the iniquities of the past - psalm 76 - 17th week tuesday

Since last month I have started my reflection on the responsorial psalm of the mass.  It is my way of telling everyone that I am already too long in my present assignment – I have finished reflecting on the gospel, I have finished reflecting on the first and second readings of the mass.  Now I am reflecting on the responsorial psalm.  If after some time my superiors still will not transfer me, then you will know because I will be reflecting with you the alleluia verse.

Seriously now.  We neglect to reflect properly on the psalms though we pray it everyday.  The book of psalms is the prayer book par excellence – a prayer book without equal because in the psalms we pray using God's word and we pray with the heart, the emotions, the feeling of God.

We reflect on our responsorial psalm – psalm 76

When the psalmist says to God "remember not against us the iniquities of the past," he acknowledges that our sins can accumulate, that sin can build up.  Sin can become an addiction for example, one can become a sex addict or a porn addict or a substance addict or even a relationship addict; or bribery in the office can become so ingrained, it becomes a sub-culture that if you want to have your papers approved you need to pay something, grease money they call it.  Or a community can be highly critical, it sees only the mistakes, it does not acknowledge the good and so everybody becomes negative.  Or the community will just keep quiet in the midst of abuse, in the midst of violations of the values of the community.  And so we keep quiet about things – we do not confront in order to correct.  Sin accumulates and it becomes a habit, a bad habit and it calcifies and it becomes harder to extricate ourselves from.

But sin will not have the last say.  The psalmist acknowledges the compassion of God which he calls on to speedily meet us - may your compassion quickly come to us.  The word compassion is sometimes translated as mercy but this is derived from Hebrew word womb, the womb of a mother.  Thus compassion is a womb love, the love of a mother – always loyal, always embracing and forgiving.  This is the hallmark of God which makes God distinct from other concepts of God – he is compassionate – he has womb love, the love of a mother.  Thus we pray in the psalms – "Help us, O God our savior, because of the glory of your name." God's glory is in his saving us, God's glory is when he forgives us and when he shows us his compassion, and when he restores us.  The psalmist says, "Let the prisoners’ sighing come before you; with your great power free those doomed to death."

For us it is easy to say let us kill the criminals.  That is not the way God deals with us.  He forgives us in order to restore us – to restore.  That is why our responsorial psalm ends with the theme of a good shepherd – God is a good shepherd and the sheep he pastures will give thanks to him forever.