at God, is an okay place to be and an okay way to pray. God expects nothing less from our human experiences. God lived those emotions as Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human. Go to God with sorrow, lament, and even anger. Let God speak to you about those things. Let God soothe and console, and even fill the empty places in your heart.
The Psalms of lament, which include Psalm 69 above, always have a moment where the voice of the psalm turns the corner. Note the last verse, which has jumped ahead in the psalm a fair amount: I will praise the name of God… the Lord hears the poor…” God hears us, and our lament, through God, can become joy. God is in the lament, knows the lament, and always wants for us, ultimately, joy. It is up to us, though, in those times, to remember God is with us, and turn to God with our needs.
May Holy Week blessings be with one and all. Orin