Vindicate me, O Lord, for I
have walked in my integrity,
and I have trusted in the
Lord without wavering.
Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
test my heart and my mind.
For your steadfast love is
before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.
I do not sit with men of
falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites.
I hate the assembly of
evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.
I wash my hands in innocence and
go around your altar, O Lord,
proclaiming thanksgiving
aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.
O Lord, I love the habitation
of your house and the place where your glory dwells.
Do not sweep my soul away
with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men,
in whose hands are evil
devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes.
But as for me, I shall walk
in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me.
My foot stands on level
ground; in the great assembly I will bless the Lord.
Psalm 26
Reflection – The Monday Psalter delivers
up to us today for the first time a certain genre of psalm that poses a very
specific problem for us in prayer. Namely, the psalm that loudly and long
proclaims the total innocence and uprightness of the psalmist, on account of
which the Lord simply must deliver him from harm and take care of him.
This is, of
course a great challenge for us who know very well that we are not quite so
innocent, that we do not always walk in integrity, trust without wavering, and
all those other good things the psalmist most sincerely claims for himself
here. Alas, sometimes yes, sometimes no, and so we have (among other things)
the sacrament of reconciliation to cleanse us of sin.
Well, what
are we to do with this psalm, then? Ignore it? Edit it from future editions of
the Bible? Scoff at it, deconstruct it, implicitly or explicitly deny that it
is an inspired text just as much as ‘the Lord is my shepherd’ or ‘Praise the
Lord, all you nations, acclaim Him all you people’—the psalms, in other words,
that may flow more readily from our mouths?
The Church
has never seen fit to do that, and indeed Psalm 26 appears in its allotted
place in the Liturgy of the Hours, the second psalm of Friday Daytime Prayer,
Week One. It is a psalm, in fact, that lends itself to corporate liturgical
prayer more than private recitation, perhaps, and in that calls us to a
contemplation of some fairly deep theological and spiritual truths.
Of course we
have to start with Christ in this. He, along with His Mother, is the One who
prays this psalm without reservations or complications. He is the integrated
one, the faithful one, the innocent one, and so this psalm first pulls us into
the very prayer of Jesus Christ to God His Father. The only way we can really
pray this psalm is to pray it as an expression of our unity with and in Jesus.
But this,
then, means that this psalm (which most of us probably are hardly aware of and
certainly don’t count as one of our favourites) factually pulls us right into
the internal dialogue of the Trinity. It is a very human earthy psalm—as always
there are enemies about, and the wicked, and it is all very much a psalm set in
the battlefield of the world. But in that—and in the fact that God the Son
became an earthy man and entered that battlefield—the very life of the Trinity,
the ineffably mysterious and unknowable inner being of God is made present to
us.
And when we come together as the Church, not as simple individuals with our
own struggles and failures, sins and virtues, but as the Body of believers,
this psalm does become ours indeed, and in fact without reservations or
hesitation.
We become
innocent and faithful, with integrity and sincerity of heart, not by nature or
by our own actions and perfections, but by grace. This psalm is a psalm of
justification by faith and by grace—sola fides
and sola gratia—but our belief is
that it is a real justification, a real cleansing and purification, something
that really does change us and is not simply a legal fiction.
This psalm,
above all then, calls us to a searching examination of conscience that flows
from an awareness of just what a gift has been given us, just how much the life
of God has become the life of redeemed humanity, just how much Jesus has
deigned to share His righteousness with us. So… are we walking that way? Rather
than letting us off the hook or allowing us to be slack and passive in our
spiritual and moral life, this psalm is a clarion call to integrity and to
purity of heart, mind, and body.
Let’s pray it, then, and know what we are
praying, what gift has been given us, and what standard of life and conduct
this gift calls us to, today.
For your steadfast Love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.
ReplyDeleteThis line in particular calls to mind ones devotion and relationship with Our Blessed Mother.
Our Lady, the faithful and steadfast one is ever so gently, calling and guiding us, deeper and deeper, into the endless expanse of the heart of her Son Our Lord who is Love incarnate.
Though i may be far from the words in this psalm. I trust Our Lady is not. and in saying that, i Can, with confidence walk with integraty and uprightness in The Lord.