March 27/Wednesday of Holy Week
Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak, I looked for sympathy, but there was none;
for consolers, not one could I find.
But I am lowly and in pain; let your salvation, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving. ~ Ps 69.21, 29, 31
Despite our efforts to maintain faith that “everything will work out,” sometimes it’s hard to hang on. We receive a devastating diagnosis. A dear friend dies unexpectedly. A longed-for job fails to come through. A troubled relationship falls irredeemably apart. And we feel so alone in our misfortune. As we teeter on the edge of hopelessness, a good cry can clear our souls, as the psalmist demonstrates in today’s verses. Weak, alone, “lowly and in pain,” he neither denies the pain nor blames others. He simply voices his sorrow in the equivalent of a good cry. And as he articulates his suffering, his weakness, his loneliness, he is able to make what some Psalms scholars call the “saving turn,” the mood swing that often occurs in psalms of lament. In the midst of his pain, our ancient singer casts about and grabs onto the hope that God is with him and will ultimately wipe away his tears, bind up his wounds. The nineteenth-century British Jesuit and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, knew the bleakness that can afflict human life. His “terrible sonnets” give voice to its depths: “No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,/More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring./ Comforter, where, where is your comforting?” But comfort is at hand: as lamentation echoes down through this psalm, the LORD hears, and answers, and the psalmist’s wailing is transmuted into a song of praise. If we, too, can place our pangs and forepangs in the wide and merciful embrace of God, and put our sufferings before the One who loves us unwaveringly, we, too, will find consolation. For as we cry out from the bleakness of our lives and the anguish of our souls, we will come to know that he is with us, comforting us, even in our darkest hours.
Compassionate God, Assuage my grief, ease my pain, and comfort me in times of sadness. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032724.cfm
To hear Egidius Kwartet and College sing “Ego sum pauper” by Orlando de Lasso, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyXEK_GlVjc
