April 8/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.
I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving. ~ Ps 69.21, 31
Haven’t we all been there — isolated, broken-hearted, and alone? “I looked for sympathy, and there was none; for consolers, not one could I find.” We experience losses: the death of a dear friend, the final breakdown of a marriage, a job loss, rejection by our peers. And there seems to be no one around with a comforting shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic ear to listen. We are on our own. And now, as the waves of the pandemic crest in the United States, are we not all acutely there — anxious, downcast, and alone? The nineteenth-century British Jesuit and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, knew and told of the loneliness and despair that at times afflict human lives. His “terrible sonnets” give voice to the depths of human grief and anguish: “No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,/ More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring./ Comforter, where, where is your comforting?” Today’s verses offer the comfort that both the Victorian poet and the Hebrew psalmist seek. For as the ancient singer’s lament echoes down through the verses of the psalm, the LORD hears, and the LORD answers, and the psalmist’s wailing becomes 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, then 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 this dark hour.
Compassionate God, Assuage my grief, ease my pain, and comfort me in my times of sadness. Amen.
To hear the King’s College (Cambridge) Choir sing “Abide With Me,” click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deJDkU6qiGE
For today’s readings, click here: http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings/040820.cfm
