March 11/First Tuesday of Lent
Near is the LORD to the brokenhearted, and the crushed in spirit he saves. ~ Ps 34.19
The days march along in their regular rhythm, one after another. Then — an unexpected death, a sudden job loss, a betrayal, and we are brought to our knees, shocked and sorrowing. The Hebrew conveys it even more vividly: our hearts are not only broken, they are “shattered,” our spirits not only crushed, but “pulverized, like dust.” In our grief or anger, we may not feel that God is near, at all. In fact, we may experience God as completely absent. Now I am no theologian, and for me suffering remains a mystery, and a challenge. But I do know this, and today’s psalm richly affirms it: God is with us in the midst of our pain, stretching out his hand in love and compassion to wipe away our tears and knit up our unraveling souls. The young Jesuit priest Alfred Delp, writing from the bleak isolation of the Nazis’ Tegel prison, attested even as he paced his tiny cell that God is “the God of personal nearness.” It is Christ who wraps us in his consolation as we cry out in despair, Christ who envelops us in the peace that passes understanding when we can sob no more, Christ whose rod and staff comfort us, whose hand guides us, as we stumble along the dark way. As sixteenth-century Carmelite nun and reformer Teresa of Avila observed, “He to Whom you are praying is very near to you and will not fail to hear you.” Our hearts can be shattered and our spirits crushed by many forces — personal tragedy and community rancor, financial struggles and bodily sickness. Yet we can have faith that even – and especially – in the face of sorrow deep and vast, God is right there with us.
Compassionate God, Let me feel your nearness, even in times of confusion and pain. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031125.cfm
To hear Donny Hathaway and the late, great Roberta Flack sing “Come, Ye Disconsolate” (1972), click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h8hTomC_8M
