The Lord is my shepherd; I
shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green
pastures.
He leads me beside still
waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of
righteousness
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you
are with me;
your rod and your staff, they
comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my
enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy
shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord
forever and ever.
Psalm 23
Reflection – The Monday Psalter comes not
a moment too soon this week of rabbits and punchiness, reminding us all in
Psalm 23 of what is the true focus of our life, what really is that important, and the broad and deep
framework into which everything else fits—the Shepherding of God which all
human shepherds from the Pope to the rawest newly ordained priest are merely
imperfect servants of.
I wrote a series
of blog
posts on this
psalm a
couple of years ago, and said quite a few lovely things about it then. What
strikes me about it this time around is that this psalm is a wonderful medicine
against fear, anxiety, discouragement—all the emotions that swirl up in us in
difficult times and make us want to flee from life or give up the struggle.
Psalm 23
perpetually comes to us with a ringing, adamant, and yet very gentle and
tender, poetic and lyrical expression of faith. God is taking care of us; He is
giving us what we need; He is leading us through the dark times; there is
nothing to fear, with Him with us; a table awaits us; we will dwell in His
house forever.
Over and
over again in our life, no matter what the troubles of the day are, or the troubles
in our world, or the troubles in the lives of people we care about, this basic
statement of faith is our sure antidote against fear and despair. In a sense,
this is our first Creed, before we flesh it out with the historical details of how God is with us, how he came to us, how He
is taking care of us, feeding us, leading us—the whole proclamation of Christ
that is found in the various Christian Creeds—in a sense, before all of that,
we have this fundamental statement of faith.
He is with
us. God is good, and He is on the job for us. Trust Him. Follow Him. Keep your
eyes and hearts lifted up to Him. And everything else follows from this. There
is a sort of limpid simplicity to this psalm—it is short enough that a child
can memorize it, the basic concepts are simple enough that anyone can grasp
them, and yet the heights and depths of it take us just about as far as we are
willing to go. It is psalm a mystic can pray, and never feel that he or she has
gotten to the bottom of it, and yet it is given for all of us to pray, and so
set our feet on that right and sure path.
So perhaps
that is enough for today—I’ve been blogging a lot this week, and rather
heavily. But it is awfully important for us, especially when we are struggling
with this or that dimension of life or the Church or the world or whatever it
is, to return to this fundamental proclamation of faith—the Lord is my
shepherd; I shall want for nothing. Amen.
It is always good to reflect on this psalm----and trust that God our Heavenly father and Jesus the good shepherd are taking care of us...Our job is to trust-----
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