the psalms, prayer par excellence - psalm 48 - 15th week tuesday

Today let us reflect on our responsorial psalm – the psalm, psalm 48 that is and its response.  Many times in homilies this is the most neglected part of God's word.  We seldom reflect on it and see its meaning in our lives.  And yet the church considers the book of psalms a book of prayer par excellence – a prayer book that has not equal – in other words your prayer book, your volumes of novenas cannot equal this prayer book which we call the psalms.  Why?  Because when you pray the psalms you speak to God with the words of God; when you pray the psalms you express the wishes of your hearts with the wishes and expression which also comes from the heart of God. 

When we were small we learned to express our feelings, our sentiments, our experiences with the expression and words that come from our parents.  Amo na nga indi kita mamuyayaw kon nagapangakig kita sa aton kabataan kay kon sila naman mangakig they will use our own expression, our words to articulate their own experience of anger.  This is also what the psalms offers us.  We express our experience, it is our experience, but we communicate that experience using the words of God.  And so we speak to God using his words, we address him with the words he has given to us.  And when we express our desires and yearnings using the psalms we make God's yearnings, his desires, even the emotions that accompany those desires our very own.  We express to God the yearnings of his own heart.

In today's psalm, the first part of psalm 48 the city of God standing on the mountain is praised wholly or exceedingly.  It is God's city because it was God who built it.  It is God's city because God dwells in it – it is the emmanuel city – the city which reminds all that God is with us, God lives among us.  It is also God's city because it stands on the holy mountain.  Mountains are places of encounter with God – Moses communed with God on a mountain and so did Elijah and so did Abraham.  Later in Christian theology the mountain will symbolize Christ – Christ is the mountain because only in Christ can we encounter God, only through Jesus can we see and know and understand God.  Only in Christ the rock can we be strong.  And as this psalm attests, only in Christ in this mountain can we find the joy of all the earth.

Surrounding this city are the enemies of God and his people.  The powerful of the earth are assaulting the city and its people and we are filled with fear.  But their arrogance, their pride is transformed into feebleness and weakness.  The image of ships, invincible ships in their thousands attacking the city cause dread but the east wind blew them all, shattering them all to pieces.

As I have said at the beginning, this psalm expresses our own experience in the words of God.  This psalm as much as it is God's word, expresses the mind and the assurance of God, and as we pray this psalm during the mass, the same assurance becomes also our own conviction.

Looking at my life now can I say, "great is the Lord and wholly to be praised." Do I recognize the greatness of God in my life?  Can you sense God's goodness in you and in your family every day?  Is my awareness of God's goodness such that my praise, the goodness I give back to him always falls short?  Nga ang kaayo sang Dios indi matupungan sang akon kaayo sa iya.

Faced with seemingly insurmountable odds can we say with this psalm, "God is with her castles, God is renowned as its stronghold." I am protected for I live in the emmanuel city, I live in the constant presence of God. 

Torn between so many choices, pulled on all sides by so many allurements, so many enticements, can I make God's assurances my own by saying, "His holy mountain, fairest of heights, is the joy of all the earth."  God is my joy. He alone is the happiness I seek.  Is Jesus your joy?

Disturbed by so many worries, by so many anxieties, so many fears, can I be serene in the thought that I am under the mantle of his protection as I repeat in my heart God's assurance that he God upholds his city forever, he will uphold his city, he will not let me down, he will raise me up.

I hold on to the certainty of psalm 48 that for those who stand in the shadow of God's protection, the hands of evil will not have the last say, that hostile powers even when they seem great and invincible will not have the last say?  With this psalm which I pray I renew my conviction that good will always triumph and God will be victorious in me.

Great is the LORD and wholly to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain, fairest of heights,
is the joy of all the earth.
Mount Zion, “the recesses of the North,”
is the city of the great King.
God is with her castles;
renowned is he as a stronghold.
For lo! the kings assemble,
they come on together;
They also see, and at once are stunned,
terrified, routed.
Quaking seizes them there;
anguish, like a woman’s in labor,
As though a wind from the east
were shattering ships of Tarshish.
For God upholds his city for ever.