Part of the spiritual greatness of the psalms, part of the reason it has appealed to so many over the millennia, is that it profoundly recognizes the challenges of life. It confronts the despair that can befall the human spirit. The psalms, like all of Sacred Scripture, reach out to the broken-hearted, offering consolation.
In the church of my youth, near the pulpit, was the saying, “Here bring your wounded heart.”
Scripture offers us the truth of the human experience in the midst of all that challenges that shows us the way to the divine, merciful presence who is both active in the world and is the very essence of love.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him” is how Psalm 34 captures the intimacy of this divine presence. And this, a day after the Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. We are invited to taste and see for ourselves.
As we taste and see, as we consume, we are invited to be consumed by faith, hope and love.
Psalm 34 It is also a precursor to the way Jesus teaches us to live in this wonderful but deeply wounded world.
The Beatitudes we read today offer a way of being, and a way of acting in the world that may not look as appealing as other paths offered to us in the world. But the more one walks down the path of faith in Christ, the more truth one finds.
Down the path of life, we find that humility needs no defense, unlike power. We realize that doing the right thing yields a reward far greater than compromising one’s integrity for a desired goal. We find that a pure heart is much more satisfying to live with than a heart full of resentment at the world or life’s circumstances, or the cynicism that can result.
Following Jesus, even when we are mocked and persecuted, leads to great joy.
The Beatitudes are a summary of the ethical teachings of Jesus about how to live with abiding joy in a world that can easily deprive us of joy. This is where the spiritual teachings of Jesus meet the brokenness of the world that is full of people who are poor materially and in spirit. It is full of people who mourn.
Do we choose to be meek, merciful, pure in heart and peacemakers?
Do we accept the persecution that will arise because we live lives based on these principles taught by Jesus himself?
As Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “the God of all consolation, who consoles us in our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction…”
Let us console those who need consolation. It seems like a good place to start for the journey of reconciliation that lies ahead.
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