Blessed is the one who considers the poor!
In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him;
the Lord protects him and keeps him alive;
he is called blessed in the
land;
you do not give him up to the
will of his enemies.
The Lord sustains him on his sickbed;
in his illness you restore
him to full health.
As for me, I said, “O Lord, be gracious to me;
heal me, for I have sinned against you!”
My enemies say of me in malice,
“When will he die, and his
name perish?”
And when one comes to see me, he utters empty
words,
while his heart gathers
iniquity;
when he goes out, he tells it
abroad.
All who hate me whisper together about me;
they imagine the worst for
me.
They say, “A deadly thing is poured out on
him;
he will not rise again from
where he lies.”
Even my close friend in whom I trusted,
who ate my bread, has lifted
his heel against me.
But you, O Lord, be gracious to me,
and raise me up, that I may
repay them!
By this I know that you delight in me:
my enemy will not shout in
triumph over me.
But you have upheld me because of my
integrity,
and set me in your presence
forever.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to
everlasting!
Amen and Amen
Psalm 41
Reflection –
This psalm is entitled, often, in psalters and breviaries ‘a psalm in time of
sickness.’ That may well be; as usual, there is more going on here than just
someone with a tummy ache or a bad back. Most of us do not, at least in any
visible way, have our ‘enemies’ gather around our sickbed to taunt us and lift
their heels against us.
With all
respect, I do sometimes wonder at the world the psalmists lived in – they
certainly seem to be surrounded by a whole lot of not nice people. On the
relatively rare occasions when I am sick, I get surrounded not by people
shouting in triumph over me, but by people bringing me chicken soup and the
like.
That being
said… on the other hand this is exactly what happens to us when we are weak and
vulnerable, failing and frail in life. It Is maybe not human enemies who
surround us with taunts and gibes, but serious illness is a time of spiritual
peril and temptation. Chronic pain and long protracted weakness leave a person
prey to all sorts of vicious spiritual attacks: “Just give up… what good is
your life… you are accursed… lie down and die…” And so on and so forth. At
times it may be our own diseased thought processes; at times it may genuinely
be attacks from the one true Enemy of humanity.
One of the
great effects of the Sacrament of the Sick is that it unites the suffering one
to Christ in his or her illness, and so does exactly what this psalm says,
pours out the graciousness of God to the person so that this Enemy may not
shout in triumph over them.
At the same
time, this psalm speaks to just how evil the whole euthanasia movement is. Call
it assisted suicide or whatever—it is euthanasia. Sickness is a time of
temptation and spiritual struggle.
The dying process is fraught with terrible
battles against despair, against all sorts of tragic lamentations and desperate
combat against not just physical death but the deeper spiritual death—the death
of faith, the death of hope, the death of love.
To have the
doctor who is supposed to be caring for you standing over you with a needle
saying constantly in the midst of these battles “We can end this all now, you
know!” is pure evil, even if the intentions are in fact kindly. To have the
government—which let us not forget means you and I—standing at the bedside of
the person saying “Hey, why don’t you just kill yourself?” is simply wicked.
So perhaps
this psalm is not so remote and odd after all. We are surrounded by spiritual
enemies in our sicknesses, and now more and more are surrounded by human
enemies in (alas!) the members of the very profession who are supposed to be
helping us and the society who is supposed to cherish us support us.
So in the
light of that, let us pray for all the sick and turn to God in our own
ailments, that he deliver us all from evil and raise us up in the sight of our
foes. Amen.
Thank you for this post. This information provided me with a greater understanding into how much people with depression have to contend with literal 'assaults' in their thought life ... and that an equal 'assault' of prayer is absolutely necessary to be a part of the 'daily care' they receive. While medication may help some people for a while, there REALLY IS a spiritual component to illness/depression!
ReplyDeleteThis is actually something where priests in general really do have a lot of relevant experience that would be worth listening to. Illness is a time of tremendous spiritual travail, and so many priests really do spend a fair bit of time directly involved with people in that battle.
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