Thursday
at Sext [1, 2, 3]
Psalm 73 (74)
O God, have you cast us off to the end?
Why is your anger enkindled
against the sheep of Your pasture?
Remember Your flock,
which you possessed from the beginning.
You redeemed the scepter of Your inheritance:
Mount Sion, in which You have dwelt.
At last, lift up Your hands against their pride:
what evil has the enemy wrought in the sanctuary!
And they that hate You have made their boasts,
in the midst of Your solemnity.
They have set up their banners as a sign,
and they understood not,
neither in their going out nor as they scale the top.
As with axes in the woods,
they have cut down the gates;
with the hatchet and axe
they have brought them down.
They have set Your sanctuary on fire:
they have defiled the dwelling place
of Your Name upon the earth.
Their whole clan has said in their hearts:
‘Let us abolish all the holy feasts of God from the earth.’
We see none of our signs and wonders,
there is now no prophet;
and He knows us no more.
How long, O God, shall the foe blaspheme;
shall the enemy provoke Your name forever?
Why do You turn away Your hand,
and still Your right hand at Your breast to the end?
Yet God is our king from before all ages;
who wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.
You planted the sea in Your might;
You crushed the heads of the dragons in the water.
You smashed the heads of the dragon,
and gave them as food for the Ethiopians.
You broke open the springs and torrents;
You dried up the rivers of Ethan.
Yours is the day and Yours is the night;
You who made the dawn and the sun.
You made all the borders of the earth;
to summer and spring you gave form.
Remember this:
how the enemy have blasphemed the Lord,
and how a foolish people have provoked Your name.
Do not deliver to the beasts,
the souls of those who praise You;
forget not forever the souls of Your poor.
Have regard to Your covenant:
for they that darken the earth
with their dens of iniquity, have been filled full.
May the humble not be turned away in confusion;
the poor and needy shall praise Your name.
Arise, O God, judge Your own cause;
remember how You have been reproached
by the foolish who blaspheme You all the day long.
Forget not the voices of Your enemies:
the pride of those that hate You rises incessantly.
The sun that caressed the mountains at its dawning is now set firm in the heights; its refulgence unrelenting so that even the clouds melt before its incandescent fury. How the world has covered its iniquity with these clouds, clothing it in platitudes and hiding it behind the apologetics of banality: that we are nothing but the sum of what the senses garner; that we should deify our mediocrity and exult in the insipid pride of our self-worth and fight for our right to be men who live and die for nothing and no one, with no reason for existence except to die sated at the expense of another. Rejoice then, they say, in yourself no less, and think not of tomorrow except for the pleasure that will lie therein; and should tomorrow not come, be glad that you gratified yourself sufficiently while you lived, for time was short and much pleasure to be had.
How has your creation become thus, O Lord? That even when your sun dispels the clouds of man’s insanity, only the relics of your holy temple remain, and even those to be mocked as vestiges of pre-enlightened man, by men that have progressed from knowledge of their glorious place in the firmament of your love, fashioned in your eternal image, to carving their own image in the likeness of flesh that is eaten by worms and defecated from the bowels of the earth into the fiery pit.
Arise, O Lord, and let your light shine, and tell the world again of the wonders of your love. As for us, we have possession of your Eternal Word in our hearts. And though the world seek to wipe even the memory of God from the face of the earth, we will preserve it, and keep His holy feasts, and raise up the banner of eternal truth over the graves of the martyrs. We shall stand as this noonday sun, proud and unassailable witnesses to a power that is beyond man’s command; a hope that is beyond manself; and as a light by which men may search their hearts, the ruins of the sanctuary of God’s love destroyed by greed and hate, and there find God still dwelling.
For our God cannot die at their hands and their attacks cannot defeat His truth. Their assault on the work of God’s hand will be their own downfall for they take pride in a victory that was not even a battle. God has not yet raised His hand; He has not yet pronounced His judgment upon their false triumphs.
The might of God’s love is found in all of creation, the mightiest act of which was to create man free, for true love is never held captive. So all men born out of God’s love have the choice to give of it freely or imprison it in the dungeons of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride, where it festers into loathing and contempt for its maker.
For each, a choice must be made, and our decision is for the Lord. For we have seen in creation the work of His great love; we have heard of His wonders of of old and have beheld His Salvation wrought in the midst of the earth; we have taken the love He gave and returned it to Him, and from our giving has erupted a torrent of love that will endure all the days and the nights of our lives and for evermore in His presence.
And for those who choose captivity we shall be a sign: carrying the standard of Christ and His liberation through all the earth, that creation be renewed and evil crushed; and His wonders again be seen by those who would turn from darkness to His glorious light.
And on that day when His right hand turns from His breast and the whole world trembles under the coming of His judgment, He will remember the children of His covenant and our prayer – for the praise of His poor ones does not decompose with the flesh of the sinner – and we shall not be left wanting of God’s shelter and peace. These times of desolation are but fleeting glances in the eyes of God, and our suffering in them, though onerous to us, is glorious in the sight of God, and He will vouchsafe our souls.
Let us, then, not cease to offer up our prayer of praise for His watchful protection, that despite the sorrow of wandering through this wilderness where the godless have set up their fortress, He will always work His wonders for us and be our guide and our help in distress, and strengthen us to lift His poor ones from the burning ruins of His sanctuary to the refuge of His loving embrace.
