Reflections
Psalm 18: 2-3, 3-4, 47, 51 (Read)
“The Lord Lives!”
The Psalm is saying that the Lord
is present to us, here and now,
just as He was when He delivered
David from his persecutors.
The really key revelation for us is
that the Lord lives. He lives among
us; He is present in the Word; Jesus
is in fact the Living Word; He is
present on the inside of us through
the Holy Spirit. He is alive in the
Eucharist; He humbled himself to
share in our humanity, so that we
might have a share in His divinity!
So Jesus is alive and well, standing
by us as our “rock of refuge, our
shield, our saving horn.” We join
with David in praising God and loving
Him with all our heart and all our mind,
as Jesus reminds us to do in this Sunday's
Gospel. (Mark 12: 28-34)
How do we apply the Psalm's verses to
our lives? We turn to our Lord to equip
us for the battles that we fight against the
evil one. Jesus becomes our fortress!
In this Psalm we hear David, crying out
to the Lord, as one cries out to his savior.
“My God, my rock of refuge, my shield,
my saving horn, my stronghold.” David
has just emerged after being saved
by God from his enemies and the clutches
of King Saul. David has been rescued by
that same God of compassion and mercy
that spoke to Moses in Sunday's first reading.
(Deuteronomy 6: 2-6)
David says, “You have shown kindness to
your anointed.” God promises to hear us
when we cry out to Him as our psalmist
does.
David praises his savior in language that
is familiar to us as his spiritual descendents:
“The Lord lives! Blessed be my rock!
Exalted be God my savior!”
For David has been delivered from the
forces of evil that surrounded him.
And that same deliverance is available to
us, so long as we surrender ourselves
to God and love God with all of our heart
and soul and strength.
Amen
Discussion Questions for Reflection
1. Our psalmist exclaims, 'The Lord lives!' Speak of how
the Lord is present to you and why you believe He is your rock,
your fortress, here and now.
2. The Psalm makes it clear that David loves the Lord and
that the Lord is the source of his strength. Describe your love
for the Lord and how you have been led to serve Him and
praise Him.
My Lord is an active force in my life, not just some all-powerful deity on high. The amazing thing is that he loves to be a part of my entanglements so that he can show me the way out; he deigned to become man to experience and have compassion on our limitations, but he also knows every solution.
ReplyDeleteI often refer to Scripture as a "manual" on how to live life on this earth. But as the blog above expresses, it is more than a manual because, "He is present in the Word." The Word is living and is one way Jesus exists with us. John 1:14 says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" If this isn't an invitation to spend some time reading the Bible, communing with him, I don't know what is.
As Catholics, of course, Jesus is also living and wholly present in the Eucharist. The more we receive the Eucharist with the right disposition of heart, the more the graces flow straight down from heaven -- we share in the heavenly banquet. I will repeat that -- as mere mortals, we SHARE in the HEAVENLY banquet. We taste and see the divine, although we are still very much a part of the material world.
Not all of our journeys are pleasant and joyful -- Jesus never promised they would be. He promises to be right next to us though. Through our own studies, coupled with the wisdom of the saints, spiritual fathers of the church, and even modern theologians, we can learn different aspects of how the Lord lives and works.. For example, I have gleaned profound truths from Fulton Sheen. He writes that, "Learning comes from books; penetration of a mystery from suffering." We are allowed to suffer sometimes to grow closer to God and to touch a mystery of the faith. Through our seasons of anguish might we get a glimpse of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane? Might we feel closer to him?
Whether the experience is one of misery or joy, our Lord is dynamic and very much alive. He is also steady and unchanging -- truly, "The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer..."