psalm 31: death, sts. stephen and vicenta maria. december 26

Today we read Psalm 31.  Psalm 31 is a famous psalm because this must have been the psalm meditated upon by Jesus as he hung dying on the cross.  The same is true with St. Stephan, our Saint on this second day of Christmas.  This psalm must have been also in his mind when they were throwing stones on him and when, like Jesus, he too was in the brink of death.  Both Jesus and Stephen recited the fifth verse of this psalm saying, "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."

Psalm 31 is a prayer of desperation, Rescue me from the clutches of my enemies and my persecutors.
Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your kindness. But at the same time its a prayer of confident trust, You are my rock and my fortress; you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.  I will rejoice and be glad because of your mercy..  "Into your hands I commend my spirt" is an act of surrender, never uttered in despair but always in confident trust. 

It makes one recall that story of a plane going into trouble.  The pilot made an announcement saying, "today we are placing ourselves in the hands of God."  A passenger asked another, "is it that bad?"  And the other passenger replied, "no, it is that good."

The psalm reminds us that life can be harsh, our world may be in its darkest and things may turn out not just badly but very badly indeed, but we can always depend on God.  He will give us the strength to endure, he will empower us to find a way out of our misery, he will be there to keep us company.  We may be down but in God we can never be out.

We pray this prayer too as religious in the last prayer of the day, the compline, just before we sleep.  Since ancient times sleep and death, night and darkness are seen as related.  In Greek mythology, Nyx (night) and Erebus (darkness) had a son Thanatus (death) and his twin brother Hypnos (sleep).  Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit, is a prayer said in the night and in darkness because sleep is the closest we can get to death.  As we sleep we pray this prayer for in sleep we look forward to death.

Today we celebrate the death of Santa Vicenta Maria.  We are afraid of death but do you know that our faith teaches us that death is needed, in fact death is a grace.  St. Ambrose said, death is not just a consequence of sin but it is also its remedy because when we die, evil cannot touch us anymore.  In life we have temptations, we have vanity, we have anger, lust, we struggle with greed, pride, envy.  But in death these evils cannot touch us anymore and our souls return to God.  That is why the death of a saint is also called in the church as the dies natalis, the birthday, our real birthday, for in death we are born into eternal life, in death the prayer in the Our Father, but deliver us from evil is finally answered, because evil cannot touch us anymore.

Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit – psalm 31.  We pray this prayer of Jesus and Stephen as we also like them surrender ourselves to God, knowing that even in death we are in the best hands because we are in God's hands.