Thursday
at None [1]
Psalm 74 (75)
We will give You thanks, O God:
we will praise and call upon Your Name.
We will declare Your wondrous works:
“With the coming of the time I appoint,
I will judge with justice.
The earth and all who dwell in it melt away,
but I have set its pillars firm.
I have said to the wicked: ‘Do no evil,’
and to sinners, ‘Lift not up your horn.’”
Lift not up your horn on high,
speak no iniquity against God.
For neither the east, nor the west,
nor the desert hills, but God is the judge:
One He humbles, the other he exalts,
for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup
brimming with strong wine mixed with spice.
And He pours it out here and there,
but its dregs have not been emptied;
of these all the sinners of the earth shall drink.
But as for me, I will profess forever,
I will sing to the God of Jacob.
And I will break of the all horns of sinners,
and the horns of the just shall be exalted.
As our strength wanes, as we approach the evening of our days, we draw renewed vigor through the communion of our prayer with the power that is love eternal; with God who has always been by our side. While we work unceasingly for his glory, there are things we must surrender in faith and childlike trust to the providence of the one who has set us firm in the midst of the languishing world. He who created time but dwells eternally without it, has seen the tumult of creation throughout all time in the blink of His eye, and has preordained its waxing and waning, its end and its salvation with unchanging love.
So will the time of our vindication arrive when He ordains, and we shall be ready, for He has made us so. For he has revealed to us His Holy Name and worked His wonders in our midst; spoken to us through His holy prophets and given us His law. He has formed us in His love and exalted us through the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son. He calls us now, as He has called our Fathers through the ages, to turn from sin and the ways of evil and prostrate ourselves before the throne of mercy.
And it is not for contempt that He instructs us to abase ourselves so; not for the punishment that is due for our sins. He has spoken and we have heeded His words. And we have lifted the cup of His mercy; sipped from the very wounds of Christ, the healing liquor of His love: the strong wine of His justice commixed with the fragrance of His pity. And in its headiness, we behold with awe the countenance of God; its glory like the unsetting sun that gives strength to life without end.
So God is our strength as evening draws near, and as weariness clouds the hope that has been ours since the womb before the dawn. In Him we may trust, not to put us to shame, when the bleak night of our days gives way to His glorious light. For those who have sown iniquity will drink the bitter dregs of His cup and taste the sharp sword of His judgment. And we shall forget the pains of this world as they are swallowed up below and we, lifted up by His grace, join our voice with the solitary sound of praise that professes the glory of the one who exalts us upon high in His love.
at None [2, 3]
Psalm 75 (76)
In Judah God is renowned,
His name is great in Israel.
In peace is His dwelling found,
and His abode is Sion.
There, He has shattered the powers
of the bow, shield, sword, and the battle.
Radiant have You come in wonder
from the everlasting hills,
troubling all the foolish of heart.
They have slept their sleep,
and nothing have the rich men
found in their hands.
At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob,
have they all slumbered,
who have mounted on horseback.
Who may resist You, who are terrible
in the day of your wrath?
You have made your judgment heard from heaven:
the earth trembled and fell silent
when God arose in judgment
to save all the meek of the earth.
For in their reflection, man praises You,
and with the rest of their thoughts
they shall keep Your holy feasts.
Make your vows to the Lord your God,
and fulfil them;
let all around Him bring gifts to the Lord,
to Him that is terrible
when He will snatch away the spirit of princes,
and act in terror upon the kings of the earth.
Where may we seek the presence of the Lord our God within the commotion of the day but in the unceasing prayer of our work, which draws His abode in us to our abode in Him, here, in the sanctuary of His peace. In this communion of prayer, all is His peace. He disarms our hearts of the implements of war, shatters the spirit of combat, and converts all to love.
In His presence and with it ever within us, we dampen the fierce spirit of our self-centred sensibilities, and dull the distractions that excite, anger, injure, alienate and paralyse. In this sacred silence, broken only by the notes of our praise, our hearing adjusts to the whispers of His voice that speak to us from the everlasting hills. His words come upon us like the dewfall, gently calling us to enter the interior of His love within us, and enjoin upon our hearts true love, obedience, and watchfulness against the slumber of sin.
Whatsoever pride we have in the riches of knowledge, power, wealth and acclaim, let it be as nothing to us before our God who offers us everything. For why would we mount a steed to show our strength, when He sends His angels to lift us upon their wings? Let us ask ourselves in whom we take refuge; in whom is our dignity? And for when we have answered another, let our troubled hearts awaken us from our delusional sleep, which sends us dreams of self-acclaim, before the sleep of death brings of them nothing.
There will be a day when the interior presence of the Lord will be our only dwelling place; the world made a sanctuary to His Name. All men shall stand before His presence in that day, when His whispers of gentle counsel turn thundering judgment. All the disquiet of the world will cease as all of creation stands in silent awe before its Creator.
How shall we stand in that day, we who have made our vows prostrate before His majesty? In professing our vow, the pall of mortal death covered us so that in the day of His coming we should have already died to ourselves and the world and readied our souls to rise with Him. So we shall stand, dead to all but Him, the meek whom He has come to save, for we have nothing – no status, no wealth, no power, no life even, but for Him.
May we keep our every thought upon this day of His coming, and live our every day in celebration of His feast of love, which takes the meagre gifts of the earth and transforms them into salvation; and which takes the meagre gift of our bodies and transforms them into His own glorious likeness, for we are not princes and kings of the earth but servants made sons of God in heaven.