April 7/Fifth Monday of Lent
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ~ Ps 23.5
Setting a lovely table is a way of honoring one’s guests. Whether it is a small Ikea table laid for two with simple utensils, humble dinnerware, and a posy of wildflowers, or an imposing mahogany dining table adorned with starched linens, delicate bone china, crystal goblets, and elegant silver, its thoughtful arrangement signals care for those we have invited into our home. In today’s psalm, God prepares a table for us — a table with a twist. He readies our place not in the presence of our friends, but of our enemies. Those “enemies” might include external threats such as disease or social media trolls, financial hardship or an alienated friend. The more insidious foes, however, are those invisible forces within us that draw us away from God and his love. For some it might be a quickness to anger, or a tendency to procrastination. For others, it will be indifference to God, envy of a friend’s good fortune, or spiritual pride. Whatever these enemies are, we may feel that they disqualify us from being in the presence of God; as the Roman centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” But God, who sees our strengths and faults with keen-eyed clarity and yet loves us beyond reason, welcomes us still. In his poem “Love Bade Me Welcome,” George Herbert, 17th-century Anglican priest and poet, beautifully describes the poet shrinking from his Lord’s invitation: “Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,/Guiltie of dust and sinne.” Love — the Lord — invites us to the table not because we are good, but because he is God, and because his merciful love is more abundant than even our dust and sin. Broken and imperfect as we are, in God’s house, we will be welcomed.
Loving and generous Lord, I offer you thanks for your ever-outstretched hand and your boundless mercy. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040725.cfm
To hear the St Paul’s Cathedral Choir sing “The Lord is My Shepherd,” by Charles Hylton Stewart, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iie7vwOU7J0
To read George Herbert’s poem “Love (III),” click here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44367/love-iii
